10. Dax
DAX
Aweek passed, and we all fell into a routine of sorts, managing things for both the crew and the Empire while getting ourselves prepared for what was coming next.
During that time, I coordinated with Harper, the triplets, and Levin to get his granddaughter set up in a small private school in New York.
Prim needed to be hidden away for a bit until things died down for their escape from Russia.
Levin sent the tank he’d promised me with them, so it was now hidden away in a cargo airport in New York.
Soon he would be sending the guns I’d also gotten as part of the deal.
While we wouldn’t need them to deal with the De Leóns being in the city, going after Marco would be a whole different story.
Eagle was now up and moving about the compound.
He still had to take it easy and couldn’t lift anything too heavy.
Thankfully, he was more focused on healing faster, and he was fine with the limitations.
Weston was kicked out of the kitchen since that was one thing he could absolutely do without a problem.
Dani didn’t need to stay with us in the house, so she used one of the dorm rooms they had for new recruits to the crew. Eventually, we would need to figure out where having her located would be best, but for now, this plan worked.
Wes got his command center set up in a spare room just outside the security room they had.
He’s been working on helping them upgrade that as well since they already had to replace a bunch of things from the attack.
The FBI was long gone and didn’t really reach out to contact us about anything, which allowed that whole event to come to a close.
The Mad Dogs were done for, and there was no fear of them coming back.
Did that mean there wasn’t still a threat to the compound?
No, but for now, we were doing all we could to beef things up.
“Hey,” Void said as he sat down on the coffee table in front of me.
I glanced up at him from the report I was reading from Brian about a situation going on within the Empire. “What’s up, hot stuff,” I greeted with a wink.
We’d been working ourselves hard in training and dealing with everything else. While I slept in someone’s bed each night, we’d been too worn out to do more than cuddle or make out. I wasn’t worried our relationship wasn’t built on sex, no matter how much we all enjoyed it.
“Ruban got back to me about our idea. He took it to a few others in the game, and they had a meeting. He was all fired up about it, but if this is going to be as big of a deal as we need it to be, all four of them need to be in on it,” Void explained.
The four men he was talking about ruled the underground fighting rings. Each had a different area they were in charge of but all worked together to make the money flow and keep the secrets hidden.
“So, what’s the answer?” I asked, sliding the computer off my lap so he knew he had my full attention.
“Good and bad… full of strings and promises we might not want to agree to,” Void admitted, running both hands over his face.
“You’re gonna need to give me more than that, big guy,” I murmured, reaching out to rest my hand on his leg.
“One of them is they want us to each fight a person of their choosing, which we expected.” I nodded as he paused to look at me. “Then, if we both win those fights, they want us to fight each other.”
Now I could see why he was upset. Void might be as ruthless and bloodthirsty as I was, but when it came to me, I was his Achilles heel. There was no way he would be able to fight me the way they would want him to.
“Is there another workaround?” I asked. “There has to be something they would find way more interesting than the two of us going head to head.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to wrack my brain for,” Void muttered.
I didn’t like seeing Void like this. He was the cold, detached enforcer of the Saints. “Call him back.”
“What?”
“Call the dickwad back. I want to speak to him,” I said slower this time.
Void pulled out his phone, and soon, I could hear it ringing. I reached over and hit the speaker so I could hear everything being said.
“Void? That was fast. Do you have an answer for me already?” the man who I assumed to be Ruban answered.
“Not quite,” I answered, letting the man know it wasn’t who he thought it would be. “Ruban, right?”
“Ah yeah…” he answered hesitantly. “Who is this?”
“That depends. My friends call me Dax. Everyone else refers to me as Two Tricks,” I quipped, trying to make sure this idiot knew exactly who he was dealing with.
There was silence for a moment, then the sound of a door being shut, and the background noise faded. “How do I know I’m talking to the real deal?”
“I’m sorry. Do you think someone else could claim to be me and still be breathing?” I shot back. “Don’t waste my fucking time, Ruby. I want to make a business deal with you and that won’t happen if you’re being a dick.”
“Holy fucking shit,” Ruban blurted. “Void isn’t one to lie or make promises he can’t keep, but I have to admit, when he said he was shacking up with Two Tricks, I was skeptical.”
