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Because…
I don’t know. I like the fucker? There’s a sliver of guilt that I am actually screwing his daughter, which I shouldn’t be.
“We’re not good people. You can’t be good to fight evil on the scale we do.” Or carry out hits at our own discretion. I take another swallow of my rum. “Since when do we let someone die for the sake of the bigger fish? I don’t. I don’t do that shit anymore.”
“Then why take on this job?” Easton asks as he studies a Picasso on the wall. He doesn’t look at me.
There’s clearly more to this. Pressure, maybe from that higher-up level. All organizations, even ours, have those people.
I don’t know. I don’t give a shit. Yes, I could have strategized and waited until everything was in place to find the kid and take out the maestro as Jones put it. But by then my Dakota would have been dead.
“Have you seen what they do to people?” I ask Easton.
He shrugs. “You stole their lion.”
“It was a white tiger.”
Now he turns to face me. “Like it matters.”
My spine stiffens. “I asked a question.”
“The girl’s friend hired him; we figured we could do this together.” Malone interrupts before I can speak again.
I shoot my friend a long look. “I know words, Malone.”
He just pulls out a seat and sits, matching the sprawl of Jones.
“I saved the girl and the kid. Malone’s goal. Part of it, anyway. But the Collectors are a bad lot. Since when do we turn our back on shit like this?”
Jones crushes out his cigarette in the art deco ashtray and picks up the Old Fashioned, his drink of choice. “When there’s a bigger picture.”
“Then fuck you and the Knights. I left Black Ops to get away from this bullshit.”
“I need a drink.” Malone gets up and heads to the wet bar and mixes himself a Negroni. I’ve never seen him drink one in his life. He’s a beer and bourbon neat kind of guy. But he’s making some kind of point.
“Bullshit’s one way of putting it,” says Easton.
Malone takes a swallow and pulls a face. “What he’s saying is that he went in and helped with the bigger picture. The girl could reel in the big fish.”
Nope. No fucking way.
I down the rest of my drink and I’m about to walk when Malone gives me the most un-Malone look. A silent plea.
This isn’t how the Knights operate. But then again, I read that file Smith gave me, and it seems various people have been trying to bring these Collector assholes down. It’s a big, loose group, and finding the maestro, as they put it, is going to be hard.
Because I’m thinking there might be a lot of those.
But in this particular cell? Where Malone’s job lies? The person who wanted Dakota? Maybe Smith’s daughter and the kid might coalesce into one thing in that case. Not the same person, but of equal importance that smacks of politics.
I listen to the back and forth, the details I’m not interested in. The powers behind the scenes. The senator and his fucking needs.
But I listen anyway.
Because something gnaws at me like a puzzle piece that won’t fit.
“We have reason to believe,” Malone says, “that this maestro wants Dakota Hunt.”
I freeze. Everything, including my breath, is still.
