At least I could take comfort in the fact that Gage had asked for it. He’d been asking for it for a long time. I told myself that it was his insistence on being a jack ass that lead to me kicking his ass. His incident with Sasha had just been the last straw.
“Boss, we have a problem,” Dante said over my shoulder suddenly as I walked away with Sasha. Before I turned around, I looked into her eyes and saw that she was as worried as Dante sounded.
“What is it?” I asked him, turning away from Sasha.
“I think we may have tracked down some of our stolen product,” he said.
“How do we know?” I asked, holding Sasha behind me by her hand.
“A friend,” Dante said carefully, shifting his eyes to Sasha standing behind me.
I pulled her in front of me, to stand between us.
“Is someone selling my drugs?” I asked her.
“I don’t know. I would imagine if my boss has me stealing them, he’s doing something with them on the other end.”
I narrowed my eyes at her, pressuring her with my look to make sure she was being as honest as she could be with me.
“Listen, I don’t know. My job was just to steal. I didn’t handle anything else,” she defended herself.
Not satisfied with her answer, I waved for Andre again.
“Yes, sir? You want me to watch her again?” he asked.
“Yes, keep a close eye on her. If she does anything, use this.” I passed him my gun.
“I’m sorry, do what with it?” he asked.
“What do you think, Andre?” I asked.
“Yes, sir, I read you loud and clear.” He stuffed the gun in his waistband and pushed her away.
“I’m sorry, Sasha, but security comes first,” I said to answer the angry look in her eyes as Andre pushed her away.
“Alright, tell me what we know,” I told Dante with a hand on his shoulder.
“Sure. One of our partners called from the field this morning. Said he met with a new dealer last night who’s been trying to get him to come on board,” Dante started.
“Is this someone we’ve shorted recently?” I asked.
“No, just a rat,” Dante assured me. “Small time.”
“Okay.” Those guys were great because their allegiance wasn’t necessary for business. They were guys who just hopped around trying to find the best fix for the best price. They acted as informants for us.
“Anyway, he calls and tells us he thinks he got some of our heroin off this new dealer. Cole, how much you want to bet this dealer is connected to Sasha’s boss?” Dante asked.
“I know he is,” I told him. “You know where the deal went down?” I watched Andre urge Sasha upstairs with my gun. I hoped I could trust him alone with her—more like her alone with him; I wanted to come back to find both of them still intact.
“I can get the address,” he told me.
“Do it. We’re taking a little ride to check it out,” I told him.
“On it.” He pulled his phone out and called the guy, stepping away a moment so he could hear him better.
I hopped on my bike and waited.
“Got the address. It’s not far from here,” he said.
“Alright, let’s go.” We fired up our engines, both bikes coming to life in a loud roar that filled the room and echoed off the far wall.
We drove further into the old industrial section of town, where more and more dilapidated buildings populated the streets. The only thing that hung around this part of town was the riff raff and vermin. The only life that seemed to crawl through these streets—if it could be called life—were the forgotten ones. Honestly, most of the people we ran into on this side of town seemed to be little more than ghosts. It wouldn’t have surprised me if none of them were even real.
We pulled down an alley lined with stolen or otherwise forgotten dumpsters and loose newspapers. Real rats wouldn’t even live down there, I thought.
“So, where is this guy?” I asked Dante after we killed our engines. I glanced around at the tired, old gray concrete buildings with their empty windows. They were merely vacant husks providing homes for the derelict and the feral, the lost souls who roamed the streets down here on the edge of civilization.
Dante just nodded to the building to our left. I followed him, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching us. It felt like we were walking right into a trap.
“Listen, do we know we can trust this guy?” I asked.
“Yeah, he’s cool. He’s helped us out before, man. Chill out, paranoid. It’s not a trap.” He crept carefully in through an empty doorway.