“Team B is in,” Elijah announced, making all of them jump. “Location is empty. They’re going to tread carefully, then collect anything they can from it.”
“Damn it,” Vincent mumbled. “Waiting on Team A, still.”
“Team C as well. No word,” Jasper added. He should have been focusing.
“Thompson?” Sawyer tapped the cellphone in front of her on the table. “You awake?”
“We could be here for a bit longer, but yeah, I’m still awake. My assistant made a fresh pot of coffee for me before we got started. I’m used to late nights.”
“Of course you are.” Jasper watched her half-roll her eyes. He thought those two were odd. Thompson and Sawyer were the last people he figured would get along for any length of time, but since James’ death, she was the one who spoke the most to their new ‘handler.’ “Tell me, since we have time…how secure is this place we’re in?”
“He won’t find you there unless he specifically catches and convinces me to give you up. I’m the Director of the IMPO because I’ve never slipped and James turned it down. I haven’t even told the WMC where you are, something they are beginning to give me heat for. They don’t like their most troublesome and important team being off the grid. Not my fault they’re too stupid to remember that place exists.”
“They’re stupid,” she agreed, grinning up at the team. “Well, they can stay in the dark for a lot longer. I’d like to keep this place safe. I don’t want to wake up anytime soon to see a Ghost over me.”
“Exactly, and they can’t deny there are too many leaks from their offices. They trust a guy in their office, who trusts a couple more, and eventually, everything gets out. So for now, I’m the only person who knows where you are. At least the only one who hasn’t had his memory wiped.”
“Can you two focus?” Vincent asked, frowning at Sawyer.
Jasper resisted the urge to snort like Sawyer always did. They were focused, just on problems and possibilities the rest of them weren’t, but it wasn’t what Vincent wanted them to be focused on. Surely their leader had thought about it, but then, he wasn’t the one who woke up with an assassin over him like she had. Jasper could understand her worry over their home security. Even with Quinn and the animals, Sombra had barely gotten Sawyer awake in time that night to save her life. Jasper had thrown words into all their dreams and had pulled the entire team awake at the same time.
What a night that had been.
It had begun the longest, darkest period of their lives. They weren’t done yet either.
Jasper couldn’t wait to see the case through and leave it. It didn’t honestly matter to him what was next, just as long as they got through this now. He felt selfish that he wanted out for himself, to save himself, but he knew the team understood now, all of them.
And Zander? He had no idea the man had been talking to Charlie about a job. That was good. Hell, it was great.
“Special Agent Williams. Team C reporting. We’ve arrived at the location. Two bodies, shot execution-style, but nothing else. We’re going to collect what we can, then pull out.”
Jasper jumped at the words and relayed them quickly, confirming with the team on the ground. “Roger that.”
“Two prisoners or two people who they thought weren’t loyal?” Sawyer asked, almost to herself, looking away from them. “I want them to bring those bodies home. We’ll find out who they are and get them to their families.”
“Who they are might lead us to a break, as well,” Vin added.
Jasper relayed that as well, Thompson quickly agreeing through his own line into the teams’ communications.
An hour later, both teams B and C were leaving, with backup coming in to finish cleaning up the mess. Those raids were over, and now it would shift to investigations.
“How’s team A?” Zander asked. “Still nothing?”
“Nothing.” Vincent was beginning to pace. Team A had taken their role for the night. They were the ones Jasper worried about. If it had been leaked that the team was going after someone, Axel could have laid a trap that another team was walking into.
Another hour ticked by and it was midnight. In Turkey, it was well past dawn. Vincent pulled his headset off and changed some of the cords, so that anything Team A reported, they would all know.
It was twenty minutes after that when something came through.
“We had a hard fight,” the leader said. “We’ve captured the target and several others. They knew someone was coming for them and hunkered down. We’ve secured them, with a couple of injuries that had to be addressed.” There was a moment of silence. “We’re going to get out of here and let the Ankara office take over the smaller shit. Where do you want Balian?”
Balian, the high value target, the Ghost.
“That son of a bitch,” Sawyer mumbled from her spot. She continued louder, so the mic would pick her up. “I want that one here in New York as quickly as possible. I think I know his game.”
“What are you thinking?” Vincent asked immediately as Team A confirmed and said he would be in New York by dawn in the city. It left them a few hours to talk and collect their nerves to see what mess awaited them from the night.
“Balian is a super-aggro piece of shit. He probably got the call to clear out and wanted to prove he could handle it. I don’t know who leaked that was our place or if that had anything to do with it, but he’s the type who would rather go to war with the government than run from it.” She grinned. “I plan on finding out exactly what he intended personally. You’re welcome to join me.”
“You’re not going to do to him what you did to Naseem, right?” Jasper was incredulous, hoping she wasn’t serious.
“No. Just a chat. He’s lucky it wasn’t me tonight, though.” She snorted. “Get all of them home. Thompson, I’m going to be down there in a few hours to meet him on arrival.”
“Oh joy,” Thompson mumbled, hanging up the phone.
Sawyer began to chuckle as she walked out of the room.
