Page 25 of Overstaying His Welcome

Ajax had been into weapons.

The others had various indiscretions involving drugs and collecting things, including people.

But Diestro was trickier.

His tendency to disappear at the drop of a hat, and all the stories we had of him were more like legends. It was as if people went around through towns like olden days and spoke of him over a fire in hushed tones. He was the big bad in the scary movie, the evil villain in the fantasy.

And with unchecked power like that, with unknown resources, I wasn't quite sure how to stop him. I just knew that whatever we chose to do, it had to be done quickly and efficiently. I couldn't allow him to get any closer to Chance.

If he came after me, that was fine. I could protect myself. I knew that my team would be able to take care of things.

But Chance didn't have that.

Sure, his security team could ward off a fanatical person who didn't agree with his politics. They weren't prepared to go up against trained assassins and vicious gang members of a secret society.

If I hadn't already promised Carver three favors, I'd call him. Owing the Angels of Ruin anything else wasn't ideal. The bastard was going to make me pay for it, hand over fist. I just knew it. I expected him to call it any minute, though I hoped we had more time.

The sooner I could get the Gilded Ones taken care of, the more space I’d have to do other things.

Of course, I had thought of all the other contacts I had. Preacher and Dante, the leaders of the Italian mafia. Their counterpart, Pharrell, who would also help. I thought of Enzo and his strong mafia ties as well. Then there was Yamamoto, my Yakuza contact.

I even considered people on the cleaner side of the law, like Rojas and Stryker. Any of them could have jumped in to help me and would have. But the more people I brought into the fold, the more bodies I needed to worry about.

Some of them, like those with mafia connections, could protect themselves. Others, not so much.

I didn't want to cause rifts because, though they weren't always together, there were innocent bystanders for all this.

My brain went to the Princesses, led by the hilarious Princess Aster. I thought of the men over at the Coleman Ranch working under Atticus's hands. I even thought of Gerald living his life in the city now. And I couldn't bring myself to put any of them at risk.

It wasn't fair, but it was life.

“Got it!” Memphis shouted as he slammed his fists on the desk. "This bastard is good."

"Show us," I demanded pointing to the wall.

He put his screen up on the wall, giving us a front row seat to everything he had. He walked us through it piece by piece showing us where the money was coming from and how he had traced it back.

Some of it was completely ridiculous. I didn't know what it meant, and I could have spent hours learning about computers and still be confused. But what I did get, what he said in plain enough terms, was that the trail cut out.

“He had enough shell companies and locations pinging that there was no point of origin, no place that we could pinpoint.” Memphis said. “Now, I do have a list of shell companies attachedto him, and I can watch those. I can try to see if we can trace them back to any specific location. Any bank account or activity. It's tedious work, but I can maybe create a program to run it.”

“How long would that take you?” Ronan asked before I could.

“A few hours, maybe a few days. I'm honestly not sure. This is complicated stuff.”

“What if you had help? What if there was someone skilled with computers like you?”

He raised a brow. “Like whom?”

I went over my inner thoughts again and weighed out the frozen pause. I knew a few people who were technically savvy. Guys who lived ordinary lives who I'd hate to bring into this, but I had a feeling they would be willing to help.

There was one in particular who, while very young and impressionable, would get the job done.

“I’ve got two people. Really four, but I’m willing to give to you only two of them.”

Memphis laughed and shook its head. "I'll take anyone."

I pulled out my phone and dialed a number I hadn't in ages. We'd only spoken a handful of times. Hopefully owing him a favor wouldn’t come back to bite me in the ass like owing Carver would.

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