Page 271 of The Trouble With Bad Boys

“Yeah, it’s worrying me as well. I’ll go check in on him.”

I turned and headed down another hallway, this time away from the private rooms I wished I was headed back to instead. Maybe it was the scent or sounds of sex in the air, but this club always made me hard, and kept me that way, too. I ignored all of that and focused on what I needed to do before finding a pussy to sink balls deep into. I made it to Hawke’s door, then knocked loudly.

“Who is it?” I heard from behind the heavy wood.

“It’s Easton,” I replied.

I didn’t hear anything at first, but the door swung open. The man stepped aside so I could enter, then closed the door. He pointed to a chair, then made his way back to his own behind his desk.

“Tell me that you’ve heard something,” he said.

“I was hoping you would have something to share with me. I–” Before I could finish what I was about to say, my cell phone started to vibrate. I glanced down and could see who it was. “I need to take this. Do you mind?”

I needed to take it there in his office because I didn’t want my boss to hear the sounds of the club which could be heard in the hallways. It was only behind these soundproof doors that the rest of the world ceased to exist.

Hawke motioned for me to take it, and I answered quickly. “What do you have for me tonight, Warden?”

Bob grunted across the line. “Watch it, Bradford.”

I smiled at that. “Have you got the preliminaries back yet on the pills from California? “

“I have, but not only those. I was able to get the pill in evidence there in Denver tested.”

“What did you find?” I asked, and I could tell that Hawke was about to say something but I held up one finger to silence him momentarily.

“They are one and the same. We believe this is another variant of rainbow fentanyl.”

“Fuck,” I said knowing how hard the DEA had been working to try to get those particular pills off of the streets. Most came from Mexico, but some had come from other areas such as South America and Europe. “It would describe why the coloring is different.”

“It’s not the only thing. Those pills were also laced with Xylazine–”

“Tranq,” I said referencing its name on the street.

The drug was authorized exclusively for veterinary use, but recreational use had become more common. As a muscle relaxant, it was non-opioid but when mixed with substances like heroin, cocaine, or fentanyl, it could have very deadly consequences. As witnessed by the known cases in California and here in Denver, there was no telling how far its reach truly was which was terrifying. When combined with synthetic opioids like fentanyl, it could decrease respiratory function even more causing the user to stop breathing.

“Yes, and it’s spreading rapidly. We’ve also uncovered this drug in the Midwest and along the entire Eastern seaboard. It’s much deadlier than fentanyl alone which we already know is quite lethal.”

“Have you gotten any other leads on the woman in Los Angeles or the one here in Denver?”

“We have, and I actually have a name to go with it.”

“Then spit it out,” I said.

“I will, especially since she’s there in Denver right now.”

“Who is she?”

“I’m sending everything to your email so be sure to check it, but the suspected trafficker is Shelby Prescott, or Gemini as she is known in other parts.”

“What? You can’t be serious.”

“I am. I’ll send you her demographics, but just know that we have surveillance on her currently, and we’ll share that with you to help the investigation. We need to bring her in soon, but I don’t want us to get caught with our pants down again.”

The analogy was very fitting because the last time I’d seen the woman, it was exactly where my pants had been. I couldn’t let Bob know that we were intimately acquainted. I knew what my boss was referencing because we’d compromised an entire case by bringing in a lower level associate hoping for a flip. We had nothing to charge the kid with, and after letting him go, he proceeded to tip off others, then killed himself to avoid prosecution. It’d taken us almost nine additional months to find those he worked for, and to arrest them.

I wanted to tell him that wouldn’t be necessary with this one, but I couldn’t. It would just bring up questions I had no desire to answer. My membership at Syn was strictly of a professional nature, and not something I openly shared with anyone I worked with, even the agents I constantly did missions with.

“I’ll be discreet and let you know what I find out. Send her information to me.”

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