Hello again, time for more-
Chapter 11- In Over Your Head.
Two weeks had gone by since Sam last saw Andy. It wasn't that he was looking for her... Liar, of course he was.
Twice he'd slipped up her fire escape to find her condo vacant. He'd sat outside her building in Gail's fabulous blue Yaris hoping to catch sight of her, but never did.
Things were heating up with the case, Callaghan had provided a large amount of cash for Sam to front to the new buyer that he was using to supply his uncut product. Business was good, Cherise was turning a sizable profit for them and Sam had given Callaghan a few small time dealers to feed to Guns and Gangs to show progress and stop them from getting shut down.
But then things took a surprising turn when Sam's supplier suddenly turned up dead and then left them without any product. That was really bad and getting them nowhere.
A week of searching the streets for a new supplier took time and made Sam's patience wear thin as he tried his damnedest to salvage the operation in any way that he could. But, it was pointless.
They were at a dead end and there was nowhere to go.
Until Sam had a little run in with a guy named Quinn.
Sam dropped Peck off at work and was driving around aimlessly when he noticed a woman go into an alley at high speed, two sets of feet following her just as quickly.
Sam hit the breaks and reversed only to find one of the guys slamming the woman into the wall of the alley, the other one watching the street for any interruptions coming their way.
The cop in Sam screamed that this was wrong, but he couldn't help himself so he killed the ignition and got out of his car after parking in record time.
Sam looked both ways before crossing the street, his hand already seeking his gun out when he recognized the tattoos running up the guy standing in the streets arm.
He ran with a gang on the other side of town, one that had ruins with the law every single day. Lucky for Sam, they hadn't been with him personally.
Sam had his head down, his eyes scanning parked cars for any more faces that could be associated with the two guys.
Sam tried to look like he wasn't paying attention as he walked closer to the guy at the entrance of the alley, and just when he reached him, Sam pulled out his gun and told the guy to step up to the wall.
"Where is it Chicca?" The guy in the alley slapped the woman with one hand while another had its fingers wrapped around her throat. What a moron, how did he expect someone to talk when he was strangling them?
"Step away" Sam said when he was close enough, both the scared eyes of the woman and the surprised eyes of the thug looking his way.
The guy let go of the woman who was more like a girl, and stepped away, his hands up in the air.
Sam looked at the girl and held out his hand before waving her closer. Her face was still clouded in fear as she looked between Sam and the gun.
"You're making a mistake" the guy closest to her said, his accent sound like he was maybe of mexican decent. As if Sam didn't already know that from the tattoos.
"You don't know me" Sam replied dryly.
The girl had yet to move other than to wipe a small trickle of blood away from her lips.
"You're messing with the wrong people man, you don't want to be a hero, so walk away" the guy said again, his hands slipping down. Sam was cautious watching him, he really didn't want to shoot the guy.
So he swung his gun down a fraction and pointed it at the guys feet before pulling the trigger making the girl scream, the guy in front of him drop face first into the cement, hands covering the back of his head and the guy in front of Sam just stood there staring at him, un-phased by the gunshot.
Sam held his hand out to the girl again and this time she came over, slowly.
"I will find you" the guy yelled as Sam wrapped a hand around the girls arm and backed her out of the alley. Then he grabbed her hand and dragged her across the street, shuffled her into his car and took off down the street.
He didn't even know her, but a girl her age on the street this time of the morning was looking for trouble.
"Thank you" she said a few blocks away when Sam returned his driving to the speed limit.
"You can take a right and let me out" she added looking like she was still really scared.
"Or I can take you home" Sam tried to sound forceful, but it sounded concerned more than anything else.
"No" she shrieked in a panic, alarm bells going off in Sam's mind.
"My brother..." She cut it off.
Sam glanced her way briefly, the hint of a tattoo sticking out under her sleeve when she lifted her arm up and ran a hand over her hair.
"Look Mister, I need to go home but you can't take me okay. Thanks for that back there, but I'm good now".
When she strung so many words together Sam recognized her accent, it was less pronounced that the gang-banger in the alleys, but it was definitely there.
"Look it's home, or it's the local police division okay, those guys didn't look like they were playing around". Sam pulled over and waited. She would decide one way or the other, but either way, Sam wanted to see where this would lead.
Her tattoo was a give away, so was her accent. She was a Ramos.
The Ramos family was one that Guns and Gangs had been trying to nail for years, but they failed every single time. They could smell a cop, and as far as Sam knew, no-one had ever gotten close to them and lived to tell about it.
"Okay, take a left and then a right". Her petite voice directed Sam into a neighborhood that he should avoid, but things were taunting him too much to let go.
When he stopped, four pair of eyes slammed onto the hood of his car as the feet belonging to them moved towards Sam and the girl.
"Sophie?" The guy closest to the end of the pavement yelled her name out as soon as she got out and looked over the roof at the faces looking at them.
"Nico, I'm okay I swear. He helped me".
Nico Ramos, younger brother of Quinn Ramos, two of the most wanted smugglers in Toronto.
Well, if it wasn't Sam's lucky day.
"He helped you?" Nico swooped his eyes over to Sam and leered at him through his open window.
"Vega's saw me and they chased me, but he got me out. Just don't hurt him okay". Sophie said, Sam watching her walk around the back of the car in the rear view mirror.
"Vega? Sophie why are you even out? Quinn..."
"Don't tell him? Please?".
