also never had a bomb explode on me either. It was most likely a latent reaction to the trauma I’d been through. Nevertheless, I had difficulty falling back asleep because I kept worrying about Scottie.
This would, no doubt, put her in harm’s way. She would want to be on the front line, hunting down the perpetrator. If Drex and his team figured out who did this, then I’d really have something to worry about because she and Isla would go off, guns blazing. I wondered how Acer was dealing with this.
Shortly after seven, my phone rang. It was Acer.
“Hey, Little Guy.”
“Cruze said you’ve been a total jerk off.”
“Yup.”
“Stop. None of us need this on top of what we’re dealing with.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I was feeling a little too sorry for myself, but I’m over it. So, what’s up?”
“I’m worried about the girls. As ex-law enforcement, we both know what’s going to happen.”
“Funny you should mention that because I was thinking the same thing when you called.”
“What are we gonna do?” he asked, concern lacing his voice.
“Nothing. If we try to stop them, it’ll piss them off. If we let them do their thing, but tell Drex to cover them, that’ll be best.”
“Isla’s a mother now. I can’t afford for her to be in a dangerous situation.”
“I understand and hopefully, she’ll see that too.”
“I was hoping you could talk to Scottie and Scottie could talk to her.”
“Yeah, Acer, I don’t think that’ll work. Law enforcement officers have kids and that doesn’t stop them from going out on calls.”
“True, but they’re not my wife.”
Laughing, I said, “That won’t get any mileage with Isla and I doubt it will with Scottie.”
“Then we’re both fucked.”
“You, worse than me.”
“Truth. So any word on when you’re getting out?”
“Nope. But I’m going to bug the doc until he can’t stand it.”
“Right. I’ll try to drop by today.”
“Hey, if you do, can you bring me some decent food?”
“I got you covered. Need anything else?”
“Yeah. Do you know what the emoji eggplant is all about?”
“Wh-what?” he stuttered. Then an ear-splitting laugh came over the phone, causing me to nearly lose my hearing.
Chapter Seven
Scottie
Last night, exhaustion claimed me before I could change my clothes. After the texts from Raiden, at first I fumed, but when he apologized, the anger melted away. My limbs were jelly as I rolled over and conked out. When I woke up, my entire body was stiff. I don’t think I moved an inch all night.
The doctor said to take it easy. Sitting at a desk wasn’t hard work, but I’d done it for twelve straight hours and the tension grew as each one passed.
It took Huff a while, but he finally found where Aiden O’Brien passed through customs several months ago. That was sufficient time to amass a team. Who knew what they were up to? We’d ruled out human trafficking. They’d broken up that ring when his brother was sent to prison, so every lead we searched had nothing to do with that.
Guns and drugs were our next best guesses. I was on the drug search team, for obvious reasons. Aiden was power hungry, so starting out fresh wouldn’t be something he’d go for. He had to either connect with another drug lord or try to take over an already established business. My searches began in Chicago, New York, Baltimore, and Miami. I doubted he’d line himself up with any of the Mexican cartels or the South American ones, only because they were turf kings and never liked to share. In fact, if anyone entered their territories, they executed them, no questions asked. Aiden was too smart for that. My thoughts were more in line with the east coast and maybe the Russian mob.
Aiden had power associated with his name, so anyone looking to gain ground would be wise to align with him. However, it would be short-lived because Aiden wouldn’t want to share. Whoever joined with him would end up as his subordinate or dead.
“Huff, can you run a search on any Russian mob killings that occurred in the past three months? I’m focusing on the east coast and Chicago.”
Isla was doing the same, except on a weapons perspective and running it from the west coast. Drex had connected Isla with someone he knew in the ATF and they had given her a file of everything they had, off the record.
It took all day for me to review the Chicago reports Huff pulled. And I didn’t even finish. There had been lots