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Marco had one earbud in, listening to our conversation and a feed from the warehouse cleanup at the same time.“We need to find fucking Brazzi. It’s been two days.”
“How do none of our teams have visuals?” Javi asked while scrolling through his phone. “It seems impossible with all the trackers and cameras we have on him and his men.”
“He’s either hiding or dead.” Marco’s frustration matched my own.
“Well, it’ll take a shrink to figure out if Dias is the one lying. I don’t think we’re qualified to explain how his mind works. Maybe believing he took care of Brazzi is how he’s coping.” Derek’s sarcasm wasn’t helping.
“You think he’s lying to himself?” Javi eyed him as I stopped spinning.
Derek shrugged. “I don’t want to think about him more than I have to, but it’s possible.”
“Let’s assume he’s not in denial and believes his men when they say that Brazzi is no longer a threat. What does that mean?” Javi looked around the group.
Every so often, he acted like a teacher, and we were his students attempting to pass a pop quiz. It used to drive me nuts, especially since he’s only a couple of years older, but testing questions was usually how he worked through ideas in his head.He asked aloud, listening while we theorized, then came up with possibilities on his own.
“In our world, it would mean Brazzi’s dead,” I said.
“But there haven’t been any reports,” Marco said without looking away from the computer screen.
“No chatter,” Derek agreed.
“Okay, so he’s alive but neutralized.” Javi was staring at the blank wall across from him.
“And missing.” That was the most concerning part. Even with other teams trailing him while we were in Cuba, he disappeared.
We concluded Brazzi wanted to avoid retaliation for the Cuba attack, but Dias was so convinced his enemy wouldn’t cause any more trouble.
How was he so sure?
What had Dias done to him or his business to make him comfortable promising Em she was safe now?
We hadn’t found proof of anything. No sign of physical damage to any of Brazzi’s business or property. No deaths.Was Dias capable of hacking? Had he managed to drain bank accounts or sell off his assets?
Javi tensed and pulled his phone from his pocket. “Em texted. Check out Martin, his dad’s second. Opposes Alessio.”
He replied while I did a mental run-through of the information we had on Martin Aguila. Nothing in his preliminary background check stood out. He wasn’t blood-related to the family but grew up in Cuba with Alessio’s parents. They trusted him, and he was loyal.
If he had an issue with Alessio, it wasn’t common knowledge.
“Marco?” Javi spun to face him.
“Forwarding out his file,” Marco muttered.
Moments later, my phone beeped with a new email. I opened the attached document and scanned through the added information.
“She said Alessio thinks he might be responsible for the warehouse,” Javi read aloud.
Derek scowled. “He considers him that much of a threat? He’s never brought him up before.”
“Maybe something else happened recently that made Dias suspicious,” I offered. “We had eyes on nearly all facets of his world, but maybe we missed something, watching the wrong thing. Or the betrayal was all internal and not something we would catch without more access to the inner workings of the business.”
“Sabotage?” Javi drummed his thumb on the side of his phone. “That fits.”
“Especially if he’s trying to make Dias appear weak or incapable to his men,” I agreed.
“He could be playing a long game. Chipping away at their confidence in him,” Marco added. “We might have actually helped him along.”
Derek chuckled. “Oops.”
