Page 33 of Revenge At Raleigh High
Monty smirks, zipping up the bag and dumping it on the floor at his feet. “Collateral. There are people chasing this guy all over Seattle right now. Something in this bag is worthbigmoney, and they want it bad. The bag’s mine now, which means whatever they want inside it is mine, too. I’ll be presiding over a bidding war on Black Net by the end of the day.”
You need to be into some dark shit to even score an account on Black Net. Not just drugs, or guns. Gangs and criminal entities trade in flesh on that site every day of the week. I’ve heard you only need fifteen grand in your back pocket if you’re looking to hire someone to commit murder on your behalf. Monty’s always been hungry for power and money, just like Westbrook said, but fucking around on a site like the Black Net? That’s kind of surprising, even for him.
It's not my place to judge. Definitely not my place to get involved. I’m giving this one a wide fucking birth. “Hope you get what you want for it,” I offer. “In the meantime, you said you had news about Weaving?” Up until now, Monty’s been closed-lipped about his ideas for the Weaving family. He asked me to give him until Christmas, and Thanksgiving is next week. I’m running out of patience.
Monty waggles his eyebrows, rocking back in his chair. It’s rare to see him lookingthispleased with himself. “Caleb Weaving’s been running all kinds of shit through his warehouses for years. Anything he can turn a profit on. The Dreadnaughts used to make runs for him sometimes, but Caleb’s a fucking snob. He never wanted to deal with Q in person, so he had me act as go-between. Some shit went down last year, and the cops caught wind that Caleb had his hand in a particular pot that he should have been leaving well alone. They pulled him in for questioning. The bastard was squeaky clean, of course. He threw Q and the boys under the bus, though. Said they were smuggling in counterfeit goods through the port in Seattle. Cops raided the Dreadnaughts’ shop and found all kinds of stolen Chinese tech. Goods worth well over three million to the right buyers. All Caleb’s stuff. That motherfucker walked away without a speck of dirt on him, and three of Q’s boys ended up with seven years apiece because of it.”
This is all news to me. The Weaving family are disgustingly rich, but as far anyone in Raleigh is concerned, Caleb Weaving built his burgeoning empire off the back of stalks of wheat. Nearly every single farm you drive past in Grays Harbor County is owned by the Weaving family, and the ones that aren’t are all paying a premium to grow Weaving’s genetically modified seeds. They have no choice in the matter. The farmers who refused to sell to Weaving in the nineties soon found themselves slapped with lawsuits because they were found to be illegally cultivating a crop containing seeds patented by Caleb and his board of cronies. The seeds were either blown onto their land and grew there naturally, mingling in with the pre-existing wheat crops, or Weaving hired someone to sneak onto their fields at night and plant them there by hand. Either way, the result wound up being the same: the farmers had to either sell to Weaving, pay him a ridiculous annual premium for his seeds, or face ruin, bankruptcy and eventual foreclosure at the expert hands of Caleb’s legal team. It's hardly surprising that a man who would stoop to those levels would also be dealing in smuggled goods along with god only knows what else.
“Q’s been keeping tabs on that fucker ever since then. He’s been compiling a dossier of Weaving’s illegal activity, and he’s ready to sell the bastard out. Anonymously, of course. If any of our other connections found out the Dreadnaughts were willing to hand over information like that, there’d be serious fucking consequences. No one would do business with them ever again. More likely, one of the other gangs would gun anyone wearing a Dreadnaught patch down in the street. You know how these things go. Snitches get fucked, even if they were the ones who got fucked first.”
I crack my thumb knuckles, taking a moment to wrap my head around everything he’s telling me. “Getting Caleb Weaving sent down would be pretty fucking sweet, Monty. It’d tarnish their family name for life.”
“But?”
“But my problem isn’t with Caleb. It’s with his son. Jacob’s the one who hurt Silver. He’s the one who needs to pay.”
Monty grins, flashing me a wall of teeth. “Patience is a virtue, kid. I’m not done yet.” He takes his time pulling open the drawer to his desk. I’m practically squirming in my seat as he takes out a plain manila envelope, sets it down and slides it across the desk toward me. “Take a look.” He pulls a smoke out of a pack by his laptop, places the filter between his lips and lights the end. “I think you’re gonna like what you see.”
