Page 11 of Benga's Rise
He laughs with Falcon. “She’s fucked at least twenty of the Brothers, VP.”
Cort laughs moving back for his cast-iron pan to be put down. “Guess we don’t need to worry about Brinks reaction.”
Jinx stops smiling. “It’s a good thing Freedom was there. He watched it on Ops like three times. He’s pissed enough that he's not talking. If he asks for a few days, I wouldn’t give it to him.”
Falcon looks over concerned. Shit. Two wild cards are not what we need. Brinks can be dangerous when he’s pissed. “He said he was going to take vacation time.”
Jinx turns white then looks at Cort. “He did jobs like y...”
Cort barely shakes his head stopping whatever Jinx was going to say. “Fuck. I’ll talk to him. Maybe he can wait until the dickhead recovers before I give him the time,” Cort says, scooping into his pan of food.
While Jinx orders, Falcon looks at me, I shake my head just like Cort did. Digging into my breakfast, I think about what I know and don’t. I don’t know details, but I know Cort did jobs for someone through Security or Badass that no one says shit about. I heard his dad talking to Crow about it one day. It made me wonder if it was something his dad did too. He was Crow’s head Enforcer and SAA. Eight years ago, Cort was gone for a week and came back like all was well, but he watched the news even at Rex’s. We came to fish and ride with Crow, his dad and Rex. Every day he watched the news until a story of a boat that blew up in the Pacific came on and the reporter was giving names of the recovered bodies. Cort stopped watching the news that day. Since he never watches TV, I knew something was up, then heard his dad and Crow talking. While Crow was alive, I know he had two more jobs that were secret, maybe it was Mason shit, but I don’t see them blowing boats up. Cort still disappeared when we were in the city, but it was shorter periods of time and until Jules died, he used her for cover. After that, he’d say he was riding. I knew he wasn’t. His odometer is logged. I guess it could be Mason shit, but Cort isn’t usually quiet.The Sheriff committed suicide with false reports and McCabe’s sworn statement to the state investigators on his desk. That was quiet and handled quickly by the Masons. Jerry stepped into Sheriff with some loophole law or something. It was all legal.
“Seren pissed?” Falcon asks when the Prospect leaves. I listen but eat from my breakfast pan. It’s not as good as Cort’s cooking, but it’s good. Amos sits by me eyeing my pan.
“I’m getting that.” Amos points to my pan because I need to know what he’s eating.
“Yeah. She’s been pushing to come back to work. It’s too soon, but Victory was at my house last night.” Cort nods to Amos and Banks.
Mounty sits. “Fucking love-child’s got my girl pissed too. I can’t be mad at her, she didn’t do anything wrong, but she needs to keep her shit to herself. My girl’s going off like I wasn’t watching over them. It wasn’t even two minutes and the three were down.”
“How many got shot?” I ask, pushing my pan away. I think it has too many potatoes.
“Three, one with a bullet. Patcher had me tell the Enforcers to shoot their feet. A Club in the east does it, but I don’t want my mats and floor shot up.”
We all laugh having heard about the stooges and shooting feet from the Badass trainers Crow brought in. “It could be worse. At least they’re not shooting to kill,” I tell him.
Cort nods. “I’ll charge for repairs if your floor gets damaged.”
Mounty likes that. “Thanks, Boss. The shot was to the leg. Patcher said it just missed an artery. I was going to tell them to hit a wrist, but he said it’d go through or they’d miss and clip an innocent. Since they’re trainees, I told them feet.” He pulls my pan toward him and starts eating what I left. Amos doesn’t look happy with that, but Mounty is huge. I wouldn’t try to take food from him.
Web’s As are leaving and Anton throws chin to Cort making me smile. He loves Cort and Seren, but he never talks to me. Alta and Amal stop at the table. “VP,” Amal says. He should have acknowledged Cort. Crow told me, when they first got here, that Web is the only one to correct or raise his voice at them so I leave it alone, figuring everyone else got that too.
“Amal, Alta,” I say even though Alta didn’t say anything. He’s digging in his backpack. They all wear them, even in the cafeteria.
“Alta finished your tablet. It’s like your laptop. He synced it to your phone too.” He takes the tablet from Alta and hands it to me.
I smile at the little guys. “Thanks, Alta, for getting it done quick and, Amal, for telling me.”
They both smile like I gave them something. “If you need him to change or fix anything, he put his number for you to text in the chat.”
Web is smiling behind them. “I’ll text him for problems, but he did a good job on my laptop and phone.”
Alta is smiling but looking down and Amal is nodding like his neck is made of rubber. “Good job, Brothers. You need to get to work. They all want their tablets now that they know we have them.” Web has them running away. We, of course, laugh. They’re cute.
Web sits. “HR is settled. The ditzy chick is working here in the cafeteria somewhere. I don’t want her in HR or IT. All she had to do was check accrued time off against the hours.”
Cort pushes his empty pan away and nods to Hade sitting at the end of the table. “Who is she?”
“An ol’ lady.” Web isn’t impressed.
“We need to hire IT for that shit.”
Web nods, but I can see he isn’t going to agree. “The thing is, IT isn’t going to want a job inputting and following reported time. HR needs a manager, Boss. I’ve been keeping it running, butI’mnot even HR. I just go by the city programs Ken had me updating. We need someone hiring and running it. Ken didn’t move with us.”
Cort is surprised. “Fuck. You’ve been running HR? What about the Brother that decided to move it upstairs when we were building?”
I think back. “He was from Colorado. That was a contractor, not one of ours.”
