Page 45 of Unraveling Connections

“Done,” I tell him, “I’ll let you know as soon as I hear anything.”

“Thanks, man. I’m getting a bit fed up with all the waiting around, Hunt has been our most extended ongoing case, and I’m ready to take him out of the picture, either in one of our securest prisons or, ideally, in the fucking ground, where we have a guarantee that he can’t pull any strings, and escape. Trick practically growls.

“I know what you mean, I'm hoping that we end up taking him out. He's too well connected and has too many ways that he can get himself out of situations. He has proven that many times. There is a reason that he hasn’t been caught by the usual authorities, and why we were brought in, they couldn’t touch him, and we have struggled. He is either been one step ahead of us the entire time, or he has dodged attempts to take him in.”

“I’ll be glad when this one is over. I am always glad when we get a dangerous fucker off the chessboard, but this time, I’m going to be even more relieved. I think it is because this one has been more personal for the first time in a long time. With Ever’s mom being involved, the connection with Blake and Liam, which means Atlas and Alaric, and Luc’s parents’ involvement, we needhim gone. It makes me feel like we are vulnerable, and I don’t like that.”

My voice has an edge to it as I reply, “Neither do I. I'm glad I'm not the only one that has been feeling that way. I much prefer the jobs that have nothing to do with us. Even the ones that occasionally happen where we run into someone that Atlas and Rage know, or rather knew, because of Liam’s businesses and their involvement with it before and after we disbanded it.”

“Me too,” I reply. “This one is far too personal. It's too close, which means there is a bigger chance for things to go wrong. I like minimizing us being in danger, as much as is possible in our line of work anyway, and this goes against my instincts.”

The rest of my thoughts trail off as my phone dings the tone, which means I have an email, and I pick it back up to see who has emailed me.

“Everything okay?” Trick asks, probably reading my expression.

“Yeah, it’s from Mr R, I just didn’t expect him to get back to me so quickly.” I reply, and then, as soon as I see the contents of the email, I add, “He has finally sent the files. He also said that he will get the request put in to see Drake. He’s also asked if we want to hand this case off to someone else since it has become very personal.”

Trick sighs, “I don’t even think there is any point in asking the others. I know what they are going to say, and none of them are going to want to give up this case, it has become incredibly personal but then again, it was always personal it’s just got more so, and because it's personal, none of us are going to want to let it go to another team.”

I shake my head, “I know Luc, Ever, and Atlas, and if we did give it up and something happened to the other team, then they’d blame themselves, hell we all would.”

“So, we’re agreed then?” Trick asks.

“Just in case they surprise us, let me ask in the group chat. They all know that we are in here, so it shouldn’t come as much of a shock to ask them,” I reply.

We both know what they’ll all say, but we’re family and a team, and that means that even though we know what they are going to say, we still ask them; not only is it the respectful thing to do, but also people change all the time and reactions change to situations as well. A good example is Jensen allowing Zemi and the guys to go after his mom and sisters’ killer, there was a time when we all would have said that he would never allow that, and he would be the one to chase the fucker down and end him.

So that is why it is important that we ask, and we make sure that everyone is definitely on the same page.

Trick nods, “Good idea, I don’t want to risk making the decision for them and it being the wrong one.”

I quickly type out the message and press send, almost immediately, I get responses, most of them being along the lines of,'it is entirely up to Luc, Ever, and Atlas and whatever they are comfortable with.'

I had a feeling that the others would respond that way, and I’m also unsurprised that the three in question reply that they want to end Hunt, and that we have put far too much time and energy into this to back out now.

“They’re all in,” I tell Trick unnecessarily since he is in the chat and has been reading all of the replies himself, a smile on his face.

“Our family is pretty fucking amazing, aren’t they?” he smiles.

I nod, “Yeah, they are. We got damn lucky, man.”

Chapter Fourteen

Cash

“Alright, let’s read over this file, and then we can call a meeting and get everyone caught up on the cliff notes,” Trick suggests.

“Sounds good to me,” I reply, “are we coming up with a plan of action as well?”

He nods, “Yeah, we’ll come up with some suggestions but as always we will get their input and see if they have got any better ideas or new angles that we haven’t looked at.”

“Okay, give me a second and I can get it sent over to you,” I say as I forward the file to him.

We spend the next twenty minutes reading over the file. Once we’re both done, I’m actually relieved that there isn’t any really surprising news in it, nothing that is a shock.

“Okay, we can work with this. We’ve now got an exact location for the port that he used to use; all of the shipments are things that we know that he dealt in so that’s not a shock. There are a few other locations mentioned that we can send some other teams to check out, but I think the first thing that we need to focus on is the port that Drake mentioned. It is a huge port, and if he is still using it, then his business is even bigger than we thought, and we didn’t think that it was small.” Trick starts, going over the main points that stood out in the file.

“Do you want to send a few of us out to stake it out, do some research, and see if we can see any of Hunt’s known associates there who would confirm that he is still using it?” I ask.

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