Chapter Ten

Cash

"I 've sent her a message with the photo in," I say, interrupting the conversation, "I don't know how long it will be until she replies though since she's at the hospital and waiting for news about Aurora."

Trick nods, "Thanks, man. That's understandable. Hopefully, she'll get back to us reasonably quickly, though. We need to get this dealt with as soon as possible."

I nod, "Yeah. We do. Once she's identified him, what's the next step?"

"We follow him, see if he can lead us to his supplier, and then we get as much evidence as possible, videos, pictures, the whole works, and we send it off to our guy at the police station." Trick replies.

"You know it's not going to be as cut and dry as that, don't you?" I question.

Trick smirks as he sips his drink, "It never fucking is."

"Would you really want it to be that boring and straightforward every time we did something like this?" Jensen questions.

"No, no, I wouldn't," Trick replies just as we expect him to. "That will be the plan for now, though, and then we'll come up with a new one when something inevitable makes it more complicated."

His response has us all laughing.

The conversation after that turns to other things, and we quickly move on.

"Oh, didn't you want to talk to us about something financial?" I ask Jensen suddenly, and the guys look at me weirdly since we were discussing a new game.

"Shit yeah," Jensen replies and looks at Trick, "Can I use your laptop?"

"Of course," Trick replies as he hands it over.

We all stay silent and curiously watch Jensen as he taps away on the screen and then turns it so that we can all see it.

"Okay, so these are the new investments that I think we should put some money into," he starts.

We listen closely as he explains why he thinks that we should put some of our money into these particular investments, the benefits and the risks of doing so, how long it will take before we can see a return, and all sorts of things that none of us would have considered or even known to ask about if it weren't for Jensen. I'm reasonably confident that I'm not the only one who would accept his advice without an explanation. Jensen insists on explaining it every time, and I appreciate that he's so thorough with the explanation; it means that most of the time, I actually understand what he's talking about and why we should do whatever he's suggesting.

As predicted, as soon as he's finished talking, we all nod and agree that he can put our money where he's suggested.

"He also put a portion of his profits from the last Pit fight into Atlas's account," I add, knowing that he's not likely to tell them himself.

"Put some of mine in as well," Trick replies immediately.

"Mine too," Riot and Rafe say at the same time.

"And mine, can he access it?" Luc asks.

Jensen shakes his head, "No, he had me look after his card ages ago and didn't get it back before he left; unless he's got someone who can hack into the accounts, he won't be able to get to it. He could message and ask for his details and access it that way, but for some reason, I don't think he's going to do that." Jensen frowns, "I did think about just messaging him the details so he didn't have to ask, but I don't know if it's safe to do so. I don't even know if he's still got his phone, and if he doesn't, then I'd be giving whoever does have it access to a lot of money."

Trick frowns but nods, "Yeah, that makes sense. Don't message Atlas with his details; we know that he's in a dangerous situation, and we don't want to make it worse."

"That's a good point," I add, "he's not messaging us because it's not safe, so we don't want to message him and risk his safety. We're just going to have to wait and hope that he will get in contact with us as soon as he can."

"I'm not holding out much hope," Riot says, "it's been months now, and we haven't heard anything since he warned us that we needed to wipe down the cabin."

We all fall silent, none of us want to admit it, but there is a chance that we aren't going to see Atlas again, and if we do, it won't be for a very long time. For us, it's more than just losing a friend; he was a part of our family, and none of us want to think about what it could mean if we never see him again. The harsh truth of the matter is that if he were killed, we wouldn't know. We may never know. We didn't even go up to our cabin a few hours away just after Christmas this year; none of us fancied going up there without him. It belongs to all of us, and it would have made his absence even more noticeable.

After that rather sobering conversation we deliberately switch the conversation to something more light-hearted and less concerning. We end up playing on the games console and then all staying for dinner at Trick's place since Jenny insisted, she loves cooking for all of us, and none of us complain because she makes damn good meals. It's not long after dinner that she tells Trick to take us home before realizing that it's a Friday and there's no school tomorrow.

Riot

W e're on our second movie of the night, and it's super late, so we've all pretty much decided just to stay here for the night. We've all got spare clothes here in case we need them, and we can all go with Jensen and Trick tomorrow when Jensen goes to warn Knox about the overdoses; we'll just stay in the car with Trick and out of the way.

I'd be worried about Jensen going to talk to someone who is potentially as dangerous as Knox clearly is, but Jensen can hold his own and is more than capable of dealing with it if Knox decides to attack him, and from what I understand from the explanation that Jensen gave us earlier, he just wants to be left alone, but doesn't want the silence. I get that. It wouldn't surprise me if he can see something in Jensen that resonates with himself; Jensen is basically violent, dark, and sad.

They probably understand each other better than either of them cares to admit.

Trick's phone starts ringing, and he pulls it out. He looks down at the screen before he frowns and answers it. "What's up, Jimmy?"

Jimmy is one of our guys and, like all of them, keeps an eye on shit and lets us know if anything's happening that we should know about. None of us wanted to go to one of the many parties going on tonight; in fact, we haven't really gone to that many since Atlas left, now that I think about it.

The conversation with Jimmy doesn't last very long, but Trick's frown stays on his face.

"What's up?" Cash asks.

"There's a fight in the parking lot of Richie's," Trick replies with a heavy sigh, "between one of ours and one of Tomlinson's apparently someone overheard someone call for backup and some more of Tomlinson are on the way."

"Shit," Rafe signs.

"We need to get there and break it up before anyone else turns up; the last thing we need is for a full-on brawl," Luc adds.

"I'll go," I offer, "I doubt that it's going to need all of us to break up, and all of us going might even escalate shit."

"Good point," Trick agrees and then turns to look at Rafe, "go with him."

Rafe was already standing up and getting ready to come with me, so he just nods, and I hide my smile. Trick often sends us out on jobs or to break up fights together, mainly because we work so well together and know each other so well that Rafe not being able to talk doesn't affect how efficiently we can do whatever job we're on. I am also aware that there is another reason that Trick and the others actually try to put us together as much as possible, and honestly, I may not be able to confront that reason right now, but I am damn grateful that they do it. I like spending time with him, and I'll never turn down an opportunity to do so.

Not unless my demons are screaming things at me, but even then, he somehow seems to understand.

Honestly, he's amazing and one of the best friends I ever could have hoped to have.