Shit. I’ve never been a thinker really. I mean, when have I ever needed to? It was always go here, shoot that, remove this.

Now I’m sitting here in Simon’s pristine office and my head is spinning in circles. I’m the caveman type. I don’t do the whole going through all the facts and investigating things shit.

“That’s all that we have. They were paid for the job through a blind contract, but they knew it would be for the Russians. No connections to them though. The guys who’ve been identified were all hitters out of Russia, Ukraine, and one from Syria,” Simon recites to me off of the notepad on his desk.

I lift my eyebrows at him, that just doesn’t seem right. “They’re all contractors? No actual mafia men?”

“None that we could get a line on. You did get the prints off of all the ones at your site?” he asks, and I swear he’s trying to fuck with me.

He knows for a fact I do my job to the letter. I don’t leave shit out.

“You have the thumb and forefinger off of every guy there, Simon. What the hell do you want me to do? Start snipping them off next and bring them to you?”

Johnathan starts to rumble a gravelly laugh beside me. “Can you see the Spider with a baggy of removed digits?”

Seriously, I don’t find this shit funny at all. Simon is missing something from our raids and I can feel how bad it is. We missed someone or something. Either Johnathan or I did. I just don’t know what, and Simon doesn’t either.

Elbowing Johnathan in the ribs, his laugh dims down to a low chuckle. “Shut the fuck up for a second, biker boy. Think about it… When have you ever known the Russians to hire out something like this?”

“It’s a snatch and grab. They—” he starts.

“No, no, no. Listen to me, John, it wasn’t just that,” I growl out.

My head’s spinning and I can see Simon watching me out of the corner of my eye. He’s been following this same path that I’m going down and he doesn’t like the end result, if there is one.

“Let’s go back a bit, like to the Yakuza hit on Lucifer’s wife.”

That shuts them both up and I can tell I have their full attention.

“She’s snatched and we went charging in to bring her back. We put a call out to all of the city’s hitters to get that operation done. Right?”

Johnathan shrugs but Simon nods his head slowly. “We did. We even put a bounty in with the Russians.”

“Right. What the fuck did that do for us? We got three guys, two of which swore they were just some fry cooks from a local restaurant. Why the fuck didn’t the Russians cash in with all the fleeing bastards? I mean, seriously, even our guys were pulling in tattooed bastards daily. Lucifer shelled out almost a hundred mil, right?”

“I wish he hadn’t put that bounty out there like that… It was… reckless,” Simon says.

“The Russians didn’t do shit. That’s odd. They need money too, ya know? Then with Bart I get some answers on names. We hear Ivan’s name but that’s it. Everyone who was in the know spilled a ton of shit to us, but no one knew who the financial backers were.”

“So the Russians and the Yakuza are in the same boat. We know that…” Johnathan grunts.

He’s right, this is becoming fairly easy to prove knowledge. Except the Russians are staying quiet, they aren’t banging on our door for Ivan. Why the fuck not? He’s worth a shit ton of money and he had knowledge of the job to get Lucifer’s kids.

So we knocked off their teams. From the weapons and intel we pulled from the house, they were going for the kids, but to what end?

“Something’s missing from this whole shit-storm. Like what are they playing at? Is this just a job from the Yakuza? Retribution for what we did to their operations?”

“Now you see why I asked if anyone was missing. It’s not like the Russians to do a job like this without some of their connected men in on the operation.”

Simon has his fingertips steepled together in front of his face. His eyes are watching us both like a spider getting ready to snap us up.

“So you think we missed someone or something?” Johnathan asks.

“It’s crossed my mind, and Lucifer’s. We both agree a puzzle piece is missing, but… We don’t know what it is.”

“You think we fucked up that bad or you thinking we’re rats?” Johnathan asks as he scoots forward in his chair.

Rolling his eyes, Simon says, “No, we have no doubts as to your loyalties.”

Nodding his head, Johnathan says, “Then what the fuck are you getting at?”

Watching the byplay, I can see the faint dark circles around Simon’s eyes. He’s tired and stressed.

This isn’t normal for him.

Simon is nothing if not a completely detached professional. He doesn’t deal in emotions or feelings. He’s one of the analytical elites. He deals with data, numbers, and intel. If I hadn’t seen him get stabbed once in the leg, I would think he was a fucking robot.

He’s so fucking collected, calm, and disgusted by dirt. He has contacts that reach across the world, and that’s why they call him the Spider. It’s not a name said in good humor either. If he’s got someone in his web, they’re as good as dead.

If Simon isn’t connecting the dots… fuck.

“How sure are we that this is something?” I ask, trying to get between the two before tempers flare.

Simon’s eyes wander back to me. “We aren’t.”

“Bullshit. My hackles are raised now just as much as yours.”

Johnathan slumps back into his chair.

“Too much is not happening,” I say.

“Where’s Ivan? What’s our info say about him?”

“He’s gone to ground. Ghosted our men as soon as he got out,” Simon says with a wince.

“What the fuck do you mean he ghosted? Where the fuck is he?” I nearly yell.

“From the whispers I got, he and the wife have been taken back to the motherland. To answer some tough questions.”

“Are you fucking with me?” I ask.

“No, that’s what we figured would happen after the raids. Looks like they want to know how word got out about those two little groups.”

“Well, fuck,” I say. “I still don’t like any of this. It’s too easy.”

Simon shrugs his shoulders and frowns. “I’ve got feelers out on the ground right now. I need you guys to keep an ear out.”

Nodding my head, I look down at my watch. “I need to go up and talk to the boss. He wants to know how my girl is doing in her new school with Evelyn.”

Simon rolls his eyes and starts rubbing his temples. He emits a long sigh. “Yes, let’s just put a hold on things so we can discuss the women in your lives.”

Laughing loudly, Johnathan holds out his fist to Simon. “Not going to trap us, brother! Fucking leeches, all of ‘em. Soon as they can they get their claws in ya, they get you turned around so much you don’t know where your balls went.”

If anything, Simon looks disgusted by Johnathan. I can practically see the revulsion Simon feels at the thought of touching skin with a biker.

“What? I washed my hands a couple of hours ago, ya fucking priss.”

Simon turns in his chair, away from us both, before waving a hand in our direction. “I’ll call when I know more.”

We both stand and walk out of the office, towards the elevators.

Pushing the up button, I look over at Johnathan. “You really like pushing his buttons, don’t you?”

“Fuck yeah. Dude’s so uptight, I bet he turns lumps of coal into diamonds in his spare time by shoving them up his ass.”

Shaking my head, I say, “Yeah, well, he probably still considers you a knuckle-dragging Neanderthal.”

“Someone’s gotta be the muscle in this place.”