“I'm not down for sittin' around with my thumb up my ass doing nothing,” Pen snapped, angrily shoving his fists under his armpits.
“We've done our part,” Frankie argued. “So, unless some fed shows up with a slide show and one helluva an explanation as to what the hell's been going on, I'm not interested in chasing my own ass around in circles.”
“Stanfield is dead,” Nasa announced even as Saint aggressively turned in his chair to face Frankie, his face pinched in lines of extreme displeasure. “Most of the original Leviathans are in prison serving life sentences or dead. The guys who blew up our compound, all the dickheads in the car who shot up Ripley's shop, shot Saint, they're dead too. They fucked with us, killed two of our own, and they paid the price.
“Ghost came for that drive-in person. He was seen on camera and did nothing to conceal himself. No hat, no blinding light, no disguises of any kind, which tells me this information was important enough to risk getting burned.
“Considering the contents of the drive, it does look like he's been gathering evidence for a major op. Whatever we decide to do, I'll be monitoring the Leviathan activity in real time.”
“Real time?” Gee questioned. “He tag his boys with GPS or something?”
Dillon watched Nasa's smile turn smug. “Remember how Ghost called Dillon's phone when she first got here?”
“Of course we remember,” Ruckus grunted. “You went on a rampage and collected all our phones to make sure we hadn't downloaded some stupid app that compromised your security.”
“Yeah, because that's never happened before,” Nasa snapped, glaring at Ruckus with a wide, accusatory stare. Dillon rolled her lips under her teeth to see Ruckus turn a ruddy red.
“One time!” Ruckus insisted hotly, throwing his hands up over his head. “It happened one time!”
“Yeah, and it only took me one time to knock up my wife, twice.” Roar sounded grumpy about it, but even from across the table Dillon could see the masculine pride in his bright eyes.
A round of chuckles circled the table as the guys took pleasure in seeing Ruckus squirming, but Nasa got on with his explanation. “Taking all our phones was just a precaution. Dillon's phone was the one compromised, but the software didn't show up on the clone I'd made. Everything happened relatively fast after that, and I didn't get a chance to examine it in more detail until later.
“Ghost installed an app that only activated whenever it connected to an open Bluetooth signal. When she came here to the compound the first time, each individual Bluetooth on our phones boosted the signal on hers by another hundred feet, which gave Ghost about a mile range.”
An involuntary shudder worked through Dillon to know he'd been so close, but at least she knew it hadn't been her imagination that day. Ghost had followed her from Dallas and watched her first meeting with the men of Perdition.
Nasa assured everyone the flaw in his otherwise perfect system had been dealt with. “I'd never heard of anyone utilizing Bluetooth that way, but there's a base code structure, a signature unique to the person who created it.
“With this big ass list of hackers and programmers, not only can I narrow down who made it, I can work up an algorithm to track everyone using the app in real time. Best of all, they won't know they're being monitored.”
Raid gave a short sound of amazement. “Could we give that program to the FBI task force and let them scoop up the dregs?”
“Sure,” Nasa offered with a nod. “But like Roar said, can we really trust Granger to do the right thing? Or that his people are all squeaky clean? There's no guarantee the task force is one hundred percent air tight. If any of their plans leak, it could mean a shit storm for us once Ghost figures out I copied his drive.”
“We can go around in circles all day arguing about this,” Top declared, lifting his scarred hand to wave at the gathered men. “But we ain't a dictatorship. Let's vote on it. Everyone in favor of sitting on this mountain of info, for now?”
Dillon watched half of the group put their hands up, the other half remained silent and seething with dissatisfaction.
“Who wants to give all this to the feds and let them handle it?” A few more hands went up, but even more went down. “And those in favor of continuing this fight on our own, potentially risking our women and kids in the process?” No hands went up, and after a moment of waiting patiently, Top gave Dillon a pointed look.
“You've been quiet over there. Nothin' to add?”
Dillon hadn't realized her voice would carry any weight, but everyone at the table waited to hear what she had to say. She looked up at Nasa to find him waiting, his gaze hard even though he gave her a nod and a bit of a smile. They'd talked together about everything that happened at the shelter a dozen times over, but there was one thing that continued to surface in her mind.
When Ghost was giving them his villain monologue at the shelter, he said something about being forced to alter plans that would benefit 'all of us.' Obviously, he'd failed to mention which 'us' he meant, but with the new information about the info on the drive, Dillon wondered if 'us' referred to Perdition, the task force, and the world at large.
“I'm on board with whatever you guys decide, but I appreciate being included.”
Nasa palmed the back of her neck to squeeze gently, and Top rapped his knuckles on the table.
“Then majority rules: we're gonna sit on it. Not forever, just for now. Let's get back to work. Nasa, keep us posted on that real-time tracking thing.”
Nasa gave a tight nod, the muscles in his cheeks flexing as he repetitively flexed his jaw.
“Will do.”
After Top pushed to his feet and shuffled out—still scowling deeply—Damon thumped the table
