Page 19 of Shattered

“Who’s got a date?” Keaton joined our conversation.

“Me and Jade.”

“Took you long enough.” He clapped me on the shoulder. “You owe me twenty bucks.”

“You bet against me, Lanie?”

She shrugged, walking to our shared desk to dig her wallet out of her purse. Handing over the crisp bill to Keaton, she explained, “Technically, no one bet against you. We bet on how long it would take to officially remove your head from your ass.”

“Oh, so much better,” I deadpanned.

“All right people.” Duncan strolled through the room with Nelson trailing behind him. He made a beeline for the Keurig on the counter, popping a pod into the machine, then leaned against the counter with his feet crossed in his signature stance. “What have we learned about this Brandon Little character? And where the hell is Noah?”

“Right here.” The man in question rounded the corner from the bathroom.

Everyone, except Duncan, gathered around the long wooden table to the left of our desks, where we held the majority of our briefings. Nelson clicked a few keys on his government-issued laptop, projecting the images from his screen to the recently purchased ninety-eight inch monitor hanging on the far wall. Numerous surveillance photos of Brandon Little appeared within seconds.

“He hasn’t changed much since high school,” Lanie spoke. “Still has the same pretty-boy face, except there’s an emptiness behind his eyes that wasn’t there when I knew him.”

“Kinda what happens when you sell your soul to the devil,” Noah said under his breath, earning him a side-eye from Lanie.

“According to what the DEA gave us,” Nelson started, “Little moved to Huntington nine years ago, after a briefstint in California. His first arrest for intent to distribute happened about eight months later, but was dismissed on a technicality.”

“You said his first arrest,” I questioned. “How many has he had since he’s been here?”

Nelson clicked his mouse and the screen changed from photos to a list of police reports. “Thirteen,” he stated.

“Not a smart criminal then. Good to know,” Keaton scoffed.

“So he left Colorado, moved to California where he got involved with Los Tredos, then came to Nowhere, West Virginia to help ramp up their drug business? Why here?”

Lanie’s question was solid and one I’d been thinking about as well. It would’ve made more sense to send him to a city with a major waterway. Unless…

“Where does Little work? What’s his legitimate job?” Keaton asked, his mind in sync with mine.

Nelson opened up a second screen on his laptop with our suspect’s demographics. Skimming through the information, the pieces began to fall into place.

“The railroad.” Duncan’s deep voice reverberated through the room.

Trans Continental Express—TCX for short—was one of the country’s leading suppliers of rail-based freight transportation. It also happened to have a major manufacturing plant in Huntington.

“It tracks, pun intended,” I agreed. “If they gained control of the rails, they’d be able to use them for more of their business than simply transporting drugs.”

Considering they build the damn rail cars right down the street, I could only imagine what they’d be capable of hiding during the process. Or the storage places they could be adding to those things. The possibilities were endless.

“If what you’re saying has merit, then we have to take a closer look at some of the higher-ups in the organization,” Lanie chimed in. “Brandon has never been a puppet master. I highly doubt that would’ve changed in the last decade.”

“I’d hazard a guess it’s the DEA’s main goal in having Lanie go undercover. To find whoever is pulling the strings and connect them somehow to Los Tredos, possibly even the Bratva.”

The temperature in the room dropped significantly with Keaton’s statement. Since our second meeting with Agents Hendricks and Harty a few days prior, the subject of Lanie’s impending collaboration with our drug enforcement counterparts had been avoided at all costs. Mainly to keep Noah from losing his shit again, but also because of how dangerous the mission was. The reality of her being put directly in the path of the Russian mafia hadn’t sat well with any of us.

For the next few hours, we dug through nearly every database at our disposal, searching the criminal and financial history for each of the top five TCX executives. All in all, we’d found a few unpaid parking tickets, and a drunken disorderly charge—which was later dropped—from a casino in Vegas. On paper, they appeared to be your average law-abiding citizens with above average bank accounts. It was a total crock of shit though. These execs were dirtier than the clothes in my gym bag, we just needed time and a deeper dive below the surface to yield anything of substance. Sadly, time wasn’t something we had a lot of at the moment.

When one thirty rolled around, I quietly packed up my shit, slipped out of the office without a big production being made about my early departure, and made the drive home in record time. My condo was nestled on the edge of Huntington’s city limits, close to the action yet far enough away the stars were clearly visible from my balcony late at night. Aside from a collage of family pictures I’d strategically mounted on one wall, the inside of my place was nothing special.

Despite the comfy lounger sofa and big screen TV taking up the majority of space in the living room, it felt bare. Even with the splashes of color scattered throughout my two bedroom condo, courtesy of my mother’s obsession with throw pillows, it didn’t seem bright enough. Something—or more precisely—someone was missing. I knew down to my marrow; Jade was the game changer I’d been waiting for. She was my perfect complement.

Showered and changed into my nicest charcoal-gray suit with a baby-blue button-down shirt, I climbed back into my car and set off toward the main highway. Jade may have considered our nuptials to be nothing more than a quick trip to the courthouse, however, I was determined to give her a wedding to remember.

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