Hostile Ground (The Arsenal #7) - Cara Carnes Page 0,75
play?” Edge asked.
“Yes.” Kristof glanced at the floor. “A few batches were sold between Stacia and my approach to him. By then he’d firmly taken control of his syndicate and I knew he wouldn’t be overthrown. He’d approached me and we’d struck the new deal to remove my father from the alliance. We’d worked well enough together for me to share with him what I’d done for Stacia.”
“And what arrangement did you all make? What we’re seeing alludes to one, but I can’t figure out exactly what it was,” Jesse said.
Kristof sighed. “Enough time had passed that we felt confident Father wouldn’t suspect anything. Gavriil met with Father and pandered to his pride, said that he wished to set their past grievances aside and form a mutually beneficial trade agreement. He’d provide Father with the weapons and munitions he’d need, but the cost was substantially higher than it’d been before.”
“Why would he agree to that then?” Gage asked.
“He had no choice,” Maksim said. “Kristof called in favors he’d accumulated with others and had them raise their prices higher than what Gavriil offered two months before the meeting took place.”
“Damn,” Nolan said. “That’s slick.”
“We then used those funds to acquire the women and children Father sold through my network,” Kristof said. “Gavriil would buy a few outright under the guise of using them in his US operations, but we’d fund the purchases using some of the munitions profits. The remainder of the money was pulled from monies I either syphoned from Father’s other transactions or earned from my work with The Collective.”
“Which your father never knew you did,” Jesse said.
“I thought it best for him not to know.”
“Wow. Remind me never to do business with you,” Zoey muttered.
A few people laughed.
“The favors I accumulated weren’t through good deeds. I’ve done a lot I’m not proud of,” he admitted. “But I’d do it all again.”
“Based on what HERA’s analyzed, it appears the heavy bleeding began three years ago. He initially overcame that through a few secret enterprises he opened without Kristof’s knowledge,” Edge said. “None of them are ones we want to go into detail with here.”
“What were they?” Kristof asked. Anger seeped in him. Of course Father had gone further into the perversions he pandered to. “Pleasure houses?”
“Worse than that in some cases,” Edge said. “They pander to particular depravities from what we’ve found.”
Nausea pitched his stomach. “I had no idea.”
Silence descended a few moments. Addy shifted her weight so her side impacted with him. “You couldn’t know everything. Give yourself a break.”
“She’s right,” Gage said. “I’m not sure I could’ve strategized as well as you did. It’s impressive.” Several people nodded their agreement.
Nolan cleared his throat. “So, what changed?”
“The new enterprises slowed the bleeding but didn’t stop it. The financials buried the bleed deep enough that Kostya likely couldn’t find its origin,” Jesse said. “The hidden bank accounts we found were opened last year. Deposits into them are traced back to the Mandrake splinter group we’re fighting.”
“He’s the Russian connection,” Addy said. “Working with Yesim’s group.”
“That’s what we suspect,” Edge said. “We have most of the pieces for this complicated puzzle, but we have a few missing ones we’ll likely never figure out.”
“There are a couple of red flags we need to address before we close this off,” Jesse said. “First, we still have no leads on who that woman is. None of the Mandrake files we’ve hacked have any intel on the interrogator or a potential operative.”
“She’s likely off book for black-ops work,” Addy said. “Peter had those at Hive.”
Kristof’s stomach soured. She’d been one of Peter’s most used off-the-books operatives.
“That’s what we suspect, which means she’s extremely trained,” Edge said. “She’s an unknown variable we’ll need to be on the lookout for.”
Everyone nodded.
“The final ones cut closer to the bone,” Jesse said. “Surveillance of the compound didn’t spot him, but Spade did go to Mandrake. We aren’t sure whether he’s with Mandrake proper or this supposed splinter cell.”
“Which means we might stumble across the shithead,” Beast said. He cracked his knuckles. “I’m ready.”
Everyone nodded.
Kristof realized whoever Spade was, he’d somehow ended up on The Arsenal’s asshole list. He studied Zoey and noted the worry on her face.
Interesting.
“When are we hitting the compound?” Kristof asked.
“Tomorrow night, assuming your teams get approved by our ground teams by then,” Jesse said.
The timeline was aggressive but doable. He wouldn’t hinder The Arsenal’s plan, especially since they’d added Olaf’s rescue to their mission agenda. “My teams will be available immediately.”