Page 178 of Stand: Part One

“Just trust me on this.”

I rolled my eyes and dropped my arms. This guy could not be fucking serious.

“We also need to do a better job of disrupting his weapons supply. Our isolated attacks to avoid detection were too small to really be effective. Now that our failed attack is over, we don’t have to contain the noise anymore. It’s time to ditch the subtlety.”

“Finally,” Derick griped. “I’d say it’s time to kick it up a notch.”

“The underground brothels he has in Vegas, the ones disguised as exclusive massage parlors that host much darker and more sinister natures. They’re the most lucrative. You can even get your kicks off knowing you’ll be ‘rescuing’ some of the whores when you dismantle it all.”

“Watch it,” Romero warned.

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.”