Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 128812 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 644(@200wpm)___ 515(@250wpm)___ 429(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128812 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 644(@200wpm)___ 515(@250wpm)___ 429(@300wpm)
"So we just let people die?"
"The goal would be to get the info and evidence we need before that happens," I say.
"Fucking drug addicts," he mutters. Still, his tone suggests his empathy for those in the vicious cycle of addiction rather than disdain for someone many people are willing to toss away as if their life is less valuable than someone who has never suffered from the disease.
"I did some research, and I can say that Tennessee has a lot more resources for addiction than many other states, but it'll never be a perfect system. There's never enough money to go around."
"Are we heading in there or not?" he asks,
"Unfortunately," I say with a slowness in my steps that makes it easy to read my distress in entering the house.
"Still hate snakes?" he asks with a chuckle as he stomps on the first step leading up to the front door to test if it's safe enough to stand on.
"You remember that?" I ask. "I'm sure I only said it in passing."
"In passing?" he scoffs. "You trembled the entire time we watched Anaconda."
"Still hate snakes," I confirm, wondering the whole time we scope the house out just how many details he remembers about me from all those years ago.
Chapter 28
Zeus
I know he has questions that have nothing to do with this mission, and so do I.
I don't know about him, but I was grateful that Casper could hear every word we said in the truck, which prevented both of us from speaking on certain matters.
As hateful as it sounds, I was even more grateful that he was too busy watching for snakes in that old, rundown house to speak his mind when we didn't have an audience.
When he did speak, he spoke about the house's functionality and his uncertainty about its use. If it were going to be used as a trap house to sell drugs, it would work. Stoned people don't really care how many rooms a place has. They just need a spot to curl up and fly. If the intent is trafficking, the single-bedroom house might not work, but he was pretty excited about asking Bobby to verify whether it would work without raising too many suspicions.
The trap house use is awful, don't get me wrong, but if the intention was for processing a shipment of women, then we would be able to gather our evidence quicker and shut this whole fucking thing down. Selling drugs could be enough to take them out, but it's not the goal of this mission.
It won't make it any easier to keep working for them and pretend to be one of them, but it won't be what triggers the raid on their property.
Memories of last night swirl through my head as we close the distance between the house Casper found for us and the compound. I analyze every word Bobby said, every action, every reaction of the people around him, trying to find hidden messages in all of it, something that will give me more information when the time comes to put his ass in jail.
But my mind, the wonderful overanalytical thing that it is, keeps drifting back to seeing Zayne's smiling face as he talked to that woman.
Since we're in the truck, I can't speak on the matter, and I think that's amazing. I can't voice my jealousy of seeing him talk to her. I can't be open about wondering what all of this actually means.
It's not that I see my emotions as a weakness. I've grown enough as a man to know they're normal and not a weakness at all.
What's not normal for me is letting it not only control me but even care in the first place. A couple of kisses, a hand job, and a blow job shouldn't leave me paralyzed and questioning where we go from here. The goal was to get off, to feel something in a time when everything else was in The Leagues' control rather than our own. It was a way to take back a little piece of ourselves that this mission was chipping away at.
As if a switch has been flipped, I'm able to get my head back in the game as we pull up outside of the compound. This time, we're not greeted by someone questioning who we are, and I'm grateful for not having to suffer the stench of another man who chooses to spend his time using drugs rather than bathing, but the stinky man in question sticks his head out of the guard shack as we drive by,
"Bobby wants you in his office," he says before sticking a finger up his nose like a toddler who doesn't understand some things should be done in private.
"Is that where we met him the first time?" Zayne asks, pulling the truck forward when he gets a nod. "Do you think we take the truck back to the supply building or park it at Bobby's building?"