Chapter Two-Hundred and Fifty-Nine

Chapter Two-Hundred and Fifty-Nine
Hondo nodded. “Esta bien, I will see what I can do. Although I don’t like the Braza,  I can reach out to them, one man to another.”

London moved over to her backpack and took out a folder. She walked it over to Hondo, handing it to him. “This might convince the cartel that you know what you’re talking about.”

“What is this?” Hondo asked as he stared down at it.

“Police files from the past five years. Those papers cite every time Ronnie or one of his brothers got into trouble and they were bailed out by Hal. Or when the charges were dismissed because the evidence got lost.”

Hondo stared at her for a full minute as if he didn’t understand how she had gotten such information.

Boots then spoke up to explain, “Like Hawkins told you, she has been watching these people for a long while.”

London nodded as she motioned to the file. “You can name their contacts here in town, The mayor, Hal, Trey Ritcher, the DEA agent and don’t forget the idiot who calls himself my father. My mother’s murder case is in there too. Ronnie broke her neck when she threatened to go to the state police to stop him. She never got there because she ended up dead instead. They made it look like a mugging gone lethal. You need to go through all of it and then tell the cartel what they have been up to. All on behalf of themselves. Then you show them the photos of Ronnie with the Mezla Cartel. And please remember, you don’t have much time. Carlos is expected tomorrow.”

Hondo nodded at her. “This is a help to us, senorita.” He then turned to ask JuJu, “Can you send those photos to my celúla? If I’m going to get in touch with Braza, I need to show them what I’m talking about.” He shook his head. “This is a nasty business.”

“You might not like this Carlos guy but not even he deserves to be shot for going to the wrong address,” Boots told him.

“Provided they lied and would have sent him to my home,” Hondo argued.

“That’s something you need to clarify with them,” Boots suggested. “But you can pose it as a question. If that is indeed the address they send him to, then you’ll have your answer.”

“Si, I have a lot to think about. I will go home and read through these reports. Then decide how to write the email.” Hondo shook his head. “I just hope I can get them to understand that they are being betrayed and just how deep the tracion…betrayal goes.”

“Let us know of their response,” Hawkins told him. “Otherwise, we’ll be ready to go as backup with you tomorrow. There’s no way we won’t back you up, Hondo.”

“Muchas gracias, mi amigo. And si, we may have to go and confront this guy face to face unless we can get through to them by email. But I will try. Ronnie is not going to get away with this.”

“Good luck, mi amigo.” Hawkins shook his hand.

Hondo and Cameron then left.

London returned to the table to sit next to Boots. She looked rattled as the day wore on.

Boots took her hand and just held it.

From the other side of the table, Chris looked back and forth at them and grinned. 

A little while later, Kota and Titan were watching JuJu’s camera feed on the laptop.

Titan scowled when Ronnie and his guys came online. As they were all talking, he complained, “I wish we had audio.” 

London stood from the table and moved over. Then after a few seconds, she told them what was being said, “Ronnie is saying that he couldn’t wait for tomorrow and then they could bug out. Then Ronnie’s brother, Abe, agrees with him, telling the others that it's important that Carlos gets killed and Hondo gets blamed, so Hal had better be in position by four. He has to be there to verify that Hondo shot Carlos.”

“How do you know what they are saying?” Titan asked her.

London glanced over at Chris as she replied, “I can read lips, same as Chris.”

Kota nodded and said, “That’s cool.”

“So we were right,” London said. “Hondo is supposed to shoot Carlos.” She released a heavy sigh. “I was hoping we were wrong about that.”

“Naw…” Titan shook his head. “They want their pound of flesh and I have a feeling they will have everything in place by four, tomorrow afternoon.” 

“It's just too bad that they will get away with their plan,” London grumbled. “They’re just gonna leave and set up somewhere else. And get away with everything. We may be able to stop Carlos from getting shot but what about Ronnie and his guys? They get away. That’s not fair.”

Kota sat there and was silent for a moment, then he looked over at Titan and said, “She’s right. That’s all kinds of fucked up. So what can we do about that?”
Titan chuckled. “It's too bad we can’t wait until they load everything into their boat then blow the boat to shit.”

JuJu grinned and nodded. “That would be fucking awesome. Just blow it to smithereens and watch it sink.”

“In a perfect world it would be loaded with all their drugs and money… they would lose everything.” London shook her head. “Too bad this isn’t a perfect world.” 
JuJu nodded. “Yeah, too bad.” He just stared at his screen. 

Titan and Kota started at it too.

An hour later…
Boots took Chris and London to the infirmary to sleep. He then went out the door, saying he would check on them in a little while.

London sat on her bed and sighed as she quietly watched Chris go to sleep. She sat there with her knees up as she thought about how Boots had been such a support to her and Chris. They all had. She wanted this to be over as soon as possible, but at the same time, she didn’t know what to do about their future.
She felt a cold spot in her belly growing. This showdown had been coming for a long time and she could only pray Ronnie and his group would get caught up in the backflash. Fair play demanded they get caught and suffer like the rest of them. If only Karma worked like that.

After a while, Boots opened the adjoining door and saw her sitting there. He came over and sat down beside her on the bed. “Are you okay?” he asked her quietly.

“I haven’t been okay since this all started. My dad was never the best kind of man, so he and my mom fought all the time. He was careless with money and there were times when she robbed Peter to pay Paul but that’s every house, isn’t it? Then we really fell on hard times when my mom died. That shows how resourceful she was. I thought it was just a senseless crime until I found out who did it and why…”  London sighed. “And my dad was to blame.”