Page 115 of Love Thy Brother
If that was Alexei’s attempt at reassurance, he could suck a bag, but I knew better than to rise up. My favourite hitman was nothing if not efficient. The ambassador of ruthless conversation.
I breathed a deep breath and made myself wait.
“All right.” Cam knocked his fist on the table. “Mateo’s come through with word on the county lines crew. Their re-up arrived overnight and he tracked them back to Enfield. Turns out, they’re ripping off their own crew to shift product down here, which is good news for us in the long term, but still leaves us work to do in the short.”
I nodded, understanding the process.
Embry frowned. “We can’t just let their own people put them down?”
“Eventually,” Cam said. “But it goes back to what we talked about last time. We need these crews to be scared of us. To respect us. If we don’t put this down ourselves, we’ll be fighting this shit for the rest of our lives.”
Nash lit a cigarette. “How far do we push it? However poxy this crew is, we can’t take the fight to Enfield.”
“Agreed.” I rubbed my temples. “And I ain’t chasing teenagers around. We need to cut them off between there and here.”
Sarcasm piled into Cam’s habitual glower. “Really, you think?” He nodded to Saint. “Fill them in.”
Saint was still spinning in his chair. He stilled long enough to send Cam a stare as flat as the Lincolnshire fens. Then he unfolded himself from the chair with the grace of a fucking cheetah and swiped a bottle of water from the centre of the table. “There’s six of them. Two in the stash house in Truro, the other four rotating to smuggle product from Enfield to a place in Berkshire. From there, they recruit shotters in Reading and put them on trains in every direction you can think of. If we hit them there, we can stop county lines traffic flowing into more places than just here.”
It was a lot for Saint to say at once. A hell of a lot. Even Cam blinked.
Not River, though. He came forward and braced his fists on the table, his club ring swinging free of his faded black tee. “You can’t target the kids on the trains. They’re fucking victims.”
“I know.” Saint paced around Nash and came to a stop behind Cam. “I was getting to that.”
“Go on then.”
A pause expanded across the table, too long and loaded for anyone except Saint to style out as he moved closer to Cam and Alexei, taking his place between them. In years gone by, he’d have lit up to buy more time, but he didn’t smoke anymore. Barely drank. Just boshed edibles in his downtime to keep that big brain as quiet as the rest of him.
“They meet once a week,” he said eventually. “The four of them. On the road in two cars we’ve already put trackers on. If Mateo’s right, they’ll link up tonight to distribute the cash the shotters brought back. If we hit them now, we can fuck them up and take their cash.”
Worked for me. “What about the house in Truro?”
“It would need to be a coordinated hit,” Alexei said. “Or their operation would continue here regardless. It is a shame we do not have the manpower or intel to hit them everywhere at once, but this will have to be enough.”
“We can’t mobilise other charters?” River asked.
We.A slip of his devilish tongue, but my heart did a premature happy dance all the same. “We can mobilise whoever we want. Won’t do us much good if we don’t know where to send them. Wherever the rest of this load went, we have to let it go.”
River nodded, then caught Cam observing our exchange and blew him a middle finger kiss. “What? I can be reasonable.”
“Uh-huh. Me too. That’s why I’m putting you and Rubi on the stash house in Truro. So you can settle that score while Saint and Nash deal with the Reading boys.”
River opened his mouth, but Cam wasn’t done.
“Don’t get too excited. I’m coming with you.”
“What?” That came from me. “What the fuck for? You’re not supposed to be on the road anymore.”
“Neither are you,” Cam countered. “Neither areanyof us when we can avoid it, but if you think I’m going to sit here while the cunts who tried to kill you are still walking free, you’re out of your damn mind. Besides, it’ll keep me away from other things.”
“What other things?”
“Timmersons.” He gestured to Alexei. “Your turn.”
Alexei leaned forward and addressed River. “As promised, the property company is now facing bankruptcy due to an unpaid tax bill. Divorce and other boring problems have tied up any personal funds that might rescue the company, and they are on their knees.”
River arched a brow. “Amazing. What’s the catch?”