The envelope’s thin. Whatever’s inside isn’t that substantial. When I open it up and take out the contents, I find a small stack of enlarged photos in my hand. They’re dark and a little grainy, but it’s still easy to make out what’s going on in the images. There’s a figure in the center of the frame, and he’s holding a woman by the roots of her hair—a young girl, wearing a Raleigh High cheerleader’s uniform. Her face is contorted into a mask of pain, her hands grappling at the figure’s wrist, trying to free herself of the guy’s vicious grip. I flip through the pictures one at a time, my stomach knotting tighter and tighter as the scene between the two people becomes progressively more violent. The end photo is difficult to look at. There are four people in this image. The girl’s on her back, two guys at her head, holding her down on the ground by a swimming pool. She’s been stripped down to her underwear, the Raleigh Roughnecks shirt now floating on the surface of the pool. Her bra has been pulled down her body, exposing her tits, and the guy who was dragging her by her hair in the first image is positioned between her legs, his pants shoved down around his thighs.
It's a horrifying scene. The girl’s clearly trying to fight her way free, her hands clenched, her mouth open in a silent scream, tears streaking mascara down her cheeks. The guys forcing her to the ground are all wearing the same, frenzied, lurid expressions. I take one look at it and the gas station burrito I ate on the way over here churns in my stomach, trying to rise up the back of my throat.
My imagination has painted a fairly graphic scene of what went down with Silver, and that’s been bad enough. This is so, so much worse. This is what it would have been like for her. This is how scared she would have been.
I slide the photos back inside the envelope, unable to look at them anymore.
My head’s fucking pounding. I clear my throat, trying to ignore the fact that, more than anything, I want to fucking throw up right now. My mouth is sweating like crazy.
“Seems as though the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” Monty says delightedly. “Young Jake has been helping his father on a number of his runs recently. We have plenty of shots of him attending meetings with his father. Handling verylargeamounts of heroin. And now Q’s added this little tell-all to his dossier of evidence. Jake’ll go down for his involvement in his father’s illegal dealings anyway, but this…this is the kind of shit you really wanted him to go down for, right?”
Oh yeah. Montyisright. Because the figure in the photos, the person committing the most heinous crime of all in that final shot, is none other than Jacob Weaving himself. Both Sam and Cillian are proven guilty in that picture too, but with Sam already long dead and rotting in the ground courtesy of Leon Wickman, only Cillian can be held accountable alongside the captain of Raleigh’s football team.
“Q’s planning on handing everything he’s collected over to the DEA at the end of the week. I didn’t wanna say anything until I knew it was definitely happening. Plan was green lit this morning, though. Figured it was high time I filled you in. Your girl won’t need to testify if she can’t hack a court room. What he did to this girl alone will be enough to convict Jacob of rape. It’ll be just one in a long list of charges. I knew seeing that would make you fucking happy.”
Happy isn’t exactly the word I’d use to describe how I’m feeling right now, but he’s correct. Those photos will be enough to convict Jacob and Cillian.
“Jacob has a penchant for Raleigh High cheerleaders, huh?” Monty observes, pulling on his cigarette. “You know that one, kid?”
“Yeah.” The word comes out hard, stiff and unhappy. I did recognize the girl Jacob was man-handling the moment I laid eyes on her. “Her name is Zen Macready.”
“She friends with that pretty girlfriend of yours?”
“Used to be.”
Monty’s mouth turns down at the corners as he nods, filing this information away. “Since the DEA’ll be dragging your boy Weaving off in cuffs at the end of the week, that gives you five days, man. Five days to plot, and plan, and exact revenge however you see fit. What have you got in mind?”
I stare at the manila envelope now neatly tucked underneath the edge of Monty’s laptop, and, surprised, end up muttering words I never thought I’d hear myself say. “Nothing. I’m not gonna do anything. He’s gonna be arrested at last. The sick motherfucker’s gonna go to jail for a very long time, and he’s gonna pay for what he’s done. I don’t need to do a damn thing.”
Monty’s eyes sharpen, his bushy, thick eyebrows tugging together to meet in the middle. “Are you fucking kidding me right now?”
I shake my head. “Silver’s all I care about, man. If Jake gets what’s coming to him and I don’t even need to get involved, then fuck yeah. That’s a fucking win. Justice is done, and I don’t have to risk serious jail time that’ll take me away from my girl.”
Monty laughs softly, shaking his head. He stubs out his smoke and fishes in his pack for another one, barely taking a breath in between. “God almighty, I never thought it’d happen toyou, kid. You went and got yourself some high-grade pussy, and it’s made you fucking soft.”
He can laugh at me all he wants. He’s going to mock me over this until the end of time, but I don’t fucking care. I’m not gonna act like a dumb, arrogant prick and get my hands dirty just to prove I’m a man, when there’s a chance I could lose everything because of it.
Monty heaves a sigh when I don’t defend myself. A thoughtful look forms on his face. Looking down at the bag on the table, he hums under his breath, then slowly zips the bag back up, pushing it across his desk toward me.
