Reap turned to me. “Darlin’, even though you know how to shoot, I hope like hell you don’t have to.”
Wiping a glob of ketchup from the side of my mouth, I replied, “That makes two of us, dude.”
Chapter 20
It was eleven p.m.I was exhausted, discouraged, and pissed-the-hell-off. I wanted to curse Richie, but he was dead and that seemed like bad juju.
“Who the hell would’ve thought Waco had so many storage companies?” I grumbled.
Colt pulled me into his side as we walked across the parking lot. “Eighth time’s a charm.”
“Let’s hope.”
We rounded the corner and headed down the long walkway to the second to last unit in the row. I pulled out the key from my back pocket and slid it into the lock.
“Well, this is a good sign.” I looked at Colt in excitement as I turned the key. The lock snapped open. Colt reached down to the gate handle and lifted it just enough so we could duck under. He slid the gate shut, bathing us in darkness.
“Where’s the light?” I asked as I felt along one wall.
“I think I found it. Hold on.”
The room brightened. In the center of the storage unit was a mound covered in a blue tarp. Colt moved toward it, picked up the edge, and pulled it back.
“Shit. Mother fucking fuck shit,” he cursed.
“What is it?” I demanded, inching closer in curiosity and trepidation. “Meth? Like you thought?”
Instead of answering, Colt swept back the rest of the tarp revealing stacks and stacks of white powder in plastic bags. He picked one up, ripped open the edge, and sniffed.
“Not meth. Coke. Millions of dollars’ worth of coke.”
“Richie stole coke from Dev?”
“No,” he said, his tone bleak. “Richie stole coke from a cartel by way of Dev. This just went from bad to holy fuck. Dev we can deal with, but nobody fucks with the cartels.Nobody.”
I started. “How do you know this is cartel coke?”
“You remember what I told you before? You can’t make this shit in a lab. Stuff like this has a country of origin, sweetheart, and it isn’t the USA. Besides, I talked to the Jackals a while back. They said they’d been seeing an uptick in coke on the streets. It’s like the nineteen eighties are back.”
“Well, that’s new information.” I wrinkled my nose. “So Richie got into bed with the Iron Horsemen, who got into bed with a cartel?”
“Yup.”
“And Dev will do anything to get this shipment back.”
“Yup.”
“This is awful. This is really awful.”
He sighed. “You have no idea. The cartels make ISIS look like amateurs.”
I closed my eyes and something clicked and I said, “That’s why you haven’t launched a full on attack on the Iron Horsemen. You were worried this was bigger than Dev and you’re trying to find out who’s involved, aren’t you?”
He nodded and sighed, suddenly looking like the weight of the world was resting on his impressive shoulders.
“What do we do with this?” I asked, gesturing to the packages of coke.
“For the time being, we leave it. I’m not moving this shit to the club. Somehow Richie managed to get it here and Dev still isn’t the wiser. Last thing I wanna do is bring it back right under Dev’s nose. We’re going to leave it here. We’re going to make a plan, and then we go from there.”