Chapter 43 Behind the Curtain #2
Rainer rolled his eyes. “Regardless. If you take out those brothels and disrupt the recruiting process, it will break down another source of revenue, not to mention diminish some of his ability to launder money.”
“Fine, we’ll take care of them,” Romero answered for all of us. “What else?”
“Darren also has an agreement with the manager of an underground fighting ring consisting of mostly women in Vegas. Raiding it will show that even his business partners aren’t safe and may dissuade others from starting new contracts with him.”
Derick didn’t look impressed but nodded anyway. “I’ll look into that one.”
“Good,” Rainer acknowledged. “Some of Darren’s shipments are transported off the coast to a warehouse in Tijuana.
Tipping off the Mexican cartels about that potential payday might be worth the trouble, especially now that they probably know Darren took out Miguel.
His allies might want a little payback.”
Anthony nodded. “This is good.”
“What about a server farm?” I asked, catching Rainer’s eye. “Jaden mentioned a server farm somewhere that would be detrimental to his corporation if someone were to tamper with it.”
Rainer blinked, then straightened to fold his arms across his chest. “He has dozens of those all across the country.”
Of course, he does.
“She mentioned a company called Digital Frontiers. That they might be managing the farms,” I added.
Rainer dipped his chin as he stepped around the room. “It’s run by a man named Patrick Edgar. He’s been managing that company for the past ten years.”
“Do you have access to this man?” Derick asked.
He puffed a breath of air with humor on his lips as he cocked his head. “Not anymore.”
I shook my head in agitation. Shocker.
“Fine. We’ll have Miller get to work on it,” I said, nodding to Derick in agreement.
“Yeah, except here’s the problem,” Rainer interjected. “They manage some of my shit too. Shit Darren doesn’t know about.”
I could feel my knuckles nearly bursting through my skin from how hard I was clenching my fist. This man seriously only cared about himself.
“Relax, Rainer. This is just investigative work,” Anthony added. “No one will know we were even there.”
“They knew you were there when you attacked the auction’s mainframe,” Rainer shot back.
“By then it was too late,” Romero countered. “And we got exactly what we needed.”
“You got lucky is what you got,” Rainer snapped.
I pinched the bridge of my nose as the tension grew between my eyes.
“Regardless, we’ll get in, get what we need, and let you know what we find,” I retorted.
Rainer sighed dramatically. “Fine. But even if you’re able to disrupt his legal businesses, he still has plenty of fail-safes to fall back on. We’ll need to target those as well.”
My eyes shot over to Romero, who met my gaze with the same concern I was already feeling. How much more information was this guy really withholding?
“What other fail-safes?” I asked.
“Darren has multiple unguarded safehouses hidden all over the country. Each safehouse contains an underground vault with at least ten million dollars in cash. It might be humorous to have him continue funding his own demise.”
I cocked a brow at the new information. “That sounds like a huge operation. We’d have to attack several at once to avoid detection before he ups the security for the others.”
Rainer nodded. “Agreed. Which is why the cash will be an incentive to hire more mercenaries to assist you. Your ability to recruit has been impressive, but your little boy band isn’t enough. You need to build an army. Obtaining this cash will do it.”
I exhaled a short breath as I mulled over his suggestions. The thought alone was exhausting, but if it brought me closer to Jaden, then I’d fucking do it a hundred times over.
I just hoped my team’s need to take Davis down was as strong as my need to get Jaden the fuck away from him. But after everything we’d done already, I couldn’t doubt them.
“Fine. Let’s plan this out,” I said.
For the next several hours, we formulated our strategies based on Rainer’s intel. I didn’t want to trust the fucker, but what choice did I have? We still had the one thing incentivizing him, so it would be foolish for him to waste his efforts.
With plans now in motion once again, we left the warehouse under the cover of dark, our black SUV parked securely next to a shipping container. But Rainer’s annoying voice was calling my name before I made it even three steps outside.
“Jason, aren’t you forgetting something?” he called, his tone taunting.
I glanced up at the night sky, gathering strength and the will not to beat him to death, and grabbed my wallet from my back pocket.
“You know, I’m not so sure you deserve it, considering your end of the last deal had been a complete fucking disaster.”
A low growl emanated from his chest. “I don’t care. This part of the agreement still stands. Now hand it over.”
Shaking my head, I opened my wallet and handed him the single folded picture of the pretty little blonde, the grimace on my face impossible to conceal.
Rainer’s eyes softened as he reveled over the photo, his lips forming into a half smile when he saw Kayla had held up her middle finger for the camera this time.
After our first meeting, we refused to allow him another second in her presence, no matter how much he tried to bargain for it. But giving him little glimpses of her at each meeting was usually an effective way of keeping him in line. Usually.
This little transaction also allowed Kayla to safely express herself to him without having to worry about retaliation. She could be impressively creative when she wanted to be.
The fucking fool craved her pictures like a goddamn junkie, and as long as we kept giving them to him, he’d leave her alone. But I wasn’t a moron. I knew as soon as all of this was over, he’d be gunning straight for her again. And I’ll be damned if I let that happen.
His grin still in place, Rainer pocketed the picture and met my glare.
“Always a pleasure, Jason,” he sneered, then turned to leave, heading for his own ride out of here.
Watching his figure disappear into the darkness, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that man would not survive this war.
I’d fucking make sure of it.