Page 27 of The Devil's Reward
I nod. “Makes sense that our mole put it in there, though. Especially since it was only one packet. Cryos spends most of his time in that room anyway, so he was probably covering all bases.”
“What I want to know is, when would he have had time to do all this shit, and how did he get into the rooms,” King says slowly, eyes narrowed in concentration.
“Picked the locks or made a master key, I’d say,” Viper replies. “Which means he’s swiped one of ours without us noticing.”
A thought that doesn’t sit well with me, especially since we don’t know if that’s all he swiped.
“So now we need to figure out how he heard about the plan,” Stone says.
Viper and I exchange a glance. “The only places we discussed this were in Bullet’s office and at the offices here. We searched Bullet’s office and found this,” I tell them as I pull the small bag out of my back pocket, showing them the tiny device we found taped to the back of a picture of Rose on Bullet’s desk.
“We’ve de-commissioned it,” Viper adds when they all let out curses. “So we know that we’re good now.”
“Any way to trace it?” Torque asks.
“Cryos would be the one to do that,” Bullet remarks.
“But we don’t know if we can trust him now,” King supplies, realizing where this is going. “It would make sense, especially since he has so much opportunity with electronics. He could jam his own signals easily enough.”
“Fuck, this is a fucking mess,” Stone growls. “Can’t trust our own brother to check this shit out.”
I glance at Viper, who gives a slight nod to okay me offering my suggestion. “We have another option,” I say carefully.
They all look at me in surprise and suspicion. “Who?” Bullet asks carefully.
“Crypt.”
“The new Prospect?” Stone asks in disbelief. “As in, the man you’re sponsoring and has been a Prospect all of twenty-four hours?”
I nod. “He’s former Forces, and his specialty is covert intel. He’s also handy with computers.”
“We don’t need to tell him why we’re giving him the device,” Viper points out. “We could just tell him we want him to track down where it came from, see what he comes back with. Hell, tell him it’s a test to see if he can handle that kind of shit on his own. We don’t have to say outright that it’s club business.”
“We shouldn’t have to resort to this kind of shit in the first place,” Stone snaps. “What the hell kind of club are we becoming where we’re inviting women and fucking Prospects to solve our problems? To track down a mole?” His frustration is evident.
“You think we’re happy about this?” Viper snaps back at him, his own anger swirling.
“I think that I’m ready to call people out, and fuck this stealth mode,” Stone replies coldly.
“And send our mole right back into hiding, or tip him off enough to run to Dmitri and bring a war to our doorstep we’re not ready for,” I point out as calmly as I can, my temper slipping.
“Oh, we’re ready,” Stone disagrees with a rictus grin. “I for one am all for getting our hands dirty if it means getting Dmitri and his poison out of our town. If we take out our mole at the same time, all the better.”
“Or he’ll be fighting behind us, stabbing or shooting us in the back,” Bullet points out grimly. “I get what you’re saying, son, and trust me, I want to be right there with you, but Hammer, the others, and I worked hard to get us out of that life. The bloodbath back then cost us more than you can imagine. You think you’re ready, but when it comes to making a choice about which brother to trust, there’s a whole other side to it. You could gun down a man you think is guilty, but is actually innocent, while the real animal is safe on the sidelines, laughing at what he’s caused.”
“Which brings us back to my original point,” I interject before Stone can argue. “We have someone who we know hasn’t been bought off by Dmitri or one of his men. Let him look at the bug, see what he can dig up on his own, and then we decide.”
“And we don’t tell him what it’s for, or how we got it?” Bullet asks.
I nod. “For all he’ll know, it’s just routine work for a case. If he finds anything else, we’ll instruct him to speak to only Viper or I, no one else.”
“And you trust him?” Torque asks quietly, looking at me with eyes a lot like his father’s.
They all turn to look at me, even Viper. I nod firmly. “Yes, I trust him. He’s been in situations with me before that few could handle, and had the request been granted back then, he would have been on my team. I checked what records I could after I offered him the job, and he’s been decorated multiple times. If I’m wrong, then it’ll fall on me.”
I learned a long time ago to trust my gut, and with Crypt, it’s telling me we can trust him.
“That’s good enough for me,” Bullet says quietly. “We’ll give the bug to Crypt, get him to look into it. Depending on his findings, we’ll make a plan for our next move. If he can track it, even tell us who bought it, we’re one step closer.”
