Chapter 32
THIRTY-TWO
EMORY
In the basement lounge, Emory held court. All twelve captains, plus Jack and Liam, gathered around the oblong table. The pendant light above had a spotlight effect, so Emory sat exposed at the head.
He had done the needful with emotional amputation. Sever the limb to save the rest. There he was, a hero to his own ego, while Amelia cried upstairs. Hail to the Chief. Emory the monolith was as strong as ever while Emory the man came unglued.
A cloud of smoke hung over the table, shapeless and swirling in the light. Though it stung his nostrils, Emory drew a deep breath.
“Deception and deceit are venom to the organization,” he said. “I won’t tolerate gossip or lies, so you’re here to learn the facts.”
He wasn’t trying for the dramatic flair of a vague threat, but it still resonated that way.
Some men nodded. Others cut sidelong glances at one another.
Most had heard a bastardized version of what came out of Torres and jumped to conclusions, either grievously wrong or splintered with half-truths and hearsay.
“Call court and put it to bed,” Liam had advised.
Emory tipped his head to Corey. “The floor is yours.”
Stone-faced, Corey stubbed out his cigarette and sat at attention.
He was a good soldier still. The Army had declared him a combat hero and decorated him with medals to prove it but ignored the demons of war that hounded him.
He deserted before redeployment and was dishonorably discharged.
All the qualities in Corey the military discarded—grit, loyalty, courage—he funneled into the Moriartys.
“Torres confirmed that Ivan is leading the Velascos,” Corey said.
“Ivan kept a low profile after his ‘accident,’ but a year ago reached out to two Velasco captains who were already eying a takeover. Together, they orchestrated Philippe’s overthrow and murder.
Ivan keeps his inner circle tight, only a few captains he sends orders through.
The rest admire him as everything Philippe wasn’t.
Ruthless, action-oriented, a visionary.”
Emory exchanged a worried glance with Jack. Ivan’s brutality would metastasize into a sickness the Velascos couldn’t manage. What they saw as action-oriented was reckless impulsivity. Their visionary would lead them to ruin.
“He’ll only be shiny and new once,” Emory said. “They may admire him now, but he’ll bleed them dry. What’s their next move?”
“Torres says Ivan is planning something big, something he promised you, Chief.” A sympathetic half-smile twitched across Corey’s lips. “Torres didn’t know what that meant.”
I will destroy everything you love.
“It means something personal,” Emory replied and evaluated his men staring expectantly at him. “The Velascos are a whole new beast under Ivan.”
“Well, are we going to ice these fuckers or what?” Scotty, captain of Redding post, demanded from the other end of the table.
His bald head gleamed, and crimson colored his cheeks. Where other captains minded boundaries with Emory, Scotty pushed.
“Vegas was a warning shot,” Emory said, “and I’m not escalating on a whim. We strike when I know where Ivan is, and it’ll be measured. Ivan is sloppy. I’m not.”
Scotty shot a look at Marcus, whose territory shared a border with his, though Marcus was based in Sacramento. Emory spotted the exchange, brief and subtle though it was.
“Vegas was more than a warning shot,” Marcus said with mild apprehension and couldn’t hold Emory’s stare. “They came for the Havick girl, and they’ll come for her again.”
“What we’re all wondering is,” Sal, captain of the Bay Area, chimed in, “what are we doing with her? Is she coming or going? Much respect to you, Chief, but she either needs to be in or out. This on-the-fence shit will spell tragedy for everyone. You. Her. Us.”
“What are you concerned about?” Emory asked Marcus.
Still unable to look at Emory, he spoke to the wall beside him. “When you cut her loose, she’ll go back to daddy and sing like a bird.”
Emory counted the nods around the table. Six. His captains were split down the middle.
“Sing about what exactly? She knows our faces and a few of our names. You think Cal doesn’t know that already? He keeps tabs on everyone at this table.”
“She knows about the shop in Vegas, where we’re headquartered, our numbers, our structure.”
Marcus counted on his fingers each rapid-fire response and summoned the courage to look at Emory.
“Cal Havick hung his bid as a federal prosecutor on taking us down,” Emory said. “If he was gonna drop the hammer, he would’ve done it by now. Anything Amelia has learned here won’t help him.”
“You took his daughter from him,” Scotty said. “That all might be true for Cal Havick, federal prosecutor, but don’t underestimate him as a father.”
