Absolution (Road Kings MC And Underworlds 1)

“He even dropped Abar’s name into the conversation, telling us we’d like the guy,” Nick snickered. “I didn’t have the heart to tell him my father killed Abar’s.”

“Pays to do your homework,” I pointed out.

Raig leaned in. “Proof they’re amateurs. Never give a child a gun.” Then, like he’d just remembered, he added, “Congrats, by the way, man. Two at once, good shot.”

Ignoring him, Nick continued, “We’ve arranged a meeting with Abar tomorrow, so we’ll ask some questions then to get a better idea of the picture. What do you have?”

“Members of the PCC and MS-13 have been picked up in the area, but with your men, Raig’s, mine, Fedorov’s, and the other allies, we have enough inside the gang now to hear plans.

“We’re questioning some we caught, so we should know more by morning. The key is to find out who’s leading them, but with Vadim Turgenev on it—”

Nick whistled. “Wow, you brought Vadim in?”

“And Valka,” I pointed out, reaching for my beer and then thinking better about it.

“You brought Val in?” Ben asked incredulously. “Who’s got her back?”

Turning my head slowly, I said seriously, “If I thought she needed someone there, I’d have done it myself. But Val doesn’t play well with others. Well, aside from Vadim.”

His lips pressed tightly together, but then he nodded and turned back to the others. “He also has the Road Kings behind him, and they have chapters everywhere with their own allies they’ve called in.

“Vadim’s leading the interrogations. Hopefully with the information from him and the men inside, we can target the heart so that we can take down the rest of the body of the beast.”

“You know what I don’t get?” Raig asked, meaning it rhetorically because he never gave us a chance to reply.

“How does a gang grow this big right under everyone’s noses? I mean, it’s not like our organizations don’t keep an eye out for shit like this. Yet all of these different gangs have managed to attach their chains without being noticed. Azarov would’ve been discovered eventually—”

“He was known about before the fake wedding,” I pointed out.

“I’ll give you that,” he acknowledged. “But his ties to Ribeiro and Abar would’ve been picked up on regardless. What about the rest of them? Who’s acting as the go-between?”

This was something I might have the answer to. “One of the men we interrogated was asked to kidnap my sons and drop them off at a location, where a message would be waiting for him in Russian. That’s all fine and well, but even Donna wouldn’t be stupid enough to leave a trail like that. Even though I have no doubt she was behind it.”

“Who would benefit if you got distracted, either by the loss of your sons, or were doling out retribution to the Azarovs?” Nick asked, thinking it over.

“You’d kill them, and that’d leave Abar and Ribeiro leading it all,” Raig added.

It was Ben who held the biggest key. “My man said he heard the conversation in Portuguese, and Abar isn’t fluent in it.”

“You think Ribeiro’s the glue,” Nick guessed as he looked to the side. “That’s plausible, he wants Angola, Namibia, and the rest of the Africas. Hell, the Democratic Republic of Congo would eventually net him trillions in income. And the diamond reserves, blood diamond market, oil, gold, and other metals would get him that five times over. Add onto it the gun and drug markets, and—”

“That’s why he wants the routes the Road Kings have, too,” Ben rasped, looking at us all in shock.

“With you out of the way, he has easy access to a lot of Africa, who you have alliances with. He knows you’d send help or use other allies to do it, and that guerrillas and militias have the upper hand over his army.

“Take you out, and they’re weaker. Take out the Road Kings, and he has the highway to transport the guns, drugs, and whatever else he wants, without hitting any snags. The only people he’d have to look out for would be law enforcement.”

Even Raig had lost his easy-going attitude at this news. “I think we’re going to need a lot more men and explosives, gents.”

“And guns,” Nick agreed. “I think we all need to make more calls.”

In the end, I made it home in time for the twins' next feed. I showered well before it, but I was there to hold and change them until it was time to be fed. After it, I burped them, before putting them into the cot in what had become our room now.

As I got into bed afterward, I curled around Nell and held her close to me. “Do me a favor, baby,” I whispered in her ear before she fell back to sleep.

“Anything.”

“Carry your gun around with you and don’t leave the house, not even to go outside, okay?”