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“What happened?” Danny asked, once again professional.
“I’m not sure yet. It has something to do with The Train.”
I was wondering when we’d hear about him again. Since Mia, Aaron, and I busted that huge shipment, it was radio silence about Santiago Cruz. From the moment we first learned about him, we knew he was someone we should keep our eyes on.
“Thank you for coming here. Gabe is running a fever, and I didn’t wanna leave him and Hay alone.” Mia welcomed us inside her place, a lollipop dangling from inside her mouth.
“He’s not feeling better? I thought the medicine would’ve kicked in by now.” Zach was tormented.
“It’s working, but he’s still tired and under the weather.”
“I’ll check on him.”
As Zach strode to Gabe and Haley’s bedroom, Danny, Mia, and I gathered in her living room. Hugo pranced toward us, his damn furry tail rubbing every surface within reach. He walked to Danny, soaking up the love he was getting.
“He didn’t leave Gabe’s side. Such a good boy.” Mia patted his butt, then the little shit came to me. It’s not that I didn’t like him. But he felt more like a little brother who thrived on annoying the shit out of me by eating my food when I wasn’t looking or humping my leg when I ignored him. As if challenging me, he climbed onto the sofa and sat pressed against my leg, almost on my lap, leaving a huge space open on his other side and limiting my sitting space.
Mia snorted. “Just pet him, Benny. We all know you want to.”
Zach came back from the bedroom and sat on the loveseat. “He’s sleeping now. I’ll check on him again later before we go.” His eyes were troubled.
“Kids are resilient,” Danny comforted him. “They’re made to last. It’s maddening when they’re sick, because we wanna take all the bad away with our hands. But they recover fast. He’ll be his normal self again tomorrow.” He slapped one of his big hands on Zach’s tense shoulders and sat on the other end of the couch I was forced to share with Hugo.
Mia came from the kitchen baring snacks and drinks for us and sat on the floor, next to Hugo and Gabe’s toys.
“Aaron called me, asking us to check on this guy. Santiago Cruz.” She was in business mode. “They’re not sure what his role is. If he works alone. If he’s acting on behalf of someone. What we know so far is that someone is supplying him so he can deliver their goods. The DEA still doesn’t know who, but whoever they are, they must be big, because the shipments seem to be huge. Although they can’t attest for sure, as they have yet to bust them.”
“Did they give you any indication?” Danny was nursing a beer, but his eyes were alert.
“No. I’m not sure if they also don’t know, or if they don’t wanna tell us.”
“I don’t think Aaron would hide that kind of information,” Danny mused, only to scoff later, “but I wouldn’t put it past the DEA.”
“So we’re basically in the dark?” I asked.
“Sort of. From what Aaron told me, and from the brief research I’ve done, Santiago Cruz has been running all over the country. Not him, exactly. His minions. They’re believed to be delivering their supplies. That’s why they called him ‘The Train.’ But no one could find anything illegal yet. We know he’s dealing, but we don’t know what, where, to whom, nor from whom.”
“In other words, we have shit?”
“Basically, yeah,” she answered. “We also have the name of his sort of partner. Bryan Keyes.”
“What’s his deal in all this?” That came from Zach, who kept looking at the hall, alert to any noise Gabe or Hay could make.
“That’s the thing. They’re not sure. They think it’s his goods being transported, if as a front or as the supplier, they don’t know. But they don’t call him ‘The Package’ for nothing.” Her brows furrowed into a V as she pondered. “From what I learned, if I had to guess, I’d say he’s not so big into drugs as he is into human trafficking.”
As we cursed under our breaths, Danny asked carefully, “Do you think it has something to do with your last case?”
“I think so. I believe that’s one of the reasons Aaron came to us.”
Right before she was expelled from the DEA, Mia and Danny were working on a huge task force intent on arresting some big names of bigger cartels. After she busted Pablo Salazar, the agency got greedy. The problem was, during their investigation, she came across a huge web of human trafficking happening alongside the drug dealings. Against the agency’s orders, she acted on it. They had an in that could help put a huge dent in their operation, if not dismantle it entirely. Right before she could conclude her strategy, the DEA learned about her intentions and stopped her.
The victims were moved away and never found again. Despite Aaron’s best efforts, even with her being The Bryant Prodigy, she was fired from the agency under the guise of indiscipline. Which never sat well with me.
Besides Danny, we didn’t know the details of those troubling times. I wasn’t even sure he knew everything. All we learned was that, after that debacle, Mia came up with the idea of opening our own company.
“So the cartels are expanding? They’re dealing beyond drugs now?” If that was the case, it was worse than I thought. The most common scenario was that the recipients of those shipments dealt with only one venture. They’d explore vertically—heroin, weed, cocaine, meth—but not horizontally—drugs, people, guns, exotic animals.
Dealing with more than one kind of venture like that demanded a solid structure. An organization and reach small dealers didn’t have. Aside from being expensive beyond their rank, it brought a lot of unwanted attention to them. Not only that, their market and consumers were potentially different. The guy who bought a dose of coke for his own consumption hardly was the man who could afford to buy a person. Buy a person. How was that even a sentence?
