Page 138 of Unwritten Rules

But the hitch in that plan was Fallon, the heir to the company that was teetering. What a mess that girl found herself in.

She had no idea.

“There’s some movement up ahead. Try not to shoot anyone at random.” I pulled up the view as the SUV approached.

“I count two armed men.Supertacti-cool and I bet they feel badass with all that gear. Too bad I could put a bullet in their brains. You say the word and I’ll drop em.”

They rolled up and exited the vehicle. I couldn’t make out if Jason was among the men or not. They were smart, I gave them that. Everyone did their best to cover their faces with hats or hoods knowing that meeting in secret never meant you were alone.

“Do you have a solid visual or identification?”

“One is a woman, and they’re calling her boss.”

“Is this a new group? Are you sure we’ve been following the right trails with Jason?”

He hushed me so he could see better.

We sat in silence while we both observed what we could of the conversation. There was a woman there from the looks of facial structure—what women did we know who played in the black market game with Jason’s minions? I didn’t have the slightest idea on who she could be.

Unless Jason hired a front woman. Which was entirely possible. No one batted eyes at them. A well trained woman could take everything from you and you’d thank her for it. If I were him, I'd do it in a heartbeat considering there were eyes all over him and his operations.

Everyone wanted a piece of the illegal pie when they thought they could get away with it. Unless you were in the big boys club ran by the top families, you’d never be safe.

The boys in the club weren’t even safe from each other.

If you were an outsider like Jason? Tough game to play when it’s rigged.

“We need ID on who that woman is. Body language tells me that she’s calling the shots in this meeting. This is a Haines meeting because they’re talking about his specific deals. The big deal in Russia? Yeah, that’s what they’re talking about. Guns and munitions being brought back to undermine the Vaughns.”

Because of our flighty boy, Nicholas, that deal was still going through.When I get my hands on him..

I snapped some pictures of everyone in the group and, luckily, no one was dropped in the same way as last time. Looks like everything was just a normal conversation. A normal day of black market dealings and under the table operations—a regular Tuesday.

“Haines is planning to offer a better deal to the Russians than we were. Considering he’s going through Ukraine, the prices are higher crossing more borders. It can’t be that lucrative.”

“Who needs lucrative when you’re trying to get one over on your biggest competition?”

“What about our Moldova contact?”

Many hands were trying to get into the cookie jar lately, and people were scrambling to get a hold onto their own operations. The drugs coming from the Middle East slowed by loss of properties and contacts in the surrounding areas. Washing money in the UAE had to be transferred over to Switzerland for similar reasons.

It was a tight ship to maintain; with the teetering Montgomery Group... Whoever controlled the company would be directly impacting most of the deals.

“Has anyone contacted Russia to offer a bounty on Haines?”

“You’d probably want to offer the same in Venezuela. One of ours split and is hiding out somewhere. Get his name and picture out, offering a nice cash prize to whoever delivers him first.”

Cigar smoke and corruption were held in the safe confines of the poker room on our compound. The biggest names in the world came to play to keep a stranglehold on the world.

And I was just a busboy at the restaurant.

“More liquor, boy,” The Dictator held up his glass, signaling for me to do my duty.

Just continue taking orders.

I’ve been in these rooms for a while and had a working knowledge of how things operated and had the confidence that I could contribute positively to the conversations and operations. He just didn’t want me to do so.

Like how I know Romania was always willing to negotiate better terms to outshine the Balkan territories. No one gave them any mind despite them having better access to arms to move out and an easier time doing so. The government was cooperative–for money. Other places required some clandestine operations.

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