Outlaws by Matt Rogers (phonics books TXT) 📕

‘That implies there’s someone who isn’t.’

‘She’s not the one who calls the shots.’

‘Did you know that already?’

‘I guess I had a suspicion. But she’d never confirmed it.’

‘Who does?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘They’re the ones that grant final approval?’

‘Yes.’

‘Powerful people.’

She wasn’t asking. She was stating. It was implied.

Because King and Slater had considerable power on their own — devastating skillsets, infinite resources, the ability to get almost anything they wanted through sheer application of force — and in turn Violetta existed above them. She was their handler, with access to resources they couldn’t fathom, with control over departments that could wipe them out with the best weaponised tech DARPA had to offer. Then, above her, there were the shadow people. The ones who controlled it all, who remained in power as public political parties came and went, who shaped the future of the country as they saw fit. It simply didn’t make sense to give control of all the unofficial off-the-books programs to elected officials who may very well be out within four years, and certainly would be out within eight.

Let the façade go on as they pulled the strings that mattered.

Alexis didn’t know any of this, but she could sense the implication. Because in her view, Slater was a battering ram, an unstoppable force of nature when he needed to be. She’d witnessed it first hand when they’d met during the blackout in New York. So if there were people with more influence than him, and then people with more influence on top of that…

Well, they had to mean business.

Slater said, ‘Can I come over tonight?’

‘Is that a good idea?’

‘They’re not going to execute me. Not yet. But if they deliver the wrong verdict, I’m out anyway. We need to discuss exactly what that’s going to involve.’

‘I told you I’m on board with anything that—’

‘You did,’ Slater said. ‘But there’s a difference between saying it and doing it.’

‘Not to me.’

He believed her. She’d never uttered a lie the whole time he’d known her, not even a tiny white one. It was one of her most redeeming qualities, as far as he was concerned. He’d seen the slippery slope in the real world. It was how bad men became truly evil. Tell one lie, then a handful, and before you know it you’re doing anything to justify the exploitation of others. There was no better example of it than the cartels. They wrote fabled narcocorridos about the heroism of their patróns, lauding over the construction of churches and the donations to rural villages and the gifts to the needy, but they swept the torture and murder and mass beheadings and vicarious killings of thousands of junkies under the rug.

Those who told the truth never held the spotlight, but they were responsible for most of the good in the world.

Because sometimes telling the truth is a nightmare.

Like right now.

Slater said, ‘You might be in danger. If I was to make the right decision for you, I’d stay in. That way, we could have a good life together. But if I go rogue again…’

He trailed off, but she didn’t fill the silence.

Eventually he picked back up.

‘We’ll always be running. Always be hiding. It won’t be the stress-free life we imagined.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘Because it’s the right thing to do.’

He smiled, and she seemed to sense it through the phone.

She said, ‘I’m with you. No matter what.’

‘So can I come? We still need to talk in person.’

‘Of course. Have you spoken to King?’

‘Yeah.’

‘How’d that go?’

‘We didn’t get very far. I think I made him realise his place in all this.’

‘As in — he ever wants out, then he’s in trouble too?’

‘Exactly.’

The line was silent.

Slater said, ‘You there?’

‘Yeah. Just thinking.’

‘About…?’

‘What if he gets rebellious thoughts too?’

Slater went quiet.

Alexis said, ‘What if you’ve started a revolution?’

27

At an esteemed Brazilian jiu-jitsu gym in an enormous underground basement in Manhattan, King fought off a third degree black belt who’d swiftly attached himself to his back.

Both donning traditional gis, they wrestled in a mutual pool of sweat. King cursed his complacency and distractedness. It had allowed his opponent, Maurice, to take his back with one smooth change of direction, switching position on the mats so he could wrap both legs around King’s waist and set up the inevitable choke.

But King wasn’t going to let him have it.

At this level of the practice, there was no use being bullheaded. Maurice had his back with both hooks in, and his dominant arm (the right one) looped around King’s chin, compressing his jaw. Maurice was holding back — in competition, he would have initiated a neck crank and got the tap nine times out of ten. But he wanted the choke across the throat, so it was a clean undebatable victory, and King didn’t want him to have it with equal verve.

He simply wasn’t in the mood to lose.

Both of them were coated in perspiration. With slick technique, Maurice inched his corded forearm down toward King’s exposed throat.

King flipped a switch.

He never ordinarily utilised it, but now he visualised Maurice as an enemy on a live operation. The dynamic changed. Instead of simple drilling, this was now a life-or-death altercation. King kept it within the rules of jiu-jitsu, refraining from launching into strikes or eye gouges or groin shots, but he bucked up and down with a single testosterone-fuelled jerk of the hips. Maurice thudded into the mats, not hard enough to draw attention, but hard enough to drive the breath from his lungs. King’s level of intensity, previously unseen, shocked him.

Like a shark with a taste of blood, King twisted viciously out of the grip, shedding Maurice’s arm like it weighed nothing, and then launched himself at the slightly smaller man. Maurice rolled, sensing an incoming submission attempt, but it did nothing to deter King. King latched onto Maurice’s back in turn and got his giant arm around the man’s throat. Maurice did all the right things, forcing a hand between King’s forearm and his own unprotected throat, but