Chapter 22
Zeus
For all of the anxiety and stress I felt last night, I don't feel an ounce of it tonight.
There was just something about the way Zayne made me come a handful of hours ago that just set everything that was making me feel off-kilter straight.
I huff a laugh at the word.
Straight.
Fuck... clearly not.
"Let us all in on the joke?"
I look at Scott, the guy we're working with tonight. I'm in the back seat once again, behind Zayne, who is in the front passenger seat.
Scott doesn't bother to look back at me, and I'm grateful I'm not positioned in the back like I was last night, where Bobby could meet my eyes.
It's not that I feel any shame about what happened earlier, but I don't want to imagine this guy reading me and figuring anything out either.
How insane is it that there's still a hint of shame attached to what I've done, even when I know there shouldn't be?
I guess trauma and upbringing will always be a whisper in my head, even though I try to quiet the voices telling me that there's something wrong with me for wanting the things I do.
I know there's no deviance in what has happened, but my brain can't seem to let go of the idea completely.
"Come on," Scott urges, his silence waiting for me to reply, the longest he's gone without talking.
If I thought Bobby talked a lot, he has nothing on this guy.
Before I can formulate a lie or tell the guy to shut the fuck up, something that would be well within character of the man I'm portraying, he points out the windshield toward a cabin tucked away in the distance.
Only the porch light is visible from the winding road we're on.
If we were driving any faster, we would've missed it.
"We hit that house two weeks ago," he confesses. "Scored three shotguns and a fuck load of ammo."
"Nice," Zayne, or should I say Curtis, responds. "Not worried about hitting another place so close so soon after?"
"Scared?" Scott asks, looking over at him.
"Don't like the fucking heat," I mutter. "Got better things to do than go to jail tonight."
And we would. Go to jail, that is. Unless Casper is sitting on the police scanner or has some way to be notified if our aliases come through the system, we'd spend the night in jail at a minimum.
This job is specifically on a need-to-know basis, and since it's suspected that The League has cops on its payroll, only Cerberus and select federal agencies have knowledge of what we're doing.
Even still, the Feds don't know all the details.
If they did, they might shut us down. Sometimes it's better to ask for forgiveness than for permission.
Scott shrugs, as if he doesn't care if he goes home tonight or goes to jail, and that makes me nervous as hell. I hate nothing more than a fucking wild card, or worse yet, a man who thinks he's invincible just because he's gotten away with countless crimes before.
"Bear Creek Valley?" Zayne asks as we pass the road the cabin is on. "Not very original out here, are they?"
I know he's saying it out loud so we can remember where the property is.
Catching these guys for this shit isn't our goal, but the court system could really rack up some years against them with the burglary charges they'll pile on once we're able to prosecute them.
It would be great to stack the offenses to keep them in prison for as long as possible.
As terrible as sex trafficking is, those sorts of crimes don't get as much jail time as they should.
The level of victim-blaming in the criminal justice system is disgusting, and most don't have the education to understand grooming and just how powerful threats can be in controlling their victims.
"We hit a house on Bear River Road that same night," Scott says with a smile. "Didn't get as much from them, though."
"That right?" Zayne asks. "It's really hit or miss, huh?"
Scott laughs. "Some nights are better than others."
"How often are we going to go out and do this?" Zayne asks in a way that seems genuine, whereas I know if the question came from me, it would probably sound more like an interrogation.
Scott's nose scrunches, and I'm prepared to choke the guy out and risk driving off the mountain if he questions why Zayne asks. But I realize quickly that's just the way he looks when he's trying to think, as if the task is almost too much for his drug-addled brain to handle.
"Maybe twice again this week, but I think we'll be south a little. Fuck, don't ask me. I only check the board the day I know I have to work."
"There's a board?" I ask before thinking.
I realize my mistake when I see Zayne stiffen.
Scott simply laughs again. "Do you really think we could remember exactly where we're going every night?"
Zayne chuckles. "Seriously? I was worried I'd fuck it all up."
