Outlaws by Matt Rogers (phonics books TXT) 📕

and her family, over you, I’d do it. I’d do it every time. Ask yourself what decision you’d make if you were in my shoes.’

Slater sat, brooding.

She said, ‘If you want to kill me, kill me. I had no choice. I can’t go rogue like you two can. I can’t drop everything. The government had me in their grip, and they wouldn’t let go. They dangled Beckham over my head. They were saying, You’re responsible for his condition. Don’t be responsible for his death, too.’

Slater held up a hand.

She stopped talking.

He said, ‘I’d have done the same.’

She froze.

She said, ‘We’re good?’

He nodded. ‘We’re good. You did the right thing.’

‘I like to think so.’

Now, he felt relief. Like nothing he’d ever felt before. Out there, in the big wide world, everyone was now their enemy. The whole country, the secret world, everything that existed in the shadows. But here in this room, the four of them were united for the first time since all this shit had unfolded.

Across from Slater, King said to Violetta, ‘Answer me one thing.’

‘Sure,’ she said.

‘Why didn’t you at least fill the container with something?’

She cocked her head again. Confused. ‘What?’

‘The container from Donati Group. The payload you faked. You could have at least put guns in it, or packages of fake fentanyl. You must have known I might have been able to sneak a look inside at some point.’

She stared. ‘You saw inside?’

‘Yesterday afternoon,’ he said. ‘I handled Ryan Duke and his crew, and then went straight to the port. It was empty. That’s when I called you.’

She stared harder.

Her face paling.

He said, ‘What?’

‘The fentanyl thing was bullshit,’ she said. ‘I said that just in case you were thinking about leaving. To make it seem more important. But the actual container wasn’t fake.’

Again, he said, ‘What?’

‘Hold on,’ she said. ‘Something’s not right here.’

‘No shit.’

‘Jason, that was a genuine op. It wasn’t as important as we thought it would be, but we didn’t plant that container. We actually got it from Donati Group’s paperwork. It can’t have been empty.’

‘It was empty. I saw it with my own eyes.’

‘That can’t be. Why would Donati go through all that trouble to ship a decoy container?’

King put his head in his hands.

Slater observed all this from a distance. He didn’t interfere, and he didn’t ask questions, but he could imagine King’s short-term memory flaring. The man was running through a categorised replay of his time spent in Los Angeles.

When he looked up, he said, ‘Oh, fuck.’

Slater said, ‘What?’

‘There was a whiteboard. In Duke’s office. It had dozens of formulas and business calculations scrawled on it. One stood out to me. Donati = 1R.’

Slater didn’t need to respond, but he thought he’d facilitate King’s train of thought. ‘What does that mean?’

Violetta said, ‘One to the right.’

King said, ‘A physical equation, never entered into any computer, only passed from man to man via encrypted calls. To protect them from a software breach. Or to protect them from an idiot like me who took their house by force and then demanded to see the paperwork. Because an idiot like me would take one look at “Container 55D” in the Pier 400 Container Terminal and leave satisfied. Not realising 55E was the golden goose.’

Slater threw his hands up in the air.

King turned to him.

Slater said, ‘Really? This is what we’re focusing on? You know how much illegal stuff goes through ports? You’re stressing over one container you missed? Fine, you screwed up. The Baja cartel gets a few more guns. If you busted that shipment, they would have simply ordered another. It’s inconsequential. We’ve got bigger things to worry about.’

Violetta chewed her bottom lip and said, ‘Unless it’s human cargo.’

Slater saw King rewinding the tape in his head, scanning through the last few days.

Then the man seemed to stop on a certain memory.

His face fell.

He said, ‘It is human cargo.’

69

King saw it all laid out before him.

Crystal clear, now that he’d pieced it together.

He remembered stepping into Donati’s office, and the conversation that had ensued about the girl in the surveillance photo. Donati had already lied to him once. Claiming she was nobody, claiming the real target was the guy in the background. She’s nobody. He’s the CFO for Zima Group.

Then, in his office, Donati had supposedly admitted the truth. Fine. You got me. She’s not nobody. She’s the daughter of the actual CFO. The guy in the background has nothing to do with it.

But King still hadn’t fully believed it, and he’d never been sure why.

Now he knew.

He’d promised that he might spare Donati if Donati gave him the truth, so the billionaire had crafted another lie. Because a quick, painless murder — getting hit by a truck — sounded a whole lot better than what was actually supposed to happen to the girl.

For the first time, King realised he’d never actually heard Donati order a hit.

He’d just assumed.

The entirety of what Donati had said:

‘You’re sure she’s alone?’

‘Okay. Do it. Make it quick.’

‘I don’t care. You know what this is worth. Be discreet. Get it done.’

That didn’t mean “kill her.”

It meant “take her.”

Now, King said, ‘Sam Donati ran a human trafficking operation through his conglomerate. He takes girls in Eastern Europe and ships them around the world. That’s why the containers in question were refrigerated. Temperature control, for live cargo. What I thought was an execution over there was really a kidnap. Which is worse, considering she’s going to suffer for the rest of her life in captivity. That’s why he lied.’

Slater said, ‘I’m not following.’

Violetta said, ‘I am.’

King looked exclusively at her. ‘You know I can’t let this go.’

‘Jason…’

‘I’m perfectly happy to walk away from the government,’ he said. ‘So is Slater. What we’re not willing to do is watch people suffer just because it’s inconvenient for us.’

Slater nodded. ‘That’s always how it was going to work.’

She said, ‘This makes things a hundred times more complicated. You don’t think the shadow world is going to be eyeing the operation you left