“I’m going with her to look over any documents they secured. Now that all of the raids are done, I might be able to put some of the pieces together.” Jasper waited for anyone to tell him otherwise or confirm it. “Guys?”
“Yes, of course,” Vincent said, looking up from whatever he was staring at. “I’ll go with you. Elijah and Zander, stay with Sawyer. Quinn, hold down home with Charlie in it?”
“Of course,” Quinn agreed immediately.
“New York,” Elijah began to sing softly.
“We spend a lot of time there now,” Zander commented. “Think that will change when we get out of the IMPO? I don’t really like that city.”
“Not for you, since Charlie’s gym is smack-dab in the middle of the Bronx.” Elijah laughed, which made Vincent glare, and Jasper raised his hands, leaving the room. The night could have gone worse, which he knew was why the guys were in a good mood. The night could have gone much worse. He was fine with everyone joking around and he knew Vincent would be too in a few moments.
That didn’t mean Jasper wanted to get wrapped up in the mess, so he retreated and didn’t stop until he made it to his room to get in a nap before dawn. He could pull off a few hours of sleep and a shower.
Jasper didn’t allow himself to keep thinking about the future as he sat down in front of the stacks of papers. This was his job for the day. Vincent was with him, and they were going to dig through all of it, every piece of paper taken from every single office over the last week. Jasper was good at finding and organizing data, Vincent was good at finding the pattern. Together, they were hoping to come up with something.
He didn’t think about Sawyer, Elijah, and Zander. Those three were off to make trouble for Balian that he wanted no part in, even if it was just a talk. He would rather deal with paperwork any day.
“Where do we even start?” He groaned, waving a hand around to point out all the crap in front of them. “Should we pull someone else in, some admin? The extra pair of hands would be nic
e.”
“They could also be a leak,” Vincent reminded him softly, looking over the top sheet of one pile. “This is going to be a nightmare, but I have some advice. Locations. We want to know where business is done and where money goes, even goods. Shipment records and the like. Those are probably the most helpful.”
“Of course, but we’ve looked through all this sort of stuff before.”
“Never from this many sources.” Vincent leaned back, watching him. “Jasper, this is the closest we’ve ever gotten to having the complete picture of Axel’s organization, documents included. Before this, we’ve been lucky to take half of this sort of information from a location, and then we could never put it together.”
“Because we didn’t have enough of the pieces.” He figured that’s where Vincent was going.
“Exactly. So, while you look through, do two different stacks at once.”
“Compare and contrast. Find similarities, not differences.” Jasper nodded. That could possibly expedite the process. “Not bad. Still, this is going to take us hours.”
“We have the hours to spend. We have nothing but time on this.” Vincent sat down, pointing to a chair across the large boardroom table from him. “Let’s get started.”
Without anything else to say, Jasper took a seat. Vincent was right. This was all they had, all they would ever have. They weren’t taking another case and letting this one slip away, not with so much riding on it. The future came when they put it all together, and they had time.
Jasper dove into Alfie’s paperwork, comparing it to another set from a raid the team hadn’t done. It was one of the ones they did the same night, though, which meant none of the Ghosts had even known they were coming. If that meant anything, it was that those would hold the most sensitive information, since they didn’t have a chance to hide any of it.
Shipments and payments. Addresses from around the world, to others in the organization, and even some that he was genuinely concerned with. He didn’t like payments going to an address right next to the San Diego office. He would mark that for someone else to deal with. It was obviously a sign of some corruption in that office.
And it pissed him off. Just the idea of it made him nearly want to stay in the IMPO to flush it out. He was tired, really fucking tired, of hearing of IMPO agents, IMAS soldiers, and the WMC aides and staff being paid off. And so blatantly. He’d always known it existed, but it seemed so systematic and accepted. It infuriated him. The WMC would be the place to solve the problem, if they opened up and allowed others to truly investigate their offices, but since they didn’t want to have that happen, none of the agencies were going to be that bold.
The Magi world followed the tone and pattern set by their leaders. He hated them.
Shoving the thought aside, he continued to pull pieces of paper off his stacks, looking between them, and highlighting anything of interest.
It took an hour for him to begin to hate it, to truly hate it. Another piece of evidence that some non-Magi government was being bought out by Axel to do his business. Non-Magi governments were supposed to work with the WMC, but this one was openly hostile to Magi.
They would take Axel’s money, though.
He ground his teeth in frustration, continuing to highlight.
These people. He hated all of them. If he could, he’d see them arrested and put behind bars for a very long time.
And his mind wandered back to that idea he’d accidentally said during dinner the night before.
A lawyer would be able to do it without always being in danger. He could help define the fluid and incomprehensible Magi law that no one really understood. The laws that gave the WMC so many rights, but none to the actual Magi. He could protect those who spoke out against their government and those abused by it, while also dealing with the members of their society who abused it to their advantage and broke the laws when it was convenient. Including the WMC.
“I’m going to do it,” he announced, looking at Vincent. Vin just looked confused. “I’m going to become a Magi lawyer.”
