Page 61 of More Tricks

Reaching for his back pocket, he pulled out a folded manila envelope. “This is just to show you what value I bring to the table. Giving this to you means you don’t need me as much as I need you. I hope it proves that I want this to work. The criminal world needs to be brought into the twenty-first century, and only having fresh blood is going to do that.”

Taking the papers, Void and Magnus escorted them back to the elevator, leaving the rest of us to look at what he’d given me. Opening the envelope, I pulled out papers but also pictures of a woman in her twenties and a guy who seemed around her age. There were pictures of them in the city, leaving a building and getting in and out of cars together. My guess was since she looked so much like Gabby, it was her daughter.

“Look at that, she’s got both ears and all her fingers,” I pointed out, handing one over to Picasso. “Now we know for a fact those belonged to someone else.”

Shuffling through the papers, I found one for the son where Elena was living with him. I was glad she wasn’t going to be in the main building. It would make taking it down easier. Out of all the planning we’d done, trying to balance firepower and ensuring we could get her out alive was tough. You can’t take over a whole office building and not risk shooting someone you don’t mean to.

“He gave us everything we needed to get Elena out of here tonight if we wanted to,” Eagle commented. “Is this what he meant when he made it so we didn’t need him?”

When I looked over the next page of information, my brows shot up. “Ah no, pretty sure it's the detailed schedule they have of Diego’s habits, mistresses, and restaurants he frequents. If we didn’t want to hit the office building, we don’t have to at this point. Fuck, he even has the locations to his two homes, one in the city, one over in the Hamptons.”

That had everyone converging upon me, looking at the information. Thankfully, no one tried to snatch it out of my hands. Then I might have stabbed someone.

“Let’s get back upstairs, and we can really map this out and talk logistics,” Jaxson suggested. “We have an office with all the things we need.”

Once more, we climbed back up the stairs, grabbed a beer, and got to work.

Chapter twenty-two

Dax

It was hard to fight against the adrenaline rush you got from making a plan that was falling into place so perfectly. I’m not sure any of us got much sleep last night because of it. The information Tommaso gave us helped to fit the pieces we couldn’t figure out perfectly. We had all the names of the biggest players in his cartel, where they liked to hang out, and who was important to them. Not many of them had families, which was smart. This was no life for kids to grow up in.

“Holy fuck, if this works, it’s going to be one of the most epic takeovers ever witnessed,” Ghost said, flopping onto the couch in the living room. “They’re never going to see it coming.”

“Now the trick is to get Tommaso to convince everyone to do their part,” I countered. “He might have taken out his immediate competition, but I’m pretty sure he knew all along he’d have to do that. This is going to be that on a massive scale.”

Wes looked up at me from where he was lying in my lap, poking my side. “If he doesn’t have the balls for it, then just do what everyone assumed and take over both coasts.”

“Yeah, I’m not sure I want that much work,” I said as I absently brushed my fingers through his hair. “Think of how much work it is to run the Hidden Empire, then double it. There would never be a chance for us to do anything but put out fires flying all over the place. It just sounds awful.”

“Fine, then we put Harper in charge,” Sprocket suggested. “The two queens ruling the US criminal world together.”

“Not a fucking chance,” Magnus grumbled.

Jaxson looked down at the sleeping Harper in his lap, lovingly brushing hair off her face. “I don’t know. I think she’d be an amazing queen. It’s not like she would be doing it on her own. We would be there to back her up.”

“You want to give up being our own bosses and traveling the world?” Ghost asked, his face showing his surprise.

“We would still be our own bosses, but let's be real, we know Harper runs the show. She just lets us think we call the shots for his ego,” Jaxson said, gesturing to Magnus with his thumb. “Once things settle down, why wouldn’t we be able to travel? Besides, you’re telling me that being assassins isn’t getting old? The last dozen jobs have been so boring. This would be new, and we wouldn't have to leave our gorgeous girl.”

Void grunted at that from where he’d been lying on the floor. I thought for sure he was asleep but clearly not. “I get that feeling. Not sure I’d be able to handle Dax flying all over the place if we couldn’t all go with her. Makes me twitchy when she’s not in the house with us… not sure I could handle her being in another state.”

“This is all assuming the kid doesn’t have the stones to pull this off, but I have a feeling we’re cutting him short,” Cam interjected. “This plan is based on eighty percent of the work he’s put into the takeover.”

“It’s always good to have a backup plan,” Picasso argued. “If things were to fall apart, we’d need to know how to move forward.”

“Did anyone bother to ask me if I wanted to be queen?” Harper asked with a yawn as she rolled on her back. “Why the hell would I want to run a criminal empire like Dax? I’m not the kind of gal to handle being shot, hunted, and constantly looking over my shoulder for danger. One day, I think I’d like to have kids, but that for sure isn’t gonna happen if they can’t be safe.”

Jaxon traced her face with a finger, then booped her on the nose. “Then that settles it, no ruling empires for you.”

“Really? Just like that, you're fine with it?” Harper questioned.

“Yup, I want kids with you someday, and if that’s going to get in the way of my filling that belly up with my child, I don’t want it, gorgeous,” Jaxson answered honestly.

Watching those two stare at each other with so much love had me looking down at Wes. He must have known how this conversation was going to rattle me a little as he pulled me down for a sweet kiss. “I love you, Dax, no matter what. As long as I have you in my life, nothing else matters.”

I kissed him again and playfully rubbed our noses together before sitting up, smiling. The rest of my guys were all looking at me now, making me freeze like I’d missed something important during our tender moment.