12. Drake #2
I choked on a laugh. “Fat Stacks? Vaguely familiar, but nothing concrete.”
Monty strolled along to the front door, and I obediently followed.
She continued, “He’s a low-level thug who did some work for the Chun family about five years ago.
A string of petty crimes got him into the money laundering business, which he was surprisingly adept at.
The Chuns used him to clean the cash flowing through their illegal fighting rings. ”
A flare of anger shot through me. “So, if the Chuns are connected to the money handler for the masks, then the Chuns lied—” I clamped my mouth shut when Monty pushed open the unlocked front door without knocking.
“No. I understand why you’d think that, but Tony is no longer connected to the Chuns. They caught him embezzling funds five years ago, and he barely got away with his life. He should be in hiding.”
She maneuvered through the uninspired décor, passing old shelves with laminate peeling off, walls lacking pictures of a family, dingy off-white walls, and age-worn furniture of the home.
The dampened noise of sniveling and begging drifted down the stairs.
Monty took them without pause. She didn’t even flinch when a brutal crunch cracked through the air.
“I’m guessing we’re here to pay Mr. Fat Stacks a visit.” Another distant punch followed by piteous groans. “What I can’t fathom is why a man on the Chuns’ bad side would be in Brookelyn. That’s too close for comfort.”
Monty paused outside a set of double French doors. The feline grin on her face sent a threatening chill down my spine. The dark glimmer in her pale eyes would make a lesser man back away.
“Oh, he’s a right rat. Took much longer to find him than I would have liked.
As you said earlier, we could be facing an imminent attack.
He’s been squatting here in this house for the past few days after it recently went on the market.
My boys,” she placed a hand on the door, and I fought the jealous revulsion that endearment provoked, “have been working on Fat Stacks all night and sending me updates.”
If I was impressed with her locating the money handler and having him under questioning all night, I wouldn’t show it. She should have told me everything sooner, not kept me in the dark out of spite.
“Could have told me all this in the car,” I bit out, crossing my arms over my chest. Her eyes briefly dropped to my arms and skirted over my chest. If I puffed myself up a bit larger, no one had to know.
She waved her hand, swiping my suggestion from the air. I rolled my eyes, but she barreled on.
“So why is he squatting in Brookelyn, you may ask? Well, it turns out someone else found him and offered him a job.” She shoved open a door to reveal the scene within.
The glass panes rattled when the door slammed into a wall.
Early morning light cascaded through tall windows, illuminating the dark wooden library walls loaded with books, lounge chairs around the space, and the billiard table at the center of the room—and the man, neither Fat nor Stacked, sprawled out on the once green, now very red, surface.
“Please, please.” The broken thing I assumed to be Tony whined through a mouthful of blood.
His head was hanging over the edge of the table, and a river of red from his nose and mouth smeared over his chin and dripped down his forehead.
A few fingers appeared to be missing. “I can’t do this anymore. Please.”
Monty fluttered her fingers at the four bulky subordinates holding down and tormenting the man to step back.
She strolled around the billiard table, heels evading each speck of sticky red on the carpet.
With her hands clasped together and a bored indifference in her gaze, she struck an imposing figure amongst the savage scene.
Helen was calm and collected, poised like a ruthless queen over her cruel kingdom.
She was a stark vision of wicked beauty and in that moment, she bewitched me.
“Would you like to tell me what you told my men here?” Monty’s voice flowed from her, musical and dulcet.
“Make them stop. Please,” Tony begged.
Monty crooned as if soothing a poor creature she found battered in the street. She snapped her fingers and the man with bloody knuckles lifted a placating hand. Instead of answering the beaten dreadful excuse of a man made a string of pathic, strangled sounds.
“Hm.” She wrinkled her nose with distaste.
“Alright, so what do we know?” I urged for more. Blood and piss rankled my nose.
“Tony here,” she swept her hand in his direction, meeting my eyes, “slipped up. Quite terribly, you’ll find.
” Her heels softly thumped on the carpet as she walked around the billiard table.
“You see, he’s still wanted by the Chuns.
Dead on sight type of relationship. However, Fat Stacks always had a bit of a greed problem. ”
“Embezzling and all that rot,” I said.
“Right. So, my men here asked him some delightful questions after finding him trying to place bets at one of our fronts. His description matched what we got from the mask masker. Easy enough to string the pieces together and follow him back here.”
“And what does he know about who paid for the masks?” The man on the table was inconsequential unless he had substantial intel.
“Not much, unfortunately.” She clicked her tongue. “Our would-be gangster here was only in it for a profit, naturally. Someone approached him anonymously with the offer to leave money at a designated location and pick up cases of the masks.”
“And—”
“Yes, we know the location. I have someone on their way to stake out the drop point now. However, with the mask maker out of commission—” she meant dead. He was very dead. “—I doubt whoever ordered them will be returning.”
“What if they need more masks?”
“Whoever they are ordered hundreds already.” Tension in her shoulders proved her concern. Hundreds of special-made masks meant hundreds of potential enemies. Exactly why two rival families were currently combining resources.
“That’s concerning,” I grumbled.
Now she smirked, and the dangerous light in her eyes made my heart palpitate. “Don’t tell me The Dragon of New York can’t handle a hundred men on his own?”