Page 11 of Deadly Aloha
“I’ve heard of produce, especially potatoes, to hide drugs,” Aftermath said as he handed me my phone back. “But not clothes.”
“Well, we’re not going to figure it out standing up here with our thumbs up our asses,” I snapped, pocketing my phone. “Red, anything on the other trackers?”
He’d been monitoring the two other trucks as they’d been moving around the island all day. The truck here was the only one that remained stationary. We’d staked out the other trucks earlier, but they were just driving. Only stopping for gas and piss breaks. Towards dusk, we gave up and came to the storage yard to see if there was any activity going on here.
There wasn’t.
I swear these fucking Bloody Scorpions are just yanking our balls. What were the chances that this whole fucking thing was just some fucked up joke just to waste my time? If it wasanyoneother than Elrik Jameson who called me, I’d consider that train of thought more seriously. But Jameson didn’t fuck around.
“They’re both headed in this direction,” Red said just as something landed on the roof of the SUV.
We all spun, hands going to our weapons, but it was just Hiro. Tangaloa and I relaxed sooner than Red or Aftermath did. They made their way down the windshield to the hood, where they sat cross-legged.
I didn’t know if Hiro had a genetic disorder that made them so small or that was just the way they were. They were four-ten and couldn’t weigh more than a hundred pounds. Their long,black hair was up in a ponytail and they had intense green eyes. I was fairly certain their father was Japanese and their mom was Columbian.
I crossed my arms over my chest, trying to act like I wasn’t praying to Maui that Hiro didn’t steal my entire life savings again. If they were, for lack of a better adjective,normal,I wouldn’t hesitate to have tracked them down and demanded my money back. But there was something about that child-like face that made it impossible for me to get violent with them. It would be like hitting a puppy. A very deviant, insanely flexible, genius-level brain puppy.
I cleared my throat. “Hiro.”
They just stared at me before turning their head to Tangaloa. “Did he shit his pants?”
“Almost,” my no-longer-best-friend answered. Either he’d told Hiro I was here, or he’d confirmed it when Hiro had asked.
I couldn’t hit Hiro, but I had no issue punching Tangaloa. He grunted, wheezing, when my fist came into contact with his solar plexus. “Fuck, you, man,” he huffed out, dropping down to one knee.
I ignored him and turned back to Hiro, who thankfully looked amused. “It was just clothes? That was it?”
They nodded. The hood of the black leotard outfit they were wearing was pulled down around their neck. “Clothes. Honestly, probably the most boring heist I’ve ever been involved in.”
Tangaloa stood back up. He kept his hands to himself, but his eyes promised retribution. I’d have to keep an eye on him for a while, but it was worth it. “Did you look at the boats?”
Hiro nodded. “Did that first. They’re empty, but they both have a lockable door on their UTD storage.”
“UTD?” Aftermath asked, getting out of the SUV. Red also exited from the other side.
“Under the deck,” Hiro, Tangaloa, and I answered in unison.
“Jinx,” Hiro laughed, pointing at me. “Now you have to give me all your money.” A cold sweat appeared on my forehead and my balls practically shriveled at the concept. But then Hiro added, “Oh, wait, you already did that.”
I scowled at them, to which they blinked their eyes so innocently I would have let them get away with murder. Fuck.
“Incoming,” Red said, holding up his tablet.
We all turned to the right in time to see the other two white box trucks coming down the main road. They disappeared under the ridgeline for a moment and then came back into view when they made the turn into the storage yard.
The first truck parked so it was grill to grill with the other truck, essentially blocking the one with all the boxes of clothes in. The last one made a quick turn and then backed up on the other side of the second truck. We all lifted our binoculars to watch as the last truck’s rolling door was lifted in the back.
Well, that explained where all the Bloody Scorpions were. I silently counted as they exited, getting somewhere around twenty-five before they were too mingled to keep counting. All were wearing cuts, had far too much leather on for their current climate, and were armed in one fashion or another.
Some went inside the storage building, clasping each other on the back or swiping a smoke. The others created a line from the back of the second truck to the storage facility’s door.Weird, I thought, until I realized it wasn’t just a line, but anassemblyline.
The rolling door opened, exposing a herd of crouching women. They were all bound with their hands behind their backs, blindfolded, and gagged. As far as I could tell, none had slippahs, and every single one was in just her underwear and bra. My grip on my binoculars tightened as I saw one Bloody Scorpion hop into the back of the truck, forcibly pick a woman up and hand her down to the next man, who passed her ontothe next, who passed her onto the next, and so on, until she disappeared inside the building. Again and again, they handed the women down the line.
When they got to the fourteenth, I realized it wasn’t a woman this time, but a very tall and skinny man. He too was bound, gagged, and blindfolded, and he couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred and ten pounds soaking wet.
The onlysmallsaving grace was that they were all adults. No kids. I was pissed, and I wasfurious, that the Bloody Scorpions had come to my island and were stealing my people, but there was a part of me that was exceedingly grateful that no kids appeared to be in that truck.
Two other men, both shorter than the first but just as small, were also passed down. Unlike with the women, when the Bloody Scorpions touched the men, they tossed them onto the next man like he was diseased. They touched and mocked the women, holding onto each one for several extra seconds.
