Page 28

Chapter 27

I'm the motherfucker

Big Al

F acing off with Sammy this morning is just the distraction I need. Even if she’s being a shithead, I’ll happily deal with her instead of ruminating on Maddie’s revelation.

I barely slept last night, too wrecked by warring guilt and gratefulness over what she sacrificed— for me . Maddie risked her life, suffering for years, to keep me out of jail and to save my job.

Neither of those things could ever be worth her sacrifice.

Tragically, I can’t turn back time to undo it.

The only thing I can do is love her even harder.

And that’s what I’ll do.

For now, I’ll take the blessing of Sammy’s obstinance and use it to divert my focus.

Despite being repeatedly told to leave the conference room, Sammy eyes me down with the stubbornness of a goddamn donkey.

She folds her arms across her chest. “I’m not going anywhere. If you want me out, you’ll need to carry me. And may the odds be ever in your favor, considering how much these babies weigh.”

Leo attempts to persuade his sister. “Sammy, come on. You have no reason to worry about Sawyer’s safety. We’re only farming out duties for surveillance. That’s all.”

“Sweet, simple, silly Leo.” She tsks at him, her entire expression screaming condescension. “I’m not here out of concern for Sawyer’s safety.”

“Ex-squeeze me?” Sawyer bleats in a melodic tone, then quickly shifts into a Yiddish accent. “Waddam I? Chopped livah?”

She side-eyes him, her brow arched and lips puckered playfully. “Take the corn cobs out of your ears like a good boy.”

He makes a popping sound while pantomiming pulling something from his ears. Pop . “What did you say now? Something about you not caring about my safety?”

“I said it wasn’t my concern for you that made me glue my ass to this chair. Not that I don’t care about your safety.” She pats his cheek with more of her faux condescension. “Try to keep up, summer child.”

I’m secretly enjoying her attitude this morning.

However, as part of my unending quest to defeat her brand of anarchy, I won’t let my amusement show. She’d only come back stronger, and then chaos would be the law of the land.

I stare her down. “Then why the fuck are you in here? It’s a motherfucking staff meeting, not an every-fucking-body-who-wants-to-fucking-join-us meeting.”

Sammy’s jaw hits the floor, and she balks with sarcastic indignation. “Wow. That was quite a swear fest, even by my standards. Kiss your mother with that mouth?”

Without conscious thought, I joke back, “No. I kiss your mother with it. And she really likes it.”

Boisterous laughter booms around the conference room. Among the twenty-two people gathered for the duty meeting, not a single one isn’t doubled over. Including me.

By the time the hilarity fades, Lettie pops her head in the doorway. A stern look colors her features. “If there’s funny shit happening, it’s rude of y’all not to invite me. Doesn’t anyone ’round here have manners?”

Tomer beams at her. “Nobody at Redleg has more manners than you.”

She angles her head to the side. “Not sure that’s a compliment, considering the general lack of competition for the title.” Her spine stiffens suddenly, and she brings her hand to the side of her forehead in a subpar excuse for a salute. “General lack of competition, reporting for duty. Heh heh .”

More laughter reverberates from the group.

Rolling my eyes and stifling my smile, I gesture for her to come in. “At ease, private. You can join us. Bring a notepad, please. You might as well help me keep track of everything.” My brows knit together as I glare across the table at Sammy. “Apparently, it’s an open meeting anyhow.”

Lettie retreats to her desk, returning a few seconds later with pen and paper. Tomer slides his chair away from me, making room for her between us. The seating change catches my attention more than it should.

He’s always on my left, and Leo’s on my right. The last time Lettie sat in on a meeting, Tomer was between us.

Not that the change should matter, but it seems significant.

The reason why it feels profound strikes me a second later. For the longest time, he was a barrier between us. Not maliciously. In his mind, he was serving as a buffer, protecting me from something he thought I wasn’t ready for.

With things between the three of us aligning, there are no reasons for him to come between Lettie and me.

Shaking free of my musings, I scan the room. “Who are we missing?” I mutter, not asking anyone in particular.

Lettie answers, “Based on who we’re expecting, we’re only waiting for Shep, Kri, and Junior.”

I check my watch. “We’ll give them sixty seconds.” My gaze lands on Sammy again. “No jokes this time. But why are you here? Are you that hard up for entertainment that you want to sit through a duty meeting?”

Sammy’s shoulders lift, and she expels a fluttery breath. “I could have tickets to Hamilton with the original cast, and I’d still miss it for this meeting.”

My neck cricks to the side. “Huh?”