"I get high too much to remember all that shit," Scott says.
"But, yeah, there's a board in the office.
It has the week's assignments on it. Some nights I can't remember the address, but if you go out without me or with another crew, never put the address in your GPS.
You can get into big trouble for doing that shit. "
Holy shit.
That would be really helpful in tying crimes back to The League, not to mention specific incidents with certain people.
"That's really fucking helpful," Zayne responds, and I can hear the hint of excitement in his voice.
"Yeah," Scott continues as if they've been best friends forever. "We're pretty fucking organized. I know there are tons of other groups, but this is the best place you could've landed."
Organized would mean they knew what they were doing and would have very limited proof of their involvement.
Organized is not a board loaded with information on their criminal activities in some office on the compound that can be raided at any given minute.
But their stupidity will be our gain when we can finally take them down.
"I'm so glad to hear it," Zayne continues. "My memory is shit these days."
"For real," Scott agrees. "I think the higher-ups got tired of us fucking up. Nothing pisses them off more than hitting the wrong house. They can only send so many people away before they don't have enough to take care of things."
"Shit," Zayne mutters, his head turning as he glances out the passenger side mirror. "I'd hate to fuck up and get kicked out."
"Kicked out?" Scott scoffs as the car slows around yet another hairpin turn. "If they want you gone, getting kicked out should be the least of your worries."
Zayne nods as if he fully understands. A group like this would never let someone just walk away, especially if they have information that could take them down.
With Dakota's death, Zayne knows that more than anyone.
Tying up loose ends in a group like this doesn't mean their name is scratched from the Christmas card list. It's life and death.
A lot of these groups' beliefs are the same, but their willingness to do anything to avoid going to jail has to be stronger.
I have no doubt Bobby would be willing to murder anyone who sets foot in that compound to save his own ass, and that just adds an even more sinister edge to him telling us that they have some people leaving soon, which will allow us room to live there.
I had a feeling that the space being created wasn't because someone was taking a vacation to visit a sick relative, but Scott has just confirmed that our being able to access the compound means someone is going to have to die for it to happen.
I'm torn between wanting to believe the people leaving are horrible people who deserve it because it makes it easier to stomach, and knowing that Bobby and his organization have no right to be judge, jury, and executioner to anyone, if only because they're just as guilty as the people they may be ridding themselves of. Cast the first stone and all that shit.
"This is fantastic," Scott says, a hint of excitement in his voice.
Unlike Bobby, who pulled right up to the cabin last night, Scott drives slowly past a property where two big, expensive trucks are parked before continuing down the road.
Maybe Bobby did a lot of things last night as a test to see how we would handle the situation, but then again, he could have an ego so big that he thinks because he's the one in power, that he's untouchable. I don't know the man well enough yet to know for sure.
"More trucks means a bigger score," Scott says, backing the small sedan we're in between a couple of trees.
The lack of street lights this far up the mountain helps keep us hidden, but as dark as it is up here, I know better than to think we're secluded enough that others wouldn't have a clue what's going on.
There are so many tiny houses up here, each of them tucked away and hidden from the road, that they have to do some serious scouting not only to find these places but also to know when the hunting cabins are going to be occupied.
An empty cabin would be a waste of time.
They're going after expensive guns, no doubt because they can't be traced back to the organization, expensive personal belongings, and cash these guys may be carrying on them.
Hitting an empty cabin might score them a Coleman lantern or two, and that's about it. These guys pack in and pack out most everything else because of the likelihood that their cabin could be robbed while they're away.
"Do we get keys and take the trucks?" Zayne asks, his breath forming condensation on the passenger window, with his face so close to the glass as he tries to get a better look.
"Sometimes we do," Scott says. "Those are much too new. Can't risk the GPS tracking back to us. There will be times we'll grab a vehicle, but they're usually much older."
"Not much money in chopping cars these days, huh?" Zayne asks, another attempt to get information we can use later out of the guy.