Page 44 of Unraveling Connections

Her response makes both of us laugh, and Rage says, “I think Trick is looking for you, he’s got that; I need to bounce ideas off someone look.”

I chuckle, “Yeah, I’m getting up now, I’ll go and find him.”

He nods and then follows Ever downstairs, chuckling when she yells for him to hurry up.

After I have showered and got dressed for the day, I make my way to the kitchen to grab a coffee before I find Trick.

“Hey man,” I greet Riot as I head straight for the coffee machine.

“Hey, I’m not sure what the plan is today, everyone is pretty much doing their own thing since we’ve stalled with the job for a moment.” He tells me.

“Yeah, I’m hoping that we will get at least some of the files today; I want to get started and make a plan.” I reply, and then add, “Do you know where Trick is?”

“He was up early this morning. He came in and made a few coffees and then disappeared again. If I had to guess, I would say he is in his office stewing and worrying,” Riot replies.

With all know how Trick can get when it comes to stalling on a job especially a job as important as ours. Any hiccups or delays mean that the person that we are chasing could get away and it definitely means that they are causing even more damage to people. In this case it means that more shipments of guns, drugs and people are being moved and none of that sits well with us.

While we all feel the same, Trick takes so much of the responsibility on himself, even when, in reality, it’s not on him. It is something that we can’t change and we can’t do anything about. We are doing everything that we can at the moment. Trick knows that, but his mind will be throwing hundreds of different scenarios at him, all of the what-ifs, and that is where I come in. I will listen, and I will give suggestions, and we will go through all of the fears and possibilities, and we’ll talk them through.

It’s what we have always done. I stopped doing it quite so much for a while, unsure how the dynamics would change with Atlas and Rage being back with us on a permanent basis, not that either of them ever showed any interest in taking on a leadership role or even being second like I am, and I didn’t actually consciously step back, it was just a thing that happened unintentionally, and it’s only recently that I’ve realized that’s when I stopped being as involved as I always have been, but I’ve stepped back up and not only do I enjoy helping in this way and being his second I also like how much it’s helping Trick and how quickly we’ve settled back into how we used to be.

I apologized to him for stepping back, but of course, he was having none of it.

“Trick, are you in here, man?” I ask as I push the door open.

“Yeah,” Trick replies absently, from behind his desk, papers spread out in front of him.

As I get closer, I realize that the papers contain all of the information that we currently have on Hunt, his operations, and his associates.

“Looking for anything we’ve missed?” I ask as I take a seat on the other side of his desk. I know that is what he is doing without a shadow of a doubt.

He looks up finally and grimaces, rubbing his hands over his face before he leans back in his chair and asks, “How did you know?”

“It’s what you always do,” I reply and then add, “I know you.”

“You should by now,” Trick retorts.

He falls silent, and I wait, he will talk when he is ready and I am happy just to sit here and wait, it gives me a chance to enjoy my coffee anyway.

“So, what if the file doesn’t have any relevant information in it and we are just back to where we were before. With no information and no idea what our next step is.” He finally asks.

“Okay, a couple of things, first, Luc read about the port before he passed out so we know that there is at least something useful in the file and two we know that Sandy and Drake are involved, we may not know where Sandy is to question her, but we do know that Luc's dad, Drake, is in prison, and if we need to, we have access to him and ways to make him talk.”

Trick tilts his head to the side as he considers what I’m saying and nods, “Both very good points. I'm worried about how involved they are with all of this and the effect that could have on Luc. Especially if we need to go and talk to his father.”

I sigh, “I know, I am too, I think we all are. We know that there is no love lost between Luc and Drake; what happened at the cabin proved that, but I'm not sure how he will handle his mom being involved.”

“Yeah, I think that is what I’m worrying about the most. I know that Luc doesn’t like her, for obvious reasons, and I know that she was as vicious to Luc as Drake was in many circumstances, but he had no idea that she could be this involved with the criminal stuff that his father was into. I know that he has viewed her almost as a victim of Drake’s although she made her own choices, we all did, which is why we didn’t realize that she was as involved,” Trick replies.

“A mistake on our part,” I agree, “Luc isn’t naive and is under no misconception about his mother. He may not have known that she was heavily involved, and maybe she wasn’t when he lived there, but she certainly is now. We will keep an eye on him, but I think he is going to be fine.”

Trick nods, “Yeah okay. Ever will be keeping a close eye on him as well, she won’t miss a thing and if she does pick up on Luc struggling, she will let us know if we need to know about it.”

I smile, “Yes, she will. I know we are hoping that we won’t have to, but since there is a chance that we may have to talk to Drake, I think it might be a good idea to get the ball rollingand put the request in to talk to him. It takes a long time for the request to go through, and if we decide we need to talk to him, then we won’t want to wait. We will want to talk to him immediately. If we put the request in and we don’t need it, then it will cause a lot less trouble just to cancel it than it would to try and get an appointment to see him at the last minute.”

Trick’s eyebrows draw together, but he nods, “Yes, that’s a good idea.”

I pull out my phone and start to fill in the formal request, it doesn’t take me very long to get it all filled out and sent to Mr R so that he can do the things that he needs to do to get the ball rolling.

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