Chapter 36 ~ That’s Easy! Home!

Venom ~

I am pissed. Pissed enough to spit nails. I mind linked Axe to sweep my office for government issued bugs. I have a feeling I know how he did it.. and when I confirm it.. this mother fucker will be shitting bricks, by the time I am done with him!

As I sat down at the VIP.. Delaney set a glass of whiskey in front of me. She half-heartedly offered a drink to Unger.. but he refused. I sat staring at him.. sipping my whiskey.

He said “Your delay tactic isn’t working.. I am well aware of what you’re doing.” I sneered “Are you? Are you really? Because.. if my man finds what I know he is going to find.. in my office. You and I are going to have a problem. A serious one.”

He said “You tell me what you would have done!? We have been chasing our own tails on this case for months.. Our intel sucked.. we couldn’t catch anything with phone taps and wires.. Information was sketchy.. at best. When I realized your wife was on Slate’s radar.. I took the opportunity.. Knowing he would try again.”

Axe came back and tossed two bugs on the table between us. Torin was roaring in my head. I scoffed “Five fucking years of my life I gave to this country. I put my life on the line hundreds of times.. for this country.. Only to be betrayed.. in the end.. BY this country.”

Unger said “They’re harmless.. we didn’t listen to any other information but that pertaining to Slate.” I laughed.. “Do you realize who you’re talking to? You can’t play me.. and you damned sure can’t convince me you have not built an entire dossier on me with the information you gleaned from listening to my private conversations.”

He muttered “I wouldn’t come after you. You do more good than harm. But I needed information and you were the quickest way to get it.”

I leaned on my elbows and snarled “Newsflash, Asshole! I have ignited my Alpha Mantle.. I have taken my place in the werewolf realm. That dossier? Don’t mean shit now. Your government can no longer touch me. We govern ourselves. That warrant? Not worth the paper it’s printed on. Not because I am wolf.. and you know it! Your government still protects some privacies of her people. You never obtained a warrant to bug my office.. That’s illegal. Yes.. you can record a person’s conversations.. but you have to have a warrant to do that. Unless you alert the person that you are recording..and they are aware.”

He scoffed “I didn’t need a warrant. Since you so eloquently pointed out.. You’re Alpha now.. No longer protected by the laws of our constitution.” I laughed again.

“You really are an idiot. You planted the bugs.. three days before my ascension. Still protected by your constitution. Making that warrant completely illegal.”

Unger said “Look! Do you have Slate and Asbel or not? I’m getting bored of you fluffing your feathers and peacocking around to impress your wife.” Delaney laughed and said “And we care.. why? What I find funny is you.. still thinking you are running the show. Reality is, you’re only here by our grace.. legally you’re trespassing. You make the mistake of thinking Venom has to impress anyone. He does that without trying.”

I asked Max “Why, dude? We were friends. We served together. Brothers. Then you come into my home and betray me. You should have known it wouldn’t work.. The fuck of it is.. had you asked.. I would have allowed collaboration. That’s on you!”

Max looked directly in my eyes.. then slumped back in his chair.. “Brass has come down hard on my office. They want Slate.. he has enough C-4 to blow up half of New York City. We need to get it back.. before that maniac decides to do just that. I was desperate. I had been given the by any means necessary order.”

I said “You should have told me. I would have worked with you. Instead.. you chose subversive and covert. I didn’t think to check for bugs after you left. Wanna know why? Because I trusted you, Max. I don’t now. You destroyed that.”

He responded “I can apologize.. but we both know I am only sorry I got caught. Can we collaborate now? Do you think we can work together? Slate is now a danger to both our worlds.”

Fuck! He’s right. I have been going at this all wrong. Looking at it from a singular point of view. I have him set in my brain as MY enemy.. instead of an enemy of state.. both states.

I sighed “Slate didn’t show up. We have Asbel. You are welcome to join me when I talk to him. As long as talking doesn’t make you squeamish. Some of my own men have been known to throw up when I talk to a prisoner.”

He laughs “I get it.. you’ll torture him, if it is required. By any means necessary.. Remember?” I nodded and said “Let’s go have a conversation.” And I led the way to the cells.

Damn! It’s getting crowded in here. “Snake.. call Sheriff John.. turn Chad, Vinnie and Christian over to him. That’s human drama. The girls we rescued can testify.”

Pam yelled that Richard was coming.. and I said “Sounds like a you problem.” And headed down to Nathan’s cell..

He snarled “You better let me go. The colonel will come rescue me.. Blow this place to pieces.” I looked over at Max.. then said “Damnnn, dude! Vicki fucked you up! And what’s with the ‘Gonna be rescued’ Is that like Chapter One in Slate’s Book of Evil? Teach y’all to claim a rescue is coming?”

I yanked him down from the chains and dragged him over to a chair.. where I chained him back up. Winking.. I said “This is going to hurt you more than it’s going to hurt me.”

I squatted down in front of him “You know the drill.. I say hard way.. easy way.. you choose hard way.. which was where I was heading anyway.. Then I proceed to try and make you tell me what I want to know by varying methods… each more painful than the last.”

I laid a grinder with a small grinding wheel on it beside me “Where is Slate?” He spit on me. Flipping the grinder on, I pressed it into his fingernail.. Burning the nail off.. cutting his skin and cauterizing at the same time.

It took six nails.. I was a little impressed.. He decided he had some useful information to impart. “Slate has a warehouse.. outside Oakville. That’s usually where we meet up. He stays somewhere else. But nobody knows where. He will stay a few days at the warehouse when we have a job.”

I laughed “You put yourself through all this pain only to tell me you know fuck-all? You think I will accept that!?”

Delaney said “He’s telling the truth. He’s just another lackey. Slate plays his cards close to the vest. He trusts no one. He’s made too many enemies. This last ditch effort was to talk his paranoid ass off the ledge. He’s desperate, now. This failure will push him over the edge.”

Max said “Damn woman! You ever want a job as a criminal profiler, let me know!” She still amazes me every day. I asked “Where do you think Slate is? If you were him… where would you go?”

She grinned and replied “He would return somewhere familiar.. safe.. Someplace he could trust… So! That’s easy! Home!” I mentally facepalmed.