“I hope that’s not a threat, Dario,” Zack said.
Dare laughed. There was a threatening edge to his laughter. Even though he was playing ball with Zack, he wasn’t happy about what’d gone down and I knew my brother, he wasn’t about to be anybody’s bitch.
“He has Angel’s sister for sure, then?” I cut in.
“For sure,” Zack replied, “But Romero insists she’s non-negotiable.”
“How dangerous is he?” Dare asked.
“You don’t wanna fuck with this guy,” Zack replied.
In the time we’d worked with him, we’d put him in a number of rocky scenarios with some bad motherfuckers and he had never cautioned us against fucking with someone before.
“All right. Go down there. Call us after you’ve got a read on this situation,” Dare ordered.
My eyes met my brother’s and I shook my head in dismay. What a fuckin’ mess.
I was gonna be heading back to Vegas to get my sister, who Zack was bringing. I’d be taking Tia with me, no way would she be that far away from me while all this was going down. And I decided that I wanted to be seen in public with Tessa by Leo’s people and that might flush him out. And then I was going to fucking kill him.
After Zack got Tessa to Vegas, he’d head to Thailand to rendezvous with his people about bringing down Kruna.
Dare was gonna be heading to Thailand the night we arrived in Vegas. I was skipping the partner summit for the sex slave resort but Dare needed to go. I didn’t envy my brother.
He had to tell Angel that not only did he need to go to Thailand for the Kruna partner meeting but that he needed to bring her with him, also. And Zack was suggesting Angel be the one with the wire. Dare was havin’ a problem with this. Understandably.
I didn’t know whether or not she knew the latest news about her sister or not. My brother and I were butting heads a bit, both of us feeling the strain of everything happening, so we were talking but it was minimal.
“Maybe it’s better that you skip this summit and we go after Fete opens together for a meeting with them.”
Dare shook his head, “They got a better chance of people implicating themselves at the summit. Stan sent me information with the loose itinerary. If I gotta go, this is the time. How’s this gonna pan out though, man? These fuckers get arrested and we don’t? That’ll go over well. They’re being tight-lipped about how it’s all gonna shake out.”
“No,” I told him, “We approach it all with caution, bro. You go, get information or whatever, and then when you’re back, you and I meet before anything is handed over. No way will we put our trust in these guys. They’ll use you and Angel as pawns.”
Dare nodded, “Zack’s given me assurances about getting out of all of this but can’t promise we won’t have to change our identities.”
To shave Tommy Ferrano off and be something else? I tried, briefly, to be Thomas Caruso in Costa Rica but it didn’t feel like me. I was me. I didn’t think I could be anyone else. My brother wanted to live clean. I’m not saying I didn’t. I just didn’t know how much I’d be able to put my fate into the hands of others, particularly people like Zack who’d betrayed my trust, who’d played me.
You know that saying, once bitten, twice shy? Well, for me it was you even try to bite me and I’ll rip your goddamn teeth out.
Dare
I met with Zack to sign his non-disclosure agreement and talk more about shit. We were in his office.
“Your brother on his way?” Zack asked. His associate and right hand man Hal, a forty-something private eye and another dude named Randall, who was the fed with the special task force Zack worked with, witnessed the signing.
I told them Tommy wasn’t able to make it for the meeting and Randall tried to pull a heavy on me saying he couldn’t guarantee Tommy’s immunity unless he came in and went through everything with them.
“My brother is busy.”
“Jacobs has updated us on the situation with your missing sister. We still need him to sign these documents. We’ll still need to interview him regarding several matters.”
“That’s gonna have to wait,” I said, not sure if Tommy would play ball at all and not liking that they knew about Tessa. I didn’t know how much they knew so I wasn’t gonna even address it with these guys.
“We have evidence pointing to your brother being the one who murdered your father and if we---”
I got to my feet, “Shut this fucker up, Zack. Get him out of here or I bail. You can work without my help.”
The little fucking puke.