Chapter 28
Zeus
I know he has questions that have nothing to do with this mission, and so do I.
I don't know about him, but I was grateful that Casper could hear every word we said in the truck, which prevented both of us from speaking on certain matters.
As hateful as it sounds, I was even more grateful that he was too busy watching for snakes in that old, rundown house to speak his mind when we didn't have an audience.
When he did speak, he spoke about the house's functionality and his uncertainty about its use.
If it were going to be used as a trap house to sell drugs, it would work.
Stoned people don't really care how many rooms a place has.
They just need a spot to curl up and fly.
If the intent is trafficking, the single-bedroom house might not work, but he was pretty excited about asking Bobby to verify whether it would work without raising too many suspicions.
The trap house use is awful, don't get me wrong, but if the intention was for processing a shipment of women, then we would be able to gather our evidence quicker and shut this whole fucking thing down. Selling drugs could be enough to take them out, but it's not the goal of this mission.
It won't make it any easier to keep working for them and pretend to be one of them, but it won't be what triggers the raid on their property.
Memories of last night swirl through my head as we close the distance between the house Casper found for us and the compound.
I analyze every word Bobby said, every action, every reaction of the people around him, trying to find hidden messages in all of it, something that will give me more information when the time comes to put his ass in jail.
But my mind, the wonderful overanalytical thing that it is, keeps drifting back to seeing Zayne's smiling face as he talked to that woman.
Since we're in the truck, I can't speak on the matter, and I think that's amazing. I can't voice my jealousy of seeing him talk to her. I can't be open about wondering what all of this actually means.
It's not that I see my emotions as a weakness. I've grown enough as a man to know they're normal and not a weakness at all.
What's not normal for me is letting it not only control me but even care in the first place.
A couple of kisses, a hand job, and a blow job shouldn't leave me paralyzed and questioning where we go from here.
The goal was to get off, to feel something in a time when everything else was in The Leagues' control rather than our own.
It was a way to take back a little piece of ourselves that this mission was chipping away at.
As if a switch has been flipped, I'm able to get my head back in the game as we pull up outside of the compound.
This time, we're not greeted by someone questioning who we are, and I'm grateful for not having to suffer the stench of another man who chooses to spend his time using drugs rather than bathing, but the stinky man in question sticks his head out of the guard shack as we drive by,
"Bobby wants you in his office," he says before sticking a finger up his nose like a toddler who doesn't understand some things should be done in private.
"Is that where we met him the first time?" Zayne asks, pulling the truck forward when he gets a nod. "Do you think we take the truck back to the supply building or park it at Bobby's building?"
"Your guess is as good as mine," I tell him. "Anything we need to say before the truck is no longer safe?"
"Nothing I can think of," he mutters as he slowly makes his way through the maze of rusty, stacked cars.
I knew exactly what the old man at the oil changing place meant when he said we were good until we weren't. There's always a chance that they'll eventually add some sort of tech to the vehicle while we're away from it.
I'm honestly surprised they bugged the house we started in and not the truck from the very beginning.
"The walk gives us a chance to look around," he says, pulling the truck into the same spot we grabbed it from this morning outside of the supply building.
"Good call," I say as I climb out.
A woman I’ve never seen before comes out of the building. Zayne wordlessly hands over the keys, and with a dip of her head, she turns around and heads back inside. It makes me wonder whether there's a correlation between those who can still manage a smile and the amount of time they've been here.
"Looks like we made the right call," Zayne says as we start to make our way to the building.
"That fucking crown," I mutter as we approach Bobby's office building a few minutes later.
A huff of irritation comes from him, but he doesn't speak. I know the man has a lot of experience in dealing with pieces of shit like Bobby, and I know it's not something you ever get used to.
He'll never mutter the words "Oh, that's just how he is" in a way that he honestly believes it just is what it is.
There's no way anyone can get a look at the inner workings of a place like this and still think "boys will be boys" as an explanation for how they treat others, especially women and people of other races.
Zayne may say something like that to others here, but deep down, I know that he despises the man with every ounce of his being.
The front door swings open as we approach, giving even more credence to the surveillance around here.
"He's in the conference room," the guy tells us.
This time, we're given the ability to head in that direction ourselves rather than being escorted.
In the shadowed hallway, Regina Banks passes us, her face turned down. I might've been able to convince myself that she was somewhat happy being here until she sniffles just as she walks past us.
When I turn back, unsure of what to do but knowing I have to do something, Zayne positions his body so I know helping that girl right now isn't possible.
I clench my fists at my sides until my knuckles pop.
Frustration builds inside of me, the level of it almost to the point that I'll react without thinking eventually.
The burner phone in Zayne's pocket comes to mind, and I fight the urge to look at him and demand he call Cerberus to extract the poor girl already.
Bobby is leaning over a laptop when Zayne gives the doorframe a little knock to announce our arrival, despite knowing the man knew we were here the second the front gates opened for us.
I have no doubt he was warned we were heading this way, and that's the only thing that diverted his attention from Regina.
He holds up one finger, head still angled down, as he uses one finger on each hand to type something into the old computer. He's frustratingly slow with the entire process.
I drop into a seat at the conference table, unwilling to stand there like a patient little soldier while he hunts and pecks at whatever the fuck he's working on.
He pauses when I grunt after getting off my feet, but then goes back to peck, peck, pecking the fucking keys.
My first thought is that basic fucking typing is taught in school, but given what I know about a lot of these people, they didn't exactly get good grades.
It's more likely the man quit before his freshman year anyway.
Either because he just didn't want to be there, or his father, no doubt having the same mindset Bobby has now, thought it was a waste of time and didn't make him go.
I'm sure there were many more important things to do, like bashing women, fighting for a liberty they contradict with every action, and hating people for no other reason than they don't look, think, and act exactly like them.
When the keyboard clacking stops, Bobby closes his laptop, his fingers on his left hand automatically pinching the bridge of his nose.
I don't know the man well enough to gauge whether he's frustrated with us, whether we slipped up somehow, or whether the weight of leading this kind of group weighs on him.
Honestly, I wish the man would get crushed under all of it, but spending a lifetime in jail might be the better option.
He's not the type of man who would change.
Certain groups in prison would welcome this man with open arms, many of them raising him to power in the criminal justice system, just because he's brave enough to put his beliefs into action, something a lot of them are scared to do. It has nothing to do with those kinds of folks doubting that the way they feel and how they believe is wrong. It’s more because they're afraid of retaliation from the groups they despise.
With a man like Bobby at the helm, they're braver, able to act the way they want, all with a false understanding that Bobby will have their backs.
In all truthfulness, Bobby would probably sacrifice every single one of them to save his own ass, and that's a huge concern for us in our evaluation on how to play the final takedown of this group.
"I sure as fuck hope you have good news for me," the man says, pinching the bridge of his nose one final time before opening his eyes and looking up at us.
Zayne points to a chair, silently asking permission to have a seat, and I feel a little hint of satisfaction in the way he glances at me in annoyance but keeps his fucking mouth shut before nodding to my partner.
The man isn't as brave and aggressive in his demand for respect when he's alone, and that will work in our favor.
It also proves that he may be smarter than I've given him credit for.
Yeah, he could rip my ass for not asking, but on the off chance that I'll get up and return his frustration in a way that would cause him pain, it keeps his mouth shut. He knows the other men would retaliate for him, but he also knows it won't happen before he sheds blood.
Maybe that makes him a pussy, rather than intelligent.
Either way, it gives me back a little piece of myself that this fucking place has already chipped away.