Page 55 of The Devil's Conflict

“Told them I’m not a fucking monkey, but they didn’t give me much a choice,” he huffs.

Bowie and Frost smirk at him, while Titan doesn’t look overly impressed. “If you’d have stayed on the ground, you’d have been spotted immediately,” Titan reminds him. “The idiots never once looked in the trees, and it gave us the perfect vantage point to watch them.”

Dozer mutters something under his breath, but I’m too far away to make out what it is. “Next time you want to play monkey, you can take one of the young ones,” Dozer huffs. “My fucking knees are going to be shot after that.”

“What I want to know is what you saw and found,” Bullet interjects impatiently.

“Right,” Frost says, sobering. “The men inside the cabin went through the place, checking every cupboard, box, and piece of furniture. I was able to look in with my binoculars and I saw that one of them disappeared into the small pantry for a couple of minutes. Far too long considering the size of the thing.”

“Hidden spot in there for sure,” Shadow agrees. “Neither of us saw anything when we were in there,” he adds with a nod my way. “But we were also going a bit quicker than normal.”

Frost nods. “And when they closed the door, they put a lock on it, which I found odd. They should know that doing that would instantly have us looking there.”

“Because they didn’t put it there by chance,” I reply grimly. “Did either of you look at the other men when he was in there?”

“I didn’t,” Frost answers, looking at Bowie and Titan.

“I did, but they went out of view when they went to the corner of the room along the exterior wall,” Bowie answers. “You think they’re trying to distract us?”

“I think they knew you were out there and that’s exactly what they were counting on. And I bet anything that if we went back now and went into that pantry it would be a trap.”

“Textbook bait and switch,” Silver agrees. “And he also made sure that you wouldn’t see what he actually was checking.”

“You think they have something under the house?” Medic asks.

“That or they have a hidey-hole where they’re hiding something of value that they don’t want to risk us finding.” Silver shrugs. “I mean, it’s hard to say with these guys, but whyhide something when you have all those drugs and guns already sitting out there?”

“You’re thinking money?” Stone asks, leaning forward bracing both arms on the table.

“That, or…” Silver trails off, letting that hang.

It clicks almost immediately. “You think they’re using that place to hide some of their sex slaves.”

He taps the side of his nose and points at me. “Makes more sense, don’t you think?”

My gut sours at the thought that we walked out of there last night, possibly completely unaware they might have been calling out to us for help. I glance at Shadow and see the tight expression on his face as he must realize the same thing.

“The place doesn’t have a basement that we saw,” Shadow finally replies. “If they do have one, it’s a dirt one that you can’t access from outside.”

“Or you have to access it from a hidden entrance,” Torque suggests. “I mean, if we or the cops ever stumbled onto the place, they wouldn’t want to risk them losing their chance at money or sales or whoever it is they have in there.”

“You think there’s a tunnel or something leading out of that place into the woods?” King asks him, arching a brow at that. “Seems elaborate.”

“Elaborate, but how else would you explain that we haven’t been able to find them since this whole thing started,” Torque argues. “Think about it. They might be using houses or whatever Bull did, but that doesn’t mean they are leaving it to chance. Dmitri was green at running something like this, but he set this in motion, and he did it well enough that it was only by chance we found out about their operation. And even now, we still can’t find his hideout, or the places around our city they’re using as stash houses. No one sees anything, not even the homeless guys on the street that we use for information.”

“Did Bull have things like that set up?” Arson asks Bullet.

“Not that I knew about, but then again, there wasn’t much that those of us against him knew. He was well aware we weren’t happy with his leadership, and he only kept a select few close to him. So it’s possible that they planned this to ensure that if things went south with the club, they had another income stream and the ability to hide out,” he finally answers after some thought.

“Bull always was a sneaky son of a bitch,” Crook grumbles. “Even back then, he was tight lipped about shit. I remember the time we called the club in to help us with a transport and he refused to share his route, even when we wanted to meet up to give them a final guide in. He insisted the club would do it the way they had mapped out. Took him an extra hour to get to our club, but everything was there as it was supposed to be. Still figured he was being a snake though.”

“I don’t think I was around then,” Bullet remarks.

“Nah, that would have probably been a year or two before you Prospected.”

Bullet nods. “Bull used to head up your way every few months, usually under the guise of meeting with your club, but we all knew he was making some stops along the way. It was unsaid, but we were sure he had a woman up that way he liked to see, but can’t tell you for sure. Only those closest to him were allowed to go with him.”

“All of this to say it make sense that there are places around this city that Bull set up with his trusted group back then that we don’t know about and is probably exactly what Vlad is using to get his shit out on the streets and stay off our radar,” I point out, steering the conversation back.

---