“Nice retort, Shakespeare,” she quips, then settles into a business tone. “Historically speaking, these meetings provide more entertainment per capita than... than...”

Blinking rapidly, she flounders while searching for a way to wrap it up. I choke back a laugh, determined to wait her out.

“Almost there, princess. Bring it home,” Sawyer encourages.

“More entertainment per capita than something else, like, super entertaining.” She nods to emphasize her point. “Yep. That. Nailed it.”

Sawyer holds out his fist in front of her. “Pound it out. I’m sure nobody noticed you trip at the finishing line.”

Shrugging, she fist bumps him. “They can’t all be as good as Big Al’s mother kissing jokes.”

Klein’s face brightens. “Sounds like a step down from his mother fucking jokes.”

Maddie breezes into the room, holding a bag of microwave popcorn. “Oh, he does that too,” she announces casually, making everyone’s eyes triple in size.

Including my own.

It takes a solid three seconds before the shocked silence devolves into chaos. There are braying guffaws, hoots, groans, and a few other reactions I can’t decipher through my fog of embarrassment.

She’s so blasé about it, which not only blows my mind but warms my heart.

On my right, Leo shoves away from the table and marches away. At first, I worry that he’s enraged. However, once he finally turns around, his face is beet red, and he’s shaking with laughter, doubling over at the waist.

Still laughing, Sue jumps up to sprint out of the room. She’s either horrified to the point she’s no longer able to be around people or she has to pee from the laughter. Could be either way with her.

Unbothered by the bedlam she incited, Maddie demurely takes a seat in the corner and shakes the popcorn bag at her daughter. “Samantha, I brought this to lure you away from the table. Let them work. Come on now. We can quietly watch the show from over here.”

As Leo slowly returns to his seat, he swats at the low-hanging joke fruit. “Sammy isn’t capable of being quiet anywhere, Ma. At the table or in the corner. In church, a doctor’s appointment, a?—”

Sammy flips off her brother and shoves her heels into the floor, rolling her chair toward Maddie. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. We get it. But I want popcorn.”

Junior attempts to silently sneak into the conference room with his head down. Nice try, kid.

Where did I put my shit list?

Shep comes tripping in right behind him. “Sorry for being late.”

Kri follows, her finger pointed at Shep. “It was his fault.”

He scoffs, shaking his head and putting his hand over his heart. “Judas Dayton.”

Grinning, I wake my tablet screen. “That’s fine. Just sit the fuck down so we can start before this shit show goes any further sideways than it already has.”

Kri huffs, scooting her chair up to the table. “Aw, did we miss something?”

Sawyer makes his eyebrows do the waggling dance of innuendo. “Just some mother fucking jokes.”

With an audible sigh, I smack my fist lightly on the table. “Enough of that shit. It would behoove you to shut your traps before my shit list grows exponentially. We’re passing out duties today, so you don’t want to be on my bad side.”

With the change in my tone and my not-so-veiled warning, their spines stiffen. All jaws stop flapping.

“First up. Tomer.” I catch his eyes. “Get everyone on the same page regarding the work your team has been doing with the list.”

He nods crisply, turning to look down the length of the table. “As most of you know, we recently followed the instructions provided to us by the man we refer to as the architect to meet with a source. She passed us a jump drive containing a list of seventy-two names. Secondary to this, Mia found a hidden file on the drive with cargo ship routes that run through Miami. We’ll discuss that at a later time. Today, we’re focusing on the seventy-two.”

He pauses for a quick breath, then barrels on. “We’ve been researching the hell out of these individuals. While we’ve found some interesting things, we need more personal intel. That’s where you come in.”

Tomer sails a stack of papers across the table. “Everybody take one. This is a summary of key findings I want to talk through before we divvy it up.”

While everyone grabs from the stack, I add, “The list on the jump drive also contained a hidden message. According to that, we’re supposed to expose the people on this list. The problem is that we don’t know what we’re exposing. We have reason to believe some of them may have visited the trafficking prep houses as customers.” I pause to forcibly unclench my jaw. “It’s unclear if all of them did this or not. That’s one of the key things I want to find out with surveillance. Additionally, since some of these are power players, it’s possible they’re the ones helping Lenkov operate. With that in mind, we need intel on anything pertaining to the Russians, drugs, weapons, crime, gambling, taking bribes, and so on. Anything at all. So we’ve really got our work cut out for us.”

I glance down the table, seeing all eyes on mine except Mia’s. Instead, her gaze is focused on Lettie, compassion flowing to my daughter. Likely in response to my mention of those despicable humans as customers . As if it were some above-board service they procured.

Disgusting.