My gaze flicked up to Void. “Shacking up? Really? Is that what you told him?”
“No,” he bit out. “I said no such thing. Never would I degrade what we have, little demon, to such terms.”
Ah, there he is. Seems like the big guy just lost his footing there a bit.
“Hey now, I didn’t mean any offense. I’m a simple guy with simple logic,” Ruban explained hurriedly.
“You got a woman, Ruby?” I inquired.
“N-no, why does that matter?” he stuttered.
I hit the mute button and glared at Void. “Who the fuck is this idiot? He can’t be one of the four. There is no way he came up with the terms for this whole thing.”
“He’s not. Ruban is the go-between. You don’t talk to the four. They only speak through their people. It's how they make sure who they are isn’t discovered,” Void informed me.
Groaning, I dropped my head to his knees. My men were amazing, and they got shit done their own way, building up the Phantom Saints into what they were now, but damn, did they have a lot to learn about the criminal underbelly.
“Ah, hello?” Ruban called.
Lifting my head, I smacked the mute button and took the phone from Void’s hand. “Listen up, Ruby Slippers, because this is vitally important.”
“Yeah, okay, I’m listening,” he answered.
“Good, now, put this phone into the hands of one of the four, or I’m going to hunt you down and skin you for the information with a dull knife,” I added for encouragement.
The sound of Ruban sputtering filled the air as he tried to come to terms with what I’d just told him. “Wha… how… you don’t understand. You might be fucking scary, but you’re not just behind the next door, ready to fuck up my shit if I even think about doing that.”
“No, I might not be right behind the next door, but you’ll never know when I’m going to strike,” I warned, letting my voice purr with danger. “Ruban, would you like to live to see your next birthday? You know the one that is in two weeks.”
“How do you know that?” He gasped.
“I also know where you live, eat, sleep, take a shit, and stick your dick,” I informed him. “So I would think real hard about my request before telling me no.”
“Can you give me time to think this over?” Ruban asked.
Okay, well, that told me these four weren’t someone to be trifled with. The threat I just laid down for Ruban was one not many wouldn’t buckle under.
“You have a half hour. If I don’t hear back from you, then I’ll assume you’ve chosen to keep your secrets, and I’ll need to carve them out of you,” I said, then hung up the phone before he could utter any reasons.
I looked up and found Eagle, Wes, and Cam standing behind the couch, watching me with a mix of expressions. Some were impressed, while others seemed to be incredibly disapproving.
Giving them a small wave, I smiled. “Hey, guys.”
“How the fuck did you know all that?” Eagle blurted. “I didn’t think we had anything on those guys.”
“Ah, well, it seems that the one thing Wes found other than Ruban’s full name was his birthday because it was listed on his Snapchat.
Then when I added him as my friend, I was able to see his location on a whole bunch of places that he goes to all the time.
No clue if they are any of the locations that I referred to, but it seemed to freak him out enough,” I shared.
Wes just shook his head, smirking. “Damn kids and their apps.”
“Little demon, doing what you just did could ruin the whole thing,” Void scolded. “If Ruban decides he isn’t going to make the deal and let us talk to one of the four, they’ll just pass on the whole thing all together.”
“Yeah, I know, but it's a risk we have to take. I’m a big player in this world, and if they won’t take my phone call, then I’ve fallen to a point we might as well give up the fight and let Marco take over.
This will tell us who is against or for us.
While the actual battle might be between Marco and me, whoever wins will change the game entirely,” I explained.
“If Marco wins and I’m kicked out, the whole West Coast is going to change.
Power will shift, creating a vacuum, and since no one actually knows how much I control, they don’t realize how big that vacuum will be. ”
Cognac jogged down the stairs and plopped on the couch, looking confused. “That doesn’t make sense. If he takes you out, then doesn’t he get the Empire?”
“If they’ll let him take it,” I answered with a grin.
“See, the thing is, the people who aren’t in California that I oversee personally run their business like a store manager.
They report to me, but they drive the ship and send me my dues.
While I’m one person and the head of the snake, the body could still survive without me.
I don’t keep records of everything all in one spot.
It's scattered in many different locations on backup servers and such. Everything is renamed with numbers, so you can’t tell who it is or where they are. ”