Page 71 of Last One Standing
“To get the cartel?” Noel shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. I found out the shipment, and this operation, are taking place in two weeks. Which gives us time.”
“Time to what?” Phoenix asked.
“Time to make Brick the most hated man in the underworld and give us the upper hand.” Noel smiled like a kid who’d won the science fair.
“You have a plan?” I sat back, intrigued. The twins irritated me, but I didn’t doubt they were smart.
“I do.” Noel tapped the table in a drumroll. “We get information to Colette that Brick is working for the FBI and the shipment is a setup. We explain to her that some rival biker gang destroyed her property, and because Brick is working with the FBI to nail her, they are supplying the guns and drugs to trap the cartel.”
“Uh…” Mason interrupted. “She’ll tell the cartel, and they’ll never catch them, and let’s be honest here—they are more ruthless and evil than the Dead Kings.”
“You’re not going to get everyone in this fight, Mason.” Shep wiped his mouth and sighed. “It would be great if we could, but we’re limited. Right now, we can’t have Colette targeting us. So Noel’s plan isn’t bad. She’ll be angry. We state that he’s done us wrong and started a war with us over it.”
“If she arranges a meeting with Brick, we could get her in the same place as him and eliminate them both, right?” JJ asked.
“Except she works with Bratva and the cartel. They won’t be very happy if we take her out,” Four countered.
“Unlessssssssss.” Nick cackled. “We make it look like the Kings took her out. They’ll be dead, so they won’t be able to retaliate, and we leave the cartel and Bratva to the alphabet authorities to fight another day.”
“Ideally this is brilliant, but you have to leave room for this to go horribly wrong, and then the cartel and whatever mafias willcome to wipe us out too.” Matt cocked his head. “This is insane. You get that, right?”
“We do.” Noel beamed. “But we have no choice. Brick will throw us under the bus with either the FBI and ATF or Colette. If we don’t step in and do something drastic, we won’t be the ones standing when the dust settles.”
There was a somber silence as we all let what Noel said sink in. This whole thing was bigger than we’d originally thought, but we were in the thick of it and backing down wasn’t an option. Brick was coming after us even if we waved a white flag, which we would never do. Colette was an obstacle in our way, but we could use it to our advantage. And that was what we were going to do.
“Okay, so how do we get in touch with Colette? It’s not like we can just call her cell phone,” Gabe scoffed.
Nick chuckled. “But that’s exactly what we’re going to do. Imagine her surprise the moment her very private, very untraceable phone rings, and she answers it from someone she never gave her number to. It would actually give us more power.”
“Are we giving her our names?” Phoenix bit his lip.
“Absolutely not,” I answered and glared at Nick. “She can’t know who we are.”
“Brick will likely tell her if cornered.” Kona’s lips thinned. “But, and don’t take offense to this, if she looks into you guys, she might think you’re all too small and that he’s lying more.”
Noel pointed at Kona. “That’s what we’ll go for.”
“This plan has more holes in it than Swiss cheese.” Matt covered his face with his hand.
“Swiss cheese floats.” Noel looked smug.
“Does it?” Gabe got up and probably was going to go see if it did, in fact, float.
“Okay, while Gabe goes and does science, let’s perfect this.” Nick sighed.
We spent the next hour deciding exactly what to say to Colette, how to get eyes on her, and how this would end. Evading the FBI might not be too hard since we were sure Carmichael hadn’t told them we knew about the deal with Brick.
“It’ll be better if Brick thinks his life is falling apart. It will make it harder for him to focus.” Four glared at the screen where we were putting our plan in place.
“How so?” Shep asked.
Kona was the one who answered. “You want to tell the club what Brick’s been doing without their knowledge?”
Four grinned, something he didn’t do often, and I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t unsettling. “Exactly.”
I nodded. “Let’s get that news to them.”
There was no way the Dead Kings were going to believe someone telling them their maniac leader was working with the FBI. They’d need solid proof.
