Page 100 of The Devil's Reward
Most of them are just reminder notes or receipts, but it’s the last one that has me pausing. Because inside it is a note, and a picture. Loki whines, nudging at the paper in my hands with his nose. Then I see it, more small traces of white on it. “Good boy,” I tell the dog. “Looks like either Hammer used this paper as something to snort that with, or one of the bags he had in here had a hole in it and it got on the paper.”
“Then it would have to be very recently because we searched this room,” Syn reminds us. Sniper looks over at her sharply. Shit. I forgot he wasn’t in the know on that. Instead of answering the question on his face, I look at Syn. “And we hit in this room, but the dogs searched everywhere right?” I ask.
She nods. “The only place the dogs hit were the desk, the bottom dresser drawer, and under the mattress.”
“Someone want to explain to me what the hell is going on? And what the hell do you mean, the dogs already searched?” Sniper demands, voice tight.
I glance at him. “We had the idea that if our mole was close by, he might be hiding his product, and what better way to find him without us doing the search and possibly getting caught than to have Syn bring the dogs. Only our mole somehow discovered the plan and put drugs in every person’s room. Including yours.”
His eyes go hard. “So he’s got a bug somewhere,” he summarizes.
“We swept and found it in Bullet’s office. We’re not sure how he got it in there, but it was the only explanation for how he knew about the search when the only people present for the discussion were Me, Viper, Bullet, and Syn.”
“Motherfucker,” Sniper growls. “And you think Hammer was the mole?”
Syn holds up her hand. “I have a feeling I don’t need to hear this, so I’m going to take Loki out and reward him for the find. If you want another search, I’ll bring Ebony up.” Then she turns, gives a command to the dog, and heads out. I hear her praise him as she goes down the hall.
“Fuck, this is a mess,” Sniper growls, running a hand through his hair.
I nod, but my attention is on the note. There’s nothing of importance in it, just some dates but nothing else. Then I look at the picture and everything stops. In the picture is Hammer with Bullet and another man. A man with the patch of President and a road name of Bull.
I’ve seen some pictures of Bull, but he was older, with a thick beard, and in this one, he’s much younger, his face just covered with scruff, and a cigarette in his mouth. He’s a big man, but you can see the hard glint in his eyes. Eyes that I’ve seen before. And a face that looks far too much like someone else we know.
“Fuck,” I hiss, turning and moving quickly out of the room. Sniper is hot on my heels. I don’t know if he’s connected the dots yet, but I have.
I move quickly past everyone, past the curious faces, including Quinn whose eyes follow me with hurt, but I can’t think about that right now. I walk into Cryos’s office, and tell Sniper to shut the door. Cryos looks up at me in surprise, eyes red from being awake all night, and hair a mess from running his hands through it. “What’s up?” he asks tiredly.
“You did a run on Bull at one point?” I ask him briskly.
“Long time ago, yeah, but more out of curiosity than anything deep,” Cryos says in confusion.
“Was there anything in your findings about Bull having a kid? A son, specifically?” I ask him, and I hear Sniper take in a sharp breath.
Cryos frowns. “No, I don’t think so.” He types quickly on his keyboard and I turn to look at all the screens. An old driver’s license photo of Bull is on display, but he looks hard, angry at the world, and has a long thick beard that obscures his face. Even then, he looked like a man up to no good. “I have nothing on record about him being named as a father for anyone,” Cryos says, “but let me do a more in-depth search.”
“His legal name was Christopher Markins,” Sniper says as he stares at the photo on screen. “What was his middle name?”
“Arnold,” Cryos says absently, and then he stops. “Wait,” he says, also putting the dots together. “Isn’t Dagger’s legal name Christopher Arnold?”
Son of a bitch, we just found our mole.
FIFTY-ONE
MOLE
It’s time for me to go.
Panic hits me hard as I listen to them through the door. I saw them go in and since I was closest to them, I moved over ever so slightly to make sure that I could listen. And then I hear it. I hear them make the connection and I know I’m out of time.
The panic recedes and fury is in its place as I move away and head up to my room. I need to get out of here before they come looking for me. They’ve messed it all up. I still need to deal with Bullet, but I won’t make it out of here alive if I do. Too many fucking people around for that to happen. And I plan to enjoy the spoils of all my hard work.
Which means, I need a way to get out of here without them stopping me.
I shove the dresser in the closet out of the way, reach inside and grab my bag of burner phones, the cash I need, and the gun that I keep there. I make sure it’s loaded and then I stuff a couple of burner phones in my pockets and head out. I don’t need anything else. Nothing else matters because anything that does, well, I have that ready to go in case this happened.
No surprise, the common area is full of people, so I casually head into the kitchen. I can sneak out the back door. Except, I’m not the only one in the kitchen. Viper has his back to me by the counter, and is shamelessly flirting with Shadow’s whore. Looks like I’m not about to make a clean getaway. I pull my gun from my waistband and make my way towards them.
Shadow’s whore looks at me in confusion, and then her eyes widen when she sees the gun in my hands. Viper, of course, sees the look, but he’s not fast enough. Thank fuck he’s leaning over or I wouldn’t be able to reach that giant ass head of his. I bring the butt of the gun down hard on the back of his head, making him grunt in pain, and he starts to fall, but then rights himself.
