While working my jaw side to side to keep my annoyance on the down-low, I slot into a chair behind a bank of monitors. Grayson has already logged into servers that should be unhackable, so I commence working on establishing a connection with the main compound.
Criminal associations like the one we’re raiding tonight don’t store their assets at their residences, they use offsite compounds and commercial properties. The more valuable the asset, the more guards to watch them. This site has three men walking the property line, four guarding the main entrance, and another two in a watchtower.
Once Grayson breaks through the firewall keeping him out of the mainframe, I’m guessing there will be an additional dozen or so men inside. That’s around the standard number of goons for this type of operation.
The web we’re attempting to eradicate is massive. There are more than a dozen organizations sprouting off from it, and the list of suspects grows exponentially every day. Politicians, movie stars, drug lords, and a name I’m more than familiar with are only a handful of the men we’re chasing. It’s such a long process because this network wasn’t built overnight. It has been operating longer than I’ve been born, and very rarely are the men helming the operations’ cooperative with the authorities.
Today’s sting will barely create a ripple to the empire as a whole, but it only takes one thread to loosen an entire web. That’s the thread we’re seeking today, and we will continue seeking until each member on our list of suspects has paid for their crimes, and men like my father realize no amount of power will save them from the law.
“Don’t forget to check the sleeping quarters this time around. There are usually a few men down there every raid testing the merchandise.” Grayson’s jaw tightens at the way I snarl ‘testing.’ This operation isn’t running drugs. They like underage women.
“Do you have a feed for the main residence?” Grayson asks, his tone curious.
I jerk up my chin. “Castro isn’t going anywhere soon.”
He gags when I point to Rimi Castro, suspected leader of a Sicilian crime syndicate currently based in New Mexico. He’s in bed with three women. None of them are his wife, and I doubt any of them are over the age of twenty-one. He likes them young, but his buyers like them even younger than that.
“What’s your total?”
Grayson ensures his live stream has every inch of the compound covered before moving for the infrared system to double-check his numbers. “Looks like twenty-three in total. Nine outside the compound, fourteen inside.” He relays that to Tobias through the radio headsets the agents are wearing. They also have body cams and shoulder mics to stop any questions if our sting goes wrong.
Confident we have everything lined up, Tobias and the team climb into three blacked-out Escalades before testing communications. Once we give him the thumbs up, the operation starts. The two men in the tower are taken out first by a long-range sniper. One slumps into the wooden box they man eighteen hours straight while the larger of the two falls over the railing, landing smack bang between two guards manning the fence lines.
“Approach compromised. Sending message to Honey Pot. She’s naked.” I don’t mean the female agent we placed undercover in this operation is naked naked. It means she’s without backup and not carrying a weapon.
After switching my radio signal to a private channel, I say, “Infiltration negative. Target aware.” She can’t reply, but the quick donk, donk that sounds through my earpiece advises she heard me.
“Wait.”
Leesa, our Honey Pot, freezes immediately, narrowly missing four men sprinting through the open command center she’s tiptoeing toward. Usually, they wouldn’t give a whore a second look, but since she isn’t anywhere near the sleeping quarters at the back of the compound, their suspicions would rise as quickly as the sound of the AK-47s in the background of our feed.
“Move.”
While Leesa races for the computer responsible for the digital locks on the cages in the basement, I stray my eyes back to Castro. He’s still in bed entertaining his guests.
With my eyes back on the main monitor, and Leesa’s displaying she needs a twelve-digit sequence for access, I say, “Input the code exactly how I state. One wrong key, and you’ll be permanently locked out.”
After peering up at the camera blinking in the corner of the room, she nods. She looks scared. I’m not surprised. It isn’t every day a rookie agent goes undercover as a whore in a mafia syndicate.
Tobias had no choice but to pluck someone straight out of the academy. This job ages you very quickly. If he didn’t wade through a long list of graduates, his team would have never made it this far.
Leesa made quite the impression on Castro’s little brother, Paavo. He refused to share her with his men, and has been seen multiple times the past month in a jewelry store buying her gifts. It’s been an almost seamless operation—almost too perfect.
“Are you ready?” I wait for Leesa to nod before relaying the string of text and numbers in front of me. “Delta, Juliet, three, hotel, bravo…” I stumble over my last word when I spot Castro moving out of frame in the corner of my eye. He’s not adjusting girl number three’s hips so he can fuck her from behind, he’s throwing her off the bed. “Victor, kilo…”
While I continue reciting the passcode to Leesa, I ram my elbow into Grayson’s rib. He’s guiding agents through an almost pitch-black night, pointing out suspects lying in wait to kill them, while also remotely leading them through the warehouse, so they take the most direct route to the girls we’re endeavoring to seize.
I’ve just finished relaying the last digit of the code to Leesa when Grayson’s eyes stray to mine. When I point out Castro’s movements, I stumble onto something much more sickening than him fucking three girls at once. He’s speaking with someone, someone who can’t possibly be in two places at once, much less on two different live feeds. Castro can’t be liaising with Leesa at his residence while she’s staring directly at me from his off-site compound. It isn’t possible. Unless…
“Honey Pot has been compromised. I repeat, Honey Pot has been compromised. Pull back.”
My warning comes too late. When Leesa places the last digit into the computer’s mainframe, the cell doors in the basement pop open as predicted. They’re just not filled with underage girls, they are brimming with Sicilian operatives eager to slaughter US government officials.
2
BRANDON
“F uck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!” Grayson screams before he switches his demands from the agents on the ground to the ones in the air. “We’re being ambushed…”
