“So you think we were just a stopping-off point?” Angel asked, propping his elbows on the dark wood of the table and resting his clasped hands over his mouth. Periodically, his narrow-eyed gaze hit me.
“It’s likely,” Facet agreed. “Highly likely.”
“We aren’t going to be able to stop an organization like that.” Raptor spoke up as he motioned to the fourteen of us sitting at the table. “There’s no way our single chapter could hope to take on a massive human trafficking ring head-on. It’s not feasible.”
“No, but we can pass on what we know to the other chapters and keep those scumbag traffickers from doing it anywhere near our homes,” Ghost piped in.
“You don’t think we’re trying to do that?” I asked. After all, we’d taken out all the involved Bloody Scorpions, including Voodoo’s half brother. Then we torched the house. Of course, I was assigned to the elimination of the rest.
“Yes, but do you think that’s really going to be the end of them?” Phoenix murmured.
“Honestly? No, I don’t,” Venom answered. “Des Moines is centrally located, and I-80 goes all the way from New York City to San Francisco. Not to mention, that house can’t be the only run-down shithole they have at their disposal.”
“It’s not,” Facet said and pressed his lips in a flat line.
“So now what?” I asked.
“We keep working this, and if it means we keep taking them out little by little, that’s what we do,” Venom said.
I shook my head. Venom gave me an exasperated look. “You got a better idea, genius?”
“If we keep picking off the lower levels, they’ll only replace them. Over three hundred million people in this country, and you don’t think they can find replacement bottom feeders to do their dirty work? We need to cut the head off the monster,” I adamantly insisted. Picking off the one connected to hurting Jasmine was a personal vendetta. Stopping the organization was for the greater good.
No matter how bad the things we did may seem, we tried to work for the greater good. Most of the time, anyway.
“How do you propose we do that? Everything I’m finding is a dead end,” Facet said as he slapped the laptop closed and fell back in his chair to glare.
“Korrie’s mother knows more than she admitted during her trial. Way more. We need to find a way to talk to her,” I replied.
“Oh surrrrre… because we’re at the top of her accepted visitors list,” Angel sarcastically said with a snort of disgust.
“Let me try to see her,” I offered. Silence met my reply. They knew what I was offering. There was no guarantee that I’d see what we needed. I might see a lot of ugly shit and get hit with a shit ton of evil emotions before I saw a damn thing that helped.
“I’ll look into it,” Venom quietly replied. It wasn’t a yes, but it was as close as I would likely get at that time. One by one, we nodded.
Tension rippled off the walls as we sat there, stuck in our heads.