Page 219 of Smooth Sailing

“I only get one?” Di returned.

Yup, that was his woman.

“C’mon, darlin’,” Big Petey urged, holding a hand Di’s way. “We’ll get a game started while Jag sets us up.”

Di headed toward Big Petey and the air hockey table as Jag went to the fridge.

Hugger followed Eight and Mace to the den situated at the front of the crib. Sylvie, Tucker, Cap and Sixx followed them.

Cap closed the door behind them.

Eight took a tablet from the desk in there, woke it up, and handed it to Hugger.

Hugger looked at the picture on it and sucked in a sharp breath.

The picture showed three men on their asses on the ground, backs propped up against a wall, but still falling into each other.

That was because they were filled with holes, covered in blood and very dead.

Resting on their laps were two big pieces of paper. One said I’m and the other said Done.

One of the men was Esad Babic. The other two were his bros.

“This is what the Costa Rican authorities found when they caught up with Esad,” Mace shared.

Hugger locked eyes with Eight.

Eight shook his head. “Not us. We were down there, working with some connections to procure firearms, but we were too late. Heard word the deed was done, got back to the States late this afternoon.”

“So who?” Hugger asked. “And what does ‘I’m done’ mean?”

Sixx came closer. “Imran hasn’t left Bolivia. That doesn’t mean Imran can’t call a hit. And word is, Imran called three hits from his hacienda in Bolivia.”

Hugger was shocked as shit. “He gave the order to have his own son whacked?”

“Imran is a lunatic,” Sylvie chimed in, “but he’s a shrewd businessman. Cops and Feds have been all over his properties here in the Valley, and elsewhere. They found nothing to tie him to anything but his legit dealings. Imran’s problem was they had Esad’s phone, which was a big get. Though, when they searched Esad’s house, they found his laptop, something the moron left behind, which was an even bigger one. It held a wealth of information, not only about the crap he’d been doing, but about his dad’s interests. They also got Esad’s car, with his address history in his navigation system. Led them to known and unknown stash houses, safehouses and warehouses of the Babic empire. There was quite a bit of connecting the dots of shell companies and known associates, still more to do, but all of it so far, with all the shit in it, has been connected to Imran.” She paused and finished, “They’re cooked.”

“As in ‘done,’” Tucker added.

Hugger couldn’t believe this. “His boy programmed stash houses and safehouses in his satnav?”

“Yep,” Tucker confirmed.

Christ, that guy was one stupid motherfucker.

“Cops and Feds have rounded up most of Imran’s army,” Mace put in. “Not all of them, but most of them. None of them are talking. Either because of their code, or because they’re terrified of Babic, considering he’d call a hit on his own son, and the aforementioned fact he’s a lunatic.”

Cap took it from there, “Some of his soldiers are still breathing free, but they’ve scattered. A few of them headed to Bolivia. Most of them crossed the border into Mexico.”

“In the wind?” Hugger asked.

“For now,” Cap answered.

“There’s more,” Sixx said.

“What’s that?” Hugger prompted when that was all she said.

“Babic got word to someone who would get word to me,” she replied. “This was so I could tell Mace, Sylvie, Tucker or someone who would get that word to you boys since he didn’t know we’d been introduced. He shared he has no beef with either Nolan or Diana Armitage, and he never did.”

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