I whisper to Lettie, “You okay?”

The corners of her mouth curve with a slight smile. “I’m fine. Keep going.”

Lowering my face, I reduce my volume to avoid calling attention to our conversation. “I don’t think it’ll come up again. But feel free to step out if you need to.”

Her smile reaches her eyes. “Message received, Boss Dad. Thanks for caring. But I’m good.”

I’m unsure if her comfort level with this topic is genuine or a front. Rather than looking deeper, I let it go for now. Throughout this ordeal, she’s favored being involved in seeking justice. It’d be easy to curl up in a ball, letting others handle this. But she’s not built that way.

I shift my line of sight to Tomer. “You’re up, T.”

He jumps in without missing a beat. “For research on the seventy-two, we dove into the usual things, going as deep as we could virtually—employment, family, political, finances, criminal records, military backgrounds, and shit like that. We cross-referenced our findings to look for connections. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any single commonality threading them all together. However, about half of the people on the list have an intersection with at least two others on the list. That information is detailed in the summary.”

He pauses, eyes scanning the table. With no questions arising, he continues. “From there, we ranked them by importance. We ended up with sixteen individuals we want to perform surveillance on.”

As he runs through the list, highlighting connections and answering questions, my mind wanders to various topics.

To Lettie and her indomitable strength. Despite her recent suffering, she’s a beacon of hope and light.

And to the justice she deserves. Even if she wasn’t my daughter, I would’ve sought justice on her behalf. But knowing her better and seeing so many of my traits shining in her has made the sting far more abrasive than I ever could have predicted.

Then my eyes fall to Maddie and Sammy trading secrets in the corner. The confidence and comfort Maddie’s shown about our relationship recently has fulfilled me in ways I never thought possible. For years, I’ve wanted more while accepting she might not ever be able to give it. After all, she was emotionally and physically abused for more than two decades, not to mention her childhood. It’s no wonder she doesn’t trust easily or want to give up her independence.

I can’t fault her for that.

But now she’s giving me so much.

And after last night, it seems she loved me all along.

Despite the heightening threat, I need to find a way to keep her safe without trapping her in a cage.

My vision pans across the room, and my thoughts keep spinning.

All of our lives have been put on hold. Even those who aren’t sleeping here each night are dealing with heightened security precautions. Everyone deserves to live without this blanket of fear covering them. Sadly, we have months until that January date the architect gave us. Can we go on like this until then? They need a break. Hell, I need a break.

I’ll need to come up with a way to give them that. A rotation schedule or something. We can’t stop living.

My stray thoughts return to the present when Tomer says, “That’s it. Any questions?”

Shep raises his hand, which tracks with my expectations. Especially since he was assigned to trail Yuri. He’s bound to have an objection or ten. If it hadn’t been Shep, Sawyer would have been the first to speak since he can’t shut up.

I point at Shep with my chin. “What?”

“I’m sure you’re expecting me to bitch about my assignment, but I’m about to blow your mind by asking something unrelated.” He pauses, widening his eyes and tilting his head like he’s waiting for a round of applause. Instead, he’s met with get-to-the-point looks. “I know we have significant doubts about Katia’s role in this shit storm and her allegiances. With that in mind, why hasn’t anyone been assigned to trail her?”

Mia straightens in her chair and looks to me for permission to answer. I give her a nod.

“I’m working on that. She’s the most risky target since she lives in Lenkov’s compound and is surrounded by his goons all the time. We’re hoping to work with the architect to draw her out, hopefully alone again, and then we can get some bugs on her, clone her phone, or whatever. So far, he hasn’t bitten at our attempts to arrange a meeting with her.”

“He still hasn’t agreed to meet us himself, right?” Kri asks me.

“Correct.”

Tomer and Klein field a few questions about surveillance gear and logistics. Game faces slip into place as the meeting winds down.

Klein closes his laptop and looks over at me. “Sounds like we’re all good to go, Boss. We got this.”

I stand and rap my knuckles on the table. Partly to adjourn the meeting and partly to honor the knock-on-wood tradition. “Time to get the fuck out there and see why these assholes are on the list. Be careful, team.”

“You too, Boss,” Kri offers, referring to my plan to force a meeting with the chief. That’ll likely happen tonight or tomorrow. I’m done waiting for him to return my calls.

As the crowd disperses, I attempt to zero in on the slight gnawing sensation below my chest.

It’s simple surveillance and a meeting with the chief. Why is my gut firing on that? What the fuck could possibly go wrong?

Shit . I can’t believe I thought those words.

Twice more, I knock on the table. Just in case.