Page 40 of Stay Toxic

I rolled my eyes at the man’s obliviousness.

Surely he wasn’t that naïve.

But as I listened to more and more of his conversation with the two men, I realized that he was.

He was just that stupid that he had no clue how he’d been played. He also had no clue that his warehouse wasn’t being used for the ‘seed production for nursery plants.’

From what Alexi told me, the only thing that’d been found in that building was a block of cells, bread, water and a bathroom in the fuckin’ corner for the guards.

Hearing everything I needed to hear, I placed the phone to my ear and called Lev.

“You get anything on this guy’s phone records?” I asked.

He knew who I was talking about because he’d been listening to everything that was said via a small wire that I was wearing.

I made it to Nastya, who grinned excitedly when I handed her the hot chocolate.

“No,” Lev grumbled. “This guy is meticulous about his phone. He’s using a burner, and it’s not even a smartphone, because he doesn’t trust the government. The man doesn’t even have a bank account. According to what I’ve been able to dig up, the dude mistrusts the government so much that any money he makes he asks for in cash. He has a vault in his living room that houses all his cash.”

“Keep looking. Maybe he’ll slip up,” I instructed.

“Will do,” Lev said distractedly.

Hanging up the phone, I slipped it into my pocket, then said, “We can go now.”

A cheer rent the air behind us and there were a group of people who were crowded around the judge’s stand—Brecken included.

She had a huge smile on her face, and she was holding up a plastic bag with her fish in it.

After a few moments of excitement, she walked to the water with the fish and released it.

I watched her go, wishing I could see more of her body, but the camo coveralls covered every inch of her.

“You have it bad, don’t you?”

I looked at my sister, Nastya, and said, “No idea what you’re talking about.”

She rolled her eyes and hooked her arm in mine. “You keep telling yourself that, Shasha.”

I don’t know what kind of sex makes y’all want a joint bank account, but I haven’t had it yet.

—Brecken’s secret thoughts

BRECKEN

“Ryler, can I look something up on your laptop?” I asked, hoping to get a few minutes alone with his laptop so I could look into his files.

I knew he had the files I wanted on his computer, too, because this was the one he kept at home, under lock and key, in his safe.

It had all of the company’s information on it, including a client list.

All of my brothers had this client list, of course, but his was right there in front of me.

“Sure,” my brother hastily said as he all but shoved the laptop off his lap and stood up.

He grinned and got up, leaving his open laptop on the couch where he’d just been sitting.

Ryler made a run for the bathroom—sadly, almost all of the Sweat family was lactose intolerant thanks to my father’s awesome genes—and I knew he’d be in there for a long time.

---