Page 9 of Pound

Pound’s mind was wandering as Granite ended his call. “There’s been a power shift in the Moreno family since we last dealt with them.” That name alone made him want to gag. Moreno. They weren’t the Morenos he knew, but the name still dredged up memories better left buried. “The late wife’s uncle or some shit is in charge now. Has been for a few months. He assures me that while Jake owes the family half a mil, he didn’t order her taken. He’s already written the debt off.”

“Then who the hell did? We all heard. She was taken over money. Who the hell else did Jake get in bed with?” Trip was angry, and rightfully so. Pound was not only nursing a hangover, but his emotions were also on the surface, so he kept his mouth shut as much as he could.

“Priest? Whiskey?” Granite asked the two supersleuths of the club.

“Nothing turned up other than the money borrowed from them. He hadn’t paid any bills in at least six months.”

“Yeah,” Taps interjected, “but the credit card companies and streaming services don’t usually resort to such drastic measures to collect? Do you think this uncle is lying?”

“Anything’s possible when dealing with these people, but I didn’t get that impression. The man sounded overwhelmed to me. He never expected to be in charge, and you can tell. Said his nephew was the one who loaned Jake that amount of money, and when he didn’t deliver, he disowned the nephew. I don’t think he can hold the Moreno family for very long.”

“Do we want him to?” All eyes turned toward Pound. “What? It’s a valid question. If he’s not as cutthroat as the man before him or the man after him, wouldn’t it benefit the general population if he stayed in charge?”

Granite rapped his knuckles on the table and pointed toward sleuths one and two, both of which were tapping away on laptops. It was a strange sight to have computers in church. Granite was particular about being overheard, but exceptions were made. Especially when time was of the essence.

“Could the nephew have taken her?” Priest posed the question that was forming in Pound’s mind too.

“I was wondering the same myself. But if he thinks this move will get him back in, Victor assured me that it would not. Apparently extending that much credit to Jake was just his latest fuckup in a long line of poor decisions. Ones everyone overlooked because he was the heir apparent, until now. Victor wanted him out, and Jake’s debt was the straw. Evidently, he crossed the line with selling minors. Putting the entire Reno branch on the outs with most the rest of the family.”

“Wow, the morals of mobsters. They buy and sell people daily, but they draw a line at seventeen versus eighteen?” Every man in the room was disgusted with the whole concept. But for Taps to say what they were all thinking, and being serious, well, shit was real.

“Got it,” Priest piped in. “Victor Pastore.”

“Damn,” Whiskey interrupted. “The man has no criminal record. A few minor traffic violations dating back to the eighties. A divorce, an old child support agreement which he’d never missed a payment on. He’s practically a saint.”

Pound was skeptical. “Then how did he end up in charge of that shit show?”

“Looks like he married into the right side of the wrong family. They stayed away from all the Morenos until his wife’s sister got sick. They moved in eight months ago. She passed shortly after, and Reno Moreno wanted to move in a different direction after that, it looks like.”

“And you’re getting all that from your police database or whatever you’re tapped into?”

“I don’t just tap into a database, veep. I form connections. Human ones. One of them is undercover with some outliers, and so he has some firsthand information.” Pound didn’t miss the dig. He’d fucked up… repeatedly.

He’d disappointed all his brothers. Not just in the last few days but since he and Granite founded the Phantoms. The family. A family he kept at arm’s length. Then he claimed a brother’s sister and turned around and tried to stick his dick in the first set of lips he saw.

Pound realized he had two choices. Leave the club and his brothers because he was a shit vice and an even shittier brother. Or he could let them in.

He didn’t know if he was strong enough to do either.

“I say we get Meri back first. If it turns out he had no part in this, then we have a serious discussion about it. Having the Moreno family as allies couldn’t hurt. Even more so if they’re scaling back their shit dealings. The problem then partially becomes ours to help Victor hold them. That deserves some serious thought before we move on that front. For now, let’s use the slight rapport we have with him to our advantage.”

Pound was getting that itchy feeling. The one where his skin felt too small to contain him. Call it sixth sense or whatever, but it usually meant something was coming. Not a good something either.

“We ride in an hour. Morningstar offered up the hospitality of his clubhouse. I wanna be there before oh dark thirty. The last thing I want is to be sitting in Vegas with my dick in my hand if we get a bead on her. The Travelers have suffered enough.”

“How are they?” Thunder was referring to the members who were shadowing Meri.

“One dead. One in bad shape. I owe them. They were there because I made the wrong decision.”

Granite was beating himself up for not moving on the situation with Jake’s debt before it came to Meri being taken. Trip had basically said as much when it happened. The look on the secretary’s face said he’d had a change of heart.

“We owe them. We’re brothers. We face the good and the bad as Phantoms.” That was as close to an apology as Trip would issue, but it was enough. They all understood. Tempers flare, and words fly, but in the end, they all had a say, and no one thought Meri was in that kind of danger. The failure was shared.

The rhythmic banging of fists on the table was a war cry and a mournful cadence at the same time.

“Leone Moreno.” Priest’s words ricocheted off the walls and pierced Pound’s heart.

Why. Why was his brother saying that name? Panicked, Pound looked to Granite. The only person alive who knew what that name meant to him.

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