“We understand your point,” Liam said, “but his daughter would be dead many times over if it weren’t for us. That won’t be lost on him.”
“And Gio is dead because of her!” Eli, captain of Reno post, erupted. “I’m sorry, but you’re fucking na?ve if you think otherwise.”
Across the table from Eli, Corey lurched from his seat. “Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to? Show some goddamn respect. I will bury you!”
Emory lifted an arm to stave off Corey and addressed Eli.
“You want someone to blame? Blame me. I brought her here. Question my decisions and take me to task. I don’t give a fuck, but don’t get it twisted. What happened to Gio isn’t on her.”
The table fell silent as contention grew. The seeds of doubt had already been sown, but what they’d reap, Emory couldn’t quite say. He eased back in his seat with one forearm resting on the table and the other in his lap.
“We’ll hold off on a counterstrike for now and use the white line first.”
The room stirred in a simultaneous shift.
The blood thirsty wanted to strike swiftly and strategize later.
The white line was the peacemaker, a line of communication between the Velascos and Moriartys.
When fighting promised only mutual destruction, the white line rang and both parties brokered for peace.
“Diplomacy?” Scotty snickered.
Emory shook his head.
“Not diplomacy. An influence operation. I’ll make the call and get ahold of a Velasco captain hopped up on hope and belief that Ivan is the answer to what’s broken in that organization. They’ve bested us. Gio is dead. A few of our men turned rat. I’ll concede those victories.
“But here’s what else I’ll tell them. Ivan is more monster than man.
He doesn’t hide it. He doesn’t know how.
No one knows that better than I do. Soon, they’ll know it too.
I’ll remind them that war is hell, and we never wanted this.
War is death, and they’ll lose good men too.
War is watching the people you love get torn apart, and their innocents aren’t safe either.
“This isn’t diplomacy. It’s planting the seed.
When they’re battered and broken and barely holding on, when they see who Ivan truly is, when they want an off-ramp, the white line will ring, and we’ll be here to answer with our terms. If Ivan wants to hide in the shadows, then we shine the light.
But first, we need to find him. That is the only thing that matters right now. ”
At the far end of the table, Pete leaned forward to get Emory’s attention.
“One of my street soldiers, Zulu, can help with that. The kid is a genius. If anyone can track down Ivan, it’s him.”
Emory had heard Pete wax poetic about the kid before.
He was up-and-coming and marked as one to watch.
The men called him Zulu; short for Bravo Zulu, a job well done and a term of endearment because the kid kept his head down, wits about him, and came to the Moriartys a blank slate, all but his tech savvy.
Pete had spotted his talent and recruited him as the go-to for technical exploitation.
“Good. Get him on it,” Emory said. “That’s all I have. Get home safe. Ears to the ground, I want any leads you find.”
The men disbanded, some with approving nods and others with under-the-breath commentary as they cleared the table. Marcus and Scotty left with Sal and two others. Pete, Corey, and the rest stayed a few steps behind the other faction. The division resembled a gaping chasm.
“Stay,” Emory commanded when Eli stood. “You too, Johnny.”
After the room emptied, Emory stared at Eli but didn’t speak. So brave earlier, Eli succumbed to the silence and slumped in his seat.
“Look, I meant no disrespect. It’s just…” He chewed his bottom lip and sighed. “We take care of our own, right? I have a hard time wrapping my head around that girl being one of our own now.”
That girl. It came slathered in so much unfounded loathing.
“Her name is Amelia, and that’s not your concern,” Emory said, but the pressure in his chest rose, and his pulse flooded his ears.
“We have street soldiers in this organization, some in your crew, who would do us dirty before she would. You fucking know it too. Save me the bullshit about taking care of our own when you can’t seem to manage your own crew’s loyalty.
If you ever do this shit again, I’ll bury you myself long before Corey gets out the shovel. Now go.”
Eli shot from his seat, all too eager to scamper off and tell the others, no doubt. Emory rested his elbows on the table and cradled his forehead in one palm.
“Johnny, you have a status update?” he asked.
Big Johnny, captain of Portland post, nodded and switched seats next to Jack. He more than earned his nickname, though “Gentle Giant” would’ve been just as apt. He stood as tall as Emory but possessed an affable and easygoing demeanor no one would ever attach to Emory.
He took out his phone and slid it across the table. “Cal was spotted in southern Oregon last week. One of my guys got these.”
Emory swiped through a half dozen photos of Cal looking frazzled and out-of-sorts.