Page 152 of Fall Before Her Throne

Fuck. Now I wouldn’t get my shower.

When he saw me glance at the rearview for the millionth time, Cas’s tone went sharp. “What’s wrong?”

“We have a tail.”

47

CIEL

“Heeeey, little brother,” Ryu said when I answered the phone.

I rubbed my eyes. “What now?”

I’d been working late when my phone buzzed on my desk. I wasn’t necessarily happy staying home tonight to run tech support behind the scenes, but my gut feeling about needing my full computer rig had paid off. Everything went through without a hitch, even the tips I’d given to law enforcement about the Camorra’s operations on Obi’s orders. The tips were untraceable, and it would prompt them to look even further at the multiple instances of the Camorra committing crimes. Obi’s plan had something to do with the cops. I wasn’t sure what yet, but I trusted his vision.

I’d only just finished the minimum viable product of the virus I wanted to send against Lucia when my phone rang.

“We’re kind of being tailed,” Ryu said.

I blinked and pursed my lips. “By who?”

“Not sure. You want to look?” He rattled off some cross-streets. I had the imaging pulled up within twenty seconds. It only took a bit longer to lock onto Ryu and Cas’s vehicle, and then find the one car that wouldn’t leave them alone.

“The black sedan?” I asked. “Tinted windows?”

“That’s the one.”

I caught sight of the license plate number through a stoplight camera when it went through an intersection. I ran the plate.

“Shit,” I said into the phone. “It’s a government car.”

“I fucking knew it,” Ryu said through gritted teeth. “Well, the feds are following us now, all the way from the Bronx into Manhattan. After we just got into a bloody battle with two dozen dead bodies in the middle of the Bronx.”

Fantastic. Add another item to the list of things to think about. Already my mind was turning with additional security measures we’d need to stay under the radar of both the Camorra and the feds. The last thing we needed was them finding out where we lived.

“Speaking of which,” Ryu continued. “Can you pull some security footage from Russian territory with Camorra faces? Some of Greco’s capos got arrested in the chaos. We can leak the footage to some media outlets so that Greco can’t bury this shit and sweep it under the rug.”

“I think so.” I brought up a search command in my video feed program. “I’m still monitoring the cameras we planted in Bratva territory way back when we were looking for Cas.”

“Spread anything you find as wide as we can. I do not want Greco to bail them out.”

No, Obi’s plan depended on enough capos being in jail.

“Will do,” I responded, making a note to comb through the footage after this.

“We can’t come home,” Cas said through the speakerphone. “What do we do about the tail?”

I dug my opposite thumb into the palm of my bad hand to loosen the cramp there. My brain spun. Obi, Leona, Max, and Wynn were on their way home, too. Could they somehow intervene? No, the trajectories wouldn’t line up, and we didn’t want this to get even more suspicious.

“Well, you’ll need to lose them. You could try to ditch them in Manhattan, but you could just as easily get caught in traffic. Maybe the tunnels would be a good bet? You could pull some risky maneuvers and do a bait and switch. Just don’t even get close to Staten Island. We can’t risk it.”

“I won’t,” Ryu said. “I tried to lose them before I called, but they’re stuck on me. They definitely know what they’re doing. Anything you can do?”

“Yeah,” I murmured while I began typing. “You guys don’t have a signal jammer with you, do you?”

“Nope,” Ryu said.

“Great, well, we all need to start carrying those immediately,” I said. How many did I have? I’d have to build or buy more. “They could be tracking you somehow. Either through your phone or a device stuck to the car.”