Chapter 60

Animal

I wanted to bring Albany Breston to her knees. T had filled all of us in on the things she’d run across while she was captive in Canada, and the scariest part, bar none, was the fact that she and her team were working on a new way to medically torture someone. And that they were interested in selling it legally and under the table.

They were the worst of society. Only money mattered. She never thought about the end result of something that powerful. And she had plenty. Breston had money on money on money.

It was bullshit. You can’t take money with you to the grave, so turning it into your god seemed like a waste of time to me.

We were about to have an informational meeting in the basement. Nix liked to go deep where there were no windows and he could be sure that he wasn’t going to be overheard. People could call him paranoid, but he basically thought of every possible way he could tap into a conversation and headed it off.

So when we sat around in the basement, the plans to Breston’s medical facility in Canada were proudly displayed on the monitor.

T gave us her review of her time there. Where they held the treatments, patients, and labs. She got the sense that most resources were buried in this new drug they were close to perfecting. She explained how it worked, and we talked about the implications and uses. T was fantastic at remembering the tactical stuff, though she was pretty shit at names and descriptions. She did her best. I found it all a turn-on and adorable.

Nix was curious about their cameras and attempted a few rudimentary hacks to see how prepared they were for potential cyber attacks.

It was clear it’d take him a longer time to hack into their systems. We couldn’t even fathom how much money we were up against. Her father and brother’s company’s legitimate product sales were in the billions. But if Albany got into illegal drugs for them, it could almost be limitless amounts of money.

It all seemed to be a bit much. I didn’t know where we would start.

Becca, who had been mostly listening, offered her opinion. “You know, sometimes taking little bites out of something is the best way to get it done. I mean, look at Nix’s tats. They couldn’t be done in a whole day.”

Nix turned to her. “How do you mean?”

“Well, how can we take them down in small bites? I mean, things can happen all at once, but on low level stuff.” She stood and pointed at the graph we had on the wall of the Breston products we knew of.

“Like, you know an Internet fake rumor can change destinies now. What if we started a fake one about Breston? Something that affected their sales.”

I watched as an almost angry look crossed T’s face. Then it lit up. “That’s genius. We can start reports on some of their drugs and some of their products—saying they’re harmful or what have you.”

We were a flood of ideas, and Nix typed furiously to keep up. We could use the Kaleotos family and my army to start the rumors that Breston was a shit place to do business with. Then we could let the father and the son in on our threats. That we’d tell people that they were poisoning groundwater. That their pills were contaminated. Safety seals could be popped in mass quantities. Nix didn’t even bring up how much damage he could do to them on the dark net. Unless they brought Albany to a reckoning. We wanted her in prison, and nothing else would satisfy us.

It could work. At least we could make a dent. Things could happen to them. It had seemed insurmountable when we’d come downstairs, but now on our way back up, we had a solid plan. It would start the next day, and it would take all of us to pull this off, save Ember. We weren’t trying to bring her into this business. She didn’t need her face tangled into this next level bullshit we were getting involved in.

T was opposed to using me as Albany bait. It took convincing to get her to agree. I had to assure her that I wouldn’t do the confrontation alone. T wanted to be there.

After a ton of conversation, we agreed as a group that the best punishment for Albany would be prison. T was adamant that it would have the most effect on the woman. She was very spoiled and yet unhappy. Having to wear shoes in the shower and take a piss out in the open would be the best therapy.

I had doubts, though. I knew my girl. She was methodical and devoted, and she was loyal to Nix.

We started small, with me going alone to Meme’s, dancing with some of the ladies I played with before T and I were engaged.

Then Nix used the information from Albany’s two cell phones that we had to listen in on a few of her contacts.

Albany was more desperate for T than she was me. The time T had spent listening to Albany had shaken her. Gave her a taste of someone giving an actual shit about her.

Nix placed some bait in Albany’s Facebook profile. Tips on where T might be. He used the algorithm they had to put pictures of girls that looked like T in the advertisements. Then he started suggesting T as a friend under a fake profile we’d made for her.

It showed how little Albany actually knew about T, that my girl liked to keep things close to her vest. She’d never post how her lunch tasted on a social network.

Nix tracked it as Albany stalked T’s fake page for a few days. Eventually, she requested T as a friend.

We all traded fist bumps. Of course, we could’ve gone up to Canada and popped her, but we wanted vengeance, not just revenge.

T started flirting with Albany in private messages, asking for forgiveness for leaving. She let her know that I was being a huge dick and Nix was moving against her. Just enough to get Albany on a plane.

When the day arrived to meet Albany, we all went to the airport to wait for her private jet.

When Albany touched down and descended in a thick white coat and glasses, Merck and his men were waiting.

We had handed them so much evidence of Albany working to establish a new illegal drug in America, he was able to arrest her on the spot.

I think Nix, T, and I all had twitchy trigger fingers when we saw her face.

I made sure to make eye contact with Albany. When I had her attention, I dipped T into a kiss and we both shot her middle fingers while we made out.

The resulting media hellfire for Breston affected their stock deeply. Just as Albany’s arrest was hitting the news waves, reports about the things we’d planted against Breston started to trickle out. Within two weeks, Breston was the top headline in the news. And the bonus? No one was hurt while we destroyed their reputation. Now, they had enough money to fix it. They had billions upon billions to pour into congressional and media pockets.

We had choices to make. The Feybi side of the business was far too risky to keep in the loop. As much as I hated to have them be official opposition to the Kaleotos and my crew, we sliced our relations. The danger was maybe not more pronounced, because if we couldn’t trust them, they were of no use to us. But it was more distinct.

They had been working with Albany against us. Had they cornered the market on a new drug, they would have demolished us.

There was a resolution for now. And that was enough for me to smile at my girl.

T and I could get married. We had enough stability.