“Then you’ll join the ranks of fifty-three active Magi lawyers in the world, not including the fifteen that sit on the WMC. Of those fifty-three, only twenty aren’t prior Councilmembers or aspiring Councilmembers.” Vincent shrugged. “It would suit you.”
“I didn’t…know that.” Jasper frowned, letting that in. “How did you?”
“Because my father was one, once. A long time ago. He thought an education in law was the best way to get around it.” Vincent smiled. “Magi law is also one of the hardest things to get an education in. They are very selective. Do you understand?”
“Meaning…?” He figured he would just apply to a college.
“One hundred applicants a year. They must be a Magi, so any non-Magi is immediately disqualified. From there, those with the best education. From there, who has the most money. Magi law is taught by a school run by the WMC. Only a few people apply every year, nowhere near the one hundred allowed. Fewer can afford it. Even fewer succeed. I considered it, growing up, but then my life exploded.” Vincent sighed. “Also, the WMC is the board that confirms or denies someone their license. If they don’t like you, they’ll find a reason to deny it. That’s happened quite a lot. If you work against them, they pull your credentials.”
“Why didn’t you say any of this last night?” he demanded.
“Do you still want the job?” he asked.
Not at all. It was just as deep in the corruption as everything else. Thanks to his silence, he gave Vincent the answer he hadn’t wanted to voice.
“This is why I didn’t tell you last night, with the entire team listening in.” Vincent pushed away his papers, a sign to Jasper that the discussion was far from over. “But I still think you should take it.”
“Why? If I can’t change-”
“But you can,” Vincent pressed. “Of everyone on this planet, you are the best person for it, I think. Let me tell you the game I see before it even begins. We’re going to catch my brother. Me, you, Sawyer, all of us. We’re going to do it and end one of the most violent periods in the history of the Magi caused by another Magi. We haven’t had anyone ascend like Axel has since the time of the Romans, where, before Christianity took over, Magi were pretending to be gods. And Axel? He’s the closest thing to that since, especially with his abilities.”
“That doesn’t-”
“You will be a hero, Jasper. If the WMC works against you trying to become a Magi lawyer, they will earn a bad rap and they have a serious image problem right now. Money isn’t an issue and they won’t be able to find one aside from that without looking bad.”
“They’ll let me through to protect themselves.”
Vincent grinned. “They’ll have to, even if you proclaim every day that you’re going to go after them with the education they’re going to provide you. And the people will love you for it, don’t forget that. I could never do it. Not with my family history. No matter how much I show the world I’m the good guy, I’m still a Castello. I would be turning a powerful criminal family into a powerful legal one.”
“How did your dad do it?” he asked.
“A lot of money and a good portion of blackmail on the part of my grandfather and great-grandfather. They couldn’t deny him unless they wanted to lose everything they had.” Vincent chuckled. “But you? A disabled hero of the IMPO? Why stop at becoming a lawyer in Magi law, Jasper? Why not go straight to the top and be the change you want to see?”
“Are you mad?” Jasper sputtered. “Run for the WMC? I hate it, but we all know those fifteen seats have been filled by the same families for the last…thousand years. An upstart like me…”
“Has the best chance at changing the game than anyone else.” Vincent shrugged. “Just a spur of the moment idea on my part. You know how my mind is. I like to look out and see all the possibilities. Or you can just be a lawyer and help people on small-time cases and try for bigger fish as your reputation grows. Your choice.”
/>
“Let’s get back to this,” Jasper said suddenly, hoping the conversation could drop. He wasn’t even ready to think about any of that.
But Vincent had some solid points, like always. Jasper knew all of them would weigh on his mind for a long time.
They went back to toiling over the paperwork, looking for connections and patterns. Piece by piece, Jasper highlighted and sorted by importance, or rather, what he thought would be important.
Some locations kept popping up. San Diego was obvious and apparent for Alfie’s, along with other major cities on the west coast.
But even fewer locations showed up on both. They each did business with other Ghosts, so those places popped up. Then there was the last one.
Italy. Somewhere in Italy.
Never an address. Just the Villa. They were going to visit the Villa. They had to send word to the Villa. They sent money and samples of every good to the place. The Villa in fucking Italy.
“He’s not stupid,” Jasper said softly. “Axel. He’s insanely intelligent. I’m not wrong about that, right?”
“He’s also immensely arrogant,” Vincent replied. “Why?”
“Has he really kept his base of operations in Italy after all this time?” Jasper turned his papers towards Vin, pointing at his highlights. “Nothing more than some villa in Italy?”
Vincent took the papers, pulling them closer. “These aren’t shipment reports.”
Jasper winced. He hadn’t realized he was working so fast that he was off on the wrong stack of papers now. “No, they’re emails, I think. Notes, correspondence. I never saw Italy mentioned in any of the real reports.”
“No, they would have destroyed anything with an address, but they would need a way to talk to each other about the main hub.”
“They never thought we would know they all spoke about the same place.”
Vincent shook his head. “One of them on my side doesn’t say the Villa.” Vincent dropped Jasper’s papers and looked through his own. “Here. The vineyard. Italy. I figured it was somewhere they bought his favorite wine from or something. He loves things from home.”
The Redemption Saga Box Set Page 159