Page 80 of Tenderfoot

I couldn’t think of what to say, so I said, “Oh man.”

“I was pissed too,” Javi told me. “Cody’s my boy. I taught him better than that.”

Ugh.

He was totally taking this as reflecting on him.

I reached out a hand and squeezed his thigh.

When I was going to take it away, Javi laid his hand on mine, so I left it where it was.

And then he kept speaking.

“He’s the youngest. We got former military guys in that crew. There are men with a lot more experience, a shit ton more skills, and to get those, they paid their dues. They’re used to ranks and earning your way up them. I ran my boys like a brotherhood. All for one, one for all kind of shit. This isn’t like that. You gotta prove yourself. Youngest, least experienced, Cody thinks he’s getting all the shit work, when he doesn’t see it’s part of his training. He’s acting out, which is fucked up.”

“Yeah,” I agreed with him.

“Piling on that, this was about you,” Javi continued. “He left you vulnerable. He should have seen that guy go in. He should have seen him go out. The man was in your place for seventeen minutes. Plenty of time to call a team to go in and catch him in the act. He knew a man got dead just the night before. He knew the stakes we’re playing against. I don’t know what was in his fuckin’ head.”

I didn’t either, and since Cody was the one of all of them I knew the least, I didn’t have an opinion (though, now his surly mood when he dropped off the groceries was explained).

The only thing I could do was give Javi’s hard thigh a squeeze and say, “I’m sorry.”

“Mace made it clear when we came onboard, he’s not a one strike and you’re out kinda guy. He knew we had our gig. He knew he’d have to wean us off the way we did things and get us straight with the way they did. He’s willing to give grace. But he also isn’t a three strikes guy. The shit we do means you can’t be a fuckup. Which means Cody fucks it again, he’s gone.”

I could imagine, one of his brothers being axed from the team was a really big thing for Javi.

“I’m so sorry, Javi. I don’t know what to say.”

“I’ll talk to him,” he grunted. “Hopefully, he’ll get his head out of his ass.”

“Hopefully,” I mumbled. Louder, I asked, “So you got the guy on tape, anything else?”

Another shake of his head. “No one knows who he is. We got Brody doing some facial recognition shit, but he walked up from the street, so we didn’t get a make on his vehicle. Only things we got was gender, male, race, white, and build, medium.”

That wasn’t much.

“Right,” I said.

“He might have made a mess, because he was in a hurry, but the break-in wasn’t one. It was professional. So we also got that.”

I wasn’t sure what to think about this news.

I guessed it was good, if I had to be broken into, it was by a professional.

His fingers curled around mine. “We’ll figure it out, babe.”

I had no doubt.

He drove the rest of the way to the Oasis holding my hand and again parked on the street.

When we hit the courtyard, we saw everyone milling around already, and someone (probably Bill or Zach) had confiscated people’s outdoor seating to create a makeshift meeting area with rows of mismatched outdoor furniture.

The tables were groaning with food, with Jessie at one, shaking a cocktail shaker.

Javi took my mushroom, handing me the platter he was carrying, and said, “I’ll drop this in your pad.”

With that, he stepped away.

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