Chapter Thirteen #2
He grabbed a stack of sticky notes and slapped three down on the table between us.
Spade pressed the marker to the first note.
“Option one.” His handwriting slanted across the yellow paper.
“We use Jason’s drive plus some of Roth’s intel and drop an anonymous package on the feds’ doorstep.
Not everything. Enough to make them look at Diaz’s city operations hard.
He’ll divert attention and money to deal with federal heat. Gives us room locally.”
The marker squeaked across the second note while I watched.
“Option two. We hit his money laundries. Not the church -- I consider myself many things but never cruel to innocents. The laundromats. The fake construction. The front companies he believes remain invisible. We mess with his numbers. Quietly. Checks bounce. Permits vanish. Inspections appear at the worst moments. He seems sloppy.”
His pen moved to the third note, pressing harder now.
“Option three. We attack his pride. Victor. We create a wedge between them. Diaz questions his favorite errand boy. We leak information suggesting Victor skims from the top. We prove he lost more cash than reported in a deal.” Spade tapped the note with his finger.
“Men are rather simple creatures. You shake their confidence, you destroy everything.”
He slid the notes toward me. “You’re our tiebreaker. I know what I want to do first. I know what Atilla’s leaning toward. But this started with your brother. Your life. You get a say.”
The weight of it hit me hard. I shook my head. “I’m not a strategist. Strategy belongs to you. I read my brother’s scribbles.”
Spade leaned forward. “You survived him. You understood your brother’s shorthand, recognized what type of men Diaz surrounds himself with. You understand their fears. Your knowledge matters.”
My gaze drifted across the notes. I wanted him to bleed. I also wanted to hit Diaz somewhere he’d feel immediately without spraying innocent people with shrapnel.
I tapped the “Feds” sticky. “What would we send?” I asked. “Evidence? Names?”
“Enough to make them move without giving away our whole hand,” Spade said. “We don’t dump everything Jason had. We give them enough to kick in a few doors for us. Preferably in the city, where they’ll hit Diaz’s ego more than our backyard.”
“Can they protect Elena and Sofia?” I asked.
He hesitated. “I can’t promise safety. The feds would receive anonymous coordinates with a warning about Elena and Sofia’s location.
My note might read, ‘Cartel wife and daughter live here -- clear premises before raid.’ Beyond sending this information…
” He shrugged, palms turning upward. “The rest falls on federal shoulders.”
That didn’t sit perfectly. It sat better than “do nothing.”
“Option two?” I asked, pointing.
Spade scrutinized the computer screen. “I can do this one without leaving my chair. Pull plugs. Flag suspicious transfers. Trigger audits. Diaz wakes up tomorrow and finds three shell companies frozen because some bank compliance officer suddenly decided to become competent. He’ll know someone’s fucking with him, but not who. ”
I leaned forward. “And option three?”
“The riskiest move.” Spade ran a hand through his hair. “We’d need contact. A way to feed Diaz a story about Victor without leaving breadcrumbs back to us. Someone close enough to whisper in the right ears.” He sighed. “Roth would’ve been perfect. Now he’s gone.”
“Can we split the difference?” The question came out slowly.
“How?” Spade leaned back in his chair.
“Start with what hurts him most without creating a body count.” I tapped the second note.
“Money. You starve a beast before you stab it. While you handle finances, we prep the package for the feds. Give ourselves a week, maybe two, to see how he reacts to the squeeze. If he pushes harder on our roads instead of dealing with his accountant problems, we pull the federal trigger early and let them disrupt his city operations while we focus here.”
Spade’s mouth curved upward. “You sure you never strategized before?”
“I watched enough true crime shows.” I shrugged. “They always emphasize following the money.”
He scribbled another note. “Atilla will approve. He hates surrendering control to anyone with a badge. This approach lets us hit Diaz by our rules first. The feds become a tool, not a lifeline.”
“And Victor?” I asked. “We just… let him run around until Diaz trips over him?”
“Oh, no,” Spade said. “We keep him on the board. We just don’t start there. Once the money stuff hits, Diaz is going to look for someone to blame. If we do this right, Victor’s going to look real convenient.”
“You’re going to frame him,” I said.
Spade’s eyes narrowed. “Frame is a strong word. We’ll nudge Diaz’s existing doubts. Men such as Victor don’t climb without stepping on toes. I guarantee he’s made enemies in Diaz’s crew. I only need to find one person to whisper to at the right moment.”
“How do you plan to accomplish this?” I asked.
