2
Gideon
I frownedat the coffee I’d just taken out of the grinder. The texture wasn’t quite right. Instead of pouring the grounds into my machine, which would be a waste of its complicated mechanics, I dumped them into the garbage and reached for the bag of dark roasted beans to start over.
I’d like to think I was a simple man with a simple but fixed routine. The trouble was that if something didn’t go right with that routine, it left me irritated and restless for the rest of the day. And the truth was, my current irritation had less to do with my coffee and more with the data I’d been checking.
As I turned back to my desk, my frown deepened. I’d been going over the payments various Nobles members had collected on behalf of the gang and the funds that’d been moving through our various business operations as we laundered them. The numbers in the columns wouldn’t make any sense to an outsider. There was an alphanumeric code written next to each column that specified the activity and source.
Concrete figures normally appealed to me, but as usual, this list was having the opposite effect. I probably shouldn’t have bothered looking it over, since it wasn’t technically my job, but for Wylder’s sake, I figured someone from his inner circle should be keeping an eye on things. Definitely no one else in the Nobles approached the situation with quite the same precision I did. A lot of this information was hearsay or estimates long after the fact, and the numbers never added up as neatly as I’d prefer.
Somebody knocked on the door. “Come in,” I said, even though I wasn’t in the best mood for company.
Rowan stepped inside. “Hey, I got that information you wanted on the Prowlers.”
I only grunted in response.
“That’s what I get after you’ve been hounding me for a week about it?” Rowan scanned my desk and must have noted the lack of steaming mug. “Ah, let me guess. You’re in caffeine withdrawal.”
“Something I’ll fix in a moment,” I muttered, spinning my chair toward my coffee setup. The grinder’s current output was at least satisfactory. I added it and started the machine running. The thrum and the trickle of liquid into the waiting mug smoothed out my nerves just a tad. “So, you found out what that commotion last week was about?”
Rowan sat down on one of the chairs by the chess table. “I finally tracked down someone who was on the scene and managed to get him chatting. He said the skirmish was between two groups of dealers within the Prowlers. One of them apparently got their hands on a hot new drug, something called Glory—the others wanted in on the action, and they had… trouble reaching an agreement.”
I rolled my eyes. Just like the small-time gangs to end up fighting themselves rather than getting shit done. But that information wasn’t entirely unremarkable. “We’ve heard a few murmurs about a new drug, haven’t we? Any idea what’s so special about it?”
“Not yet. It doesn’t seem to have spread very widely in the Bend yet, although from what I’m hearing on the street, demand is increasing quickly. There haven’t been any freak deaths so far, at least. But it sounds like potent stuff.”
A note of concern had come into his voice. Rowan had always been a bit softer than I liked. It bothered him that people might be snorting or shooting up stuff that might send them reeling in a dangerous way.
As far as I was concerned, anyone who took the risk knew what they were getting into. They had the freedom to be idiots if they wanted to.
I was just glad Ezra had never been all that interested in the drug trade. We ran some low-level recreational stuff like weed, but nothing that’d really fuck anyone up. Too much hassle if one batch turned out to be bad and suddenly you had the DEA sniffing around.
“Well, keep your ears peeled for any new developments,” I said. “Always good to know what’s going around.”
As we’d talked, I’d continued to scroll through the payment records. My fingers paused over the mouse. I peered closer. “That’s odd.”
Rowan leaned toward me. “What?”
“Let me just…” I clicked through to the previous month, and a few more before, checking the same code. A prickle of apprehension ran down my spine. “Everything’s up to date.”
“And that’s a problem?”
I shot Rowan a quick glower and motioned to the computer screen. “Various operations belonging to the Steel Knights pay us a tithe like every other gang in the county. Normally there are at least a few things outstanding because payments get passed on in bits and pieces or delayed while they work something out on their end. Every other organization has a few loose ends.”
Rowan knit his brow. “But not the Steel Knights?”
“Not as of a few months ago. All of a sudden, they made sure to pay off all their debts. And they’ve paid on time—even a little early—since then.” I flicked my tongue over my lip ring and reached to collect my coffee mug from the machine.
“Is that something we should be worried about?” Rowan asked.
“I’d say so.” I took a sip, letting the darkly bitter liquid flood my mouth, and raised my eyebrows at him. “When do we send people in to collect more forcefully?”
Understanding dawned in his eyes. “When they get too far or too much behind. They were doing everything they could to make sure we wouldn’t go nosing around in their operations.”
“Exactly. No other reason for them to get so conscientious all of a sudden. They knew they were up to something we wouldn’t like.” I’d dismissed Mercy’s original warnings about the Steel Knights’ plans to overthrow the Nobles because the idea had sounded ridiculous, but there’d been evidence right here all along. And clearly it was something Colt had been planning for a while.
Before I could dwell any more on that, the door to my study burst open. Wylder marched in with Kaige at his heels.