Page 33 of Beta Team-The Saviors: Part two
“Probably because he’s not at a hundred percent,” Keon argues. “A month ago, Ari would have laid his ass out.”
“Would he, though?” Jason asks. “You didn’t see the look on Ari’s face. He tried to act mad, but I think I saw something else underneath it.”
Keon rolls his eyes. “I think you’ve been around Tyler too long.”
“Hey! Don’t blame this on me,” Tyler exclaims. “Tivon is the one swinging his big dick around.”
Someone clears their throat from the doorway, and we all whip around to see Tivon standing there, trying his hardest not to laugh. It’s not the first time he’s walked into an embarrassing conversation. He’s so quiet, and sometimes we forget that he’s here. I wonder if his absence around the house is on purpose because he doesn’t feel like he belongs. We’ve tried to make him feel welcome, but we didn’t get off to the best start, and he’s already expressed how bad he feels. Even Keon has forgiven him, and Tivonshothim, accidental or not. But I guess, in hindsight, he actually saved Gavin and Keon that night.
“As much as I would love to hear how big you think my dick is, my team might have something on the guy who broke into Jason’s apartment.” My mouth drops open at the casual way he let Tyler know he heard every word. He seems…different today, after hanging out with Jason.
Tyler jumps from his chair to follow him inside. “I’m thinking eight to nine inches, thick, and curves a little to the left.”
“Tyler!” I giggle and smack his arm.
“Shut up, Tyler,” Gavin laughs. “Jesus Christ.”
Tivon shakes his head and leads us to the living room where his laptop is set up. “If you’re done…” he trails off and looks at Tyler, who just bats his eyelashes at him. Tivon hits a few buttons until his screen is displayed on the flat screen. “My team found the car.” He scrolls through several pictures of a late model black Ford Taurus. “They’re processing it right now for any information.”
“You guys have that kind of technology in the field?” Keon asks.
Tivon nods. “Mossad might be corrupt, but we’re advanced. We took whatever we could before we left Israel.” Tivon scrolls to another set of pictures. “One of my guys was able to pull this off of a street camera and cleaned it up. Does he look familiar?”
We all look closer at a picture of a man driving that same car. It’s grainy, but you can make out the features. “Is this the same guy who tried to run us off the road?” I ask.
“It’s the same car,” Tivon confirms. “But I’m not sure this was a one man crew.”
Gavin crosses his arms over his chest. “What’s your theory?”
“I compared this picture to the campus footage of the guy leaving the note on Tyler’s car.” Tivon puts them side by side and although neither are clear, you can tell there’s a difference in their build. “The guy in the car is bigger than the guy from campus. Did anyone see the guy from Jason’s apartment?”
“I sort of did,” Jason answers. “He was on the fire escape when I walked into my room. He’s about the size of the guy from campus.”
Gavin nods. “I agree. He wasn’t as big as the other guy.”
“So, we’re looking for at least a two man crew,” Keon says. “I’m guessing the car was a dump job, and completely wiped clean.”
“I’m hoping they did it in a hurry.” Tivon shrugs. “It won’t hurt to check. If this has anything to do with Ari, then anyone in the states has been told to pull back and regroup.”
“Why the fuck would someone as powerful as Mossad stoop to petty levels like this?” Tyler asks.
“To throw Aryeh off his game,” Tivon answers without hesitation. “They wanted to overwhelm him by coming at him from all sides. Aryeh might have been away from Mossadfor years, but he’s still just as powerful. They didn’t want to underestimate him, but they didn’t take you guys into account.”
“So, what do we do?” Keon asks. Ever since Ari’s been in the hospital, Keon has had to step up into Ari’s spot even though he still hasn’t fully healed, either. He’s promised me that he won’t go into the field until he’s healed, but I don’t know how long that’s going to last.
“If we can get this guy’s identity, we can track him down and persuade him to give us information,” Tivon answers.
“Persuade?” Tyler asks with a raised brow. “Is that what we call torture now?”
Tivon shrugs. “Call it whatever you want, but either way, we need him to talk if we’re going to figure this out. On the off chance thisdoesn’thave anything to do with Aryeh, we need to know.”
Tyler sits on the arm of the couch. “Now that we have that figured out, I need to know how you got Ari to fold.”
“I didn’t make Ari fold,” Tivon replies. “I just got him to see reason.”
“You out-daddied him,” Tyler argues.
Tivon’s phone rings, interrupting whatever he was going to say. He pulls it from his pocket, checks the display, then looks back at Tyler. “You have a very active imagination, and for your information, it does curve to the left.” With that, he answers his phone and strides from the room, leaving Tyler staring at him with his mouth wide open.