A smirk spread across his face. “The Internet creates wild spaces. Cartel boys brag anonymously. You’d be shocked by what people reveal when they believe nobody watches.”
“I’m already shocked,” I said.
He pushed back from the desk and rose to his feet. “Come here.”
I followed him to the wall covered with route maps.
Spade pressed a marker into my palm. “Circle something meaningful to you. A warehouse, road, shell company -- whatever you want gone when this ends. Not for strategic perfection. For personal significance.”
My hand trembled as I moved closer to the map. Names swam before my eyes while lines seemed to twist together.
An address near the city caught my attention. Jason had mentioned the location in his notes once, drawing a small skull beside it. “Here,” I said, drawing a circle around the address.
Spade leaned forward. “What makes this place important?”
“A bar,” I said. “Jason took me there once. Diaz owned the entire block. Men made deals in the open. Girls worked for tips and rides home. Jason ran deliveries through the alley. The name escapes me now. The sign flickered constantly. Everything reeked of stale beer and cheap cologne.”
Spade nodded, his finger tracing the location on the map. “I recognize this place. Sits in a strip of businesses Diaz controls through three different companies. The bar serves as a front. Behind those walls? Stash rooms. Meeting spots.”
I capped the marker with a decisive click. “I want to see it burn.”
“Noted.” Spade’s mouth curved into a half-smile. “We’ll make sure the sign goes permanently dark.”
He went back to his chair and sat hard. “Okay, here’s the plan.
I start poking his money today. Quiet. Little flags and glitches he won’t notice right away, but his accountants will.
I prep the fed package, but I don’t send it yet.
You and I go through Jason’s notes and pull the cleanest pieces -- things that can stand on their own without pointing at you or the club.
When we hit the button, I want it airtight. ”
“You already picked who gets it?” I asked.
“Couple options,” he said. “FBI field office is one. DEA is another. I’ve got a detective’s name too.”
Spade rubbed his eyes. “I pulled his file. Best I can tell, he remains one of the few cops still trying to do the right thing in a department where badge-wearers look the other way when money changes hands.”
“You want me to email him?” I asked.
Spade leaned back in his chair. “Eventually. From a burner. Through three VPNs. With data he can verify independently. No names. No club. Only evidence. Let him pursue Diaz for his own reasons. He’s been listening,” Spade said.
“He just didn’t have enough to make a dent.
Jason’s notes plus what we pull from Roth’s mess might tip his scales. ”
My throat felt thick. “Okay, tell me what you need me to do.”
We spent the next couple of hours digging. Spade pulled up copies of Jason’s files. I pointed out which ones had context I understood and which were just noise. We sorted them into piles: “Safe to send,” “Use later,” “Never see the light of day.”
At one point, we hit a page where Jason had scribbled, Mom’s rent paid, Jade’s birthday, and then an address under it. Tears pricked suddenly.
“You okay?” Spade asked, glancing over.
“He remembered my birthday,” I said stupidly.
“Of course he did,” Spade said. “He was a dumbass, not a monster.”
I wiped my eyes with the heel of my hand and kept going.
By the time Kane knocked on the doorframe and stuck his head in, my brain buzzed and my shoulders ached.
“Food,” he said. “Marci said if I let you two sit in here any longer without feeding you, she’s putting both of you on dish duty for a week.”
Spade looked at the clock and blinked. “Shit. Didn’t realize…”
“Yeah, yeah,” Kane said. “Come on, cyborgs. Lunch.”
Spade grabbed his tablet like a security blanket.
I pushed back from the desk and nearly swayed.
Kane slid a hand around my waist without thinking about it, steadying me. “You okay?”
“Fine,” I lied. “Just… brain-dead.”
“We’ve got enough for a starter package and a pretty damn solid map of Diaz’s local shell game. I’ll clean it up after lunch. She’s done for now.”
Kane looked at me like he wanted to scoop me up and carry me instead of letting me walk.
“I can make it to the kitchen under my own power,” I said.
“Pretty sure you can,” he agreed. “Still not letting go yet.”
I leaned into him a little as we walked down the hall.
The common room hummed with voices. The kids sat at the table near the end, faces smeared with ketchup, eating chicken nuggets and grapes.
Casey cut someone’s food into smaller pieces.
Marci moved between stove and sink. A couple of the guys argued about which team would make the playoffs this year.
Normal. Almost.
We grabbed plates and sat.
At some point between bites, Atilla stood, fork in hand.
Conversation dipped.