"Sophie!" Her name came out in a firm tone, her eyes widening as she looked across the lawn to see Quinn standing in the doorway of the house.
"Inside. I'll deal with you when I'm done here".
Sophie scrambled like dust in the wind, Sam opening his car door and stepping out even though he knew that he was playing with his life.
"Gringo likes little girls?" Quinn said before taking a really long drag of his cigarette, the red embers lighting up in the dark.
"Just the ones that need help". Sam said in a flat tone as Quinn stepped closer to his car and inspected it.
"Nice wheels, what I gotta do to get me one of these?".
"I dunno man" Sam tried to keep his cool, but it was hard when the other two goons moved a little closer too. "I don't know you" Sam added.
"Me? I'm Ramos". Quinn said staring Sam down, but Sam didn't fold, he kept hold of his poker face and stared back. "And I don't know you".
"I'm Sammy".
That comment made Quinn smile at Sam sadistically, like he knew something Sam didn't.
"Just Sammy?".
Sam's cover had no surname, well not one that he used anyway. Who would be intimidated by a guy with the surname Honeybourne?
So he didn't use it. Ever.
"Just Sammy" Sam said.
"No way! Sammy that took over Charise? You bounced Vega man". Quinn let the words tumble out in a jumble, but it wasn't anything that Sam didn't already know.
Vega was trying to move on Charise and supply to Johnny by bumping the supplier that Sam had bumped, but Johnny wasn't biting because Vega only offered him a ten percent cut, and Johnny was more than happy to cut his supplier off when Sam offered him fifteen.
Fifteen was his lucky number, so Sam was more than happy when Johnny accepted the offer.
"Hear you're moving more than any Gringo around here" Quinn stopped looking at Sam's car and paid him more attention. "Man like that deserves to expand".
And there it was, the words that would save the whole operation, and give Callaghan a bone to chew on.
Sam nodded politely before trying to bait Ramos more, he knew what they were involved in, he just needed to gain clarity on it. "Expand how exactly?".
"You know the restaurant on WestSide Drive, Gypsies? Meet you there at Seven tomorrow. I don't talk business at home man, this is where it stays away".
Sam huffed out a breath at that, Quinn Ramos a man with morals and family values? Yeah right, that wasn't in the game plan.
He knew the restaurant, Guns and Gangs had tried to tie it o the Ramos family but failed, there were no links, and no way to get someone inside.
"What makes you think I'm interested?" Sam said trying to feign bordem and attitude while his insides lit up with excitement.
Quinn looked between Sam's car and Sam before taking a step closer and sniffing Sam.
Like literally sniffing him.
"You like money man, think she'll stick around now that your supply has run dry?".
Quinn probably smelled Peck's perfume on him now, and it looked like it was hiding the cop smell pretty well, so Sam would have to thank her for having expensive taste in accessories.
"If you're there, you're there, if not, I'll find a partner" Quinn dropped the butt of his cigarette before walking away, everyone else still standing watching Sam until he drove off and was probably out of sight.
Sam knocked on the window, a scurry of activity inside making movements know by noise.
Callaghan opened the window and Sam slid in, a bemused look on his face.
This was new.
Sam usually called, but this warranted a visit in person.
"Seriously?" Callaghan asked crossing his arms as he leaned against the back of his couch.
"Yeah, I need more cash... And you need to pull Peck".
"Why?".
"Ramos and Vega" Sam couldn't resist the dimpled smile thrown Callaghan's way when his face flared with surprise.
"No".
That made Sam's smile disappear instantly.
"Absolutely not. This doesn't go any further in that direction are we clear?".
That was a shocker, Sam really thought that Callaghan would jump at the chance to get closer to two gangs that remained bulletproof and persecution free until now.
"No we aren't, care to explain?".
"We're working them from a different angle, we have someone in okay. You need to leave this one alone Swarek".
Sam knew then that Callaghan had someone on the inside that knew Sam.
"Who?".
"A UC".
Seriously? That's the answer he was tossing Sam?
"Who?"
"Andy okay, Andy's working Ramos from the inside".
"What? You get her out now".
Hearing that made Sam feel like his world had stopped turning. Ramos was one of the most dangerous men out walking the streets of Toronto freely, and Andy McNally was the cop working him? When no-one else ever got that close.
"No, look she's okay. We're looking at this from a different direction, she won't get made, she's just lining them up and getting intel".
"I don't care Callaghan, you pull her now or I walk away". Sam was adamant with that statement. He would walk out of Callaghan's front door right now, drive over to the barn, get a few willing people as backup and go pull Andy out himself if he had to.
"You won't, you want this as much as I do" Callaghan's statement was cold and collected.
He was daring Sam to prove otherwise.
"I want her out". Sam reinforced his sentiments.
"Look I get it okay, but she asked for this, and she's not working him from the restaurant or the carwash or him really".
"So what's she doing? How did she get in there then?" Sam tried to keep his voice from rising but it was hard to keep a handle on his temper right now.
"She's tutoring his kid sister".
Great, so now Andy was on their turf, in their neighbor hood and in the Ramos house, the most dangerous place for a cop to be and in uncharted territory.
"Look, all leads point to them as the mainline. If we cut it off there, the rest will fall. We think... We think one of the Ramos family wrote the list?".
"We?" Sam said not missing a beat.
"Cruz".
"Great" Sam mumbled before searching for the way out through the window.
...
Andy lay in bed watching shadows cross the ceiling as the night turned to early morning hours.
She had to get up and go to class soon, not that she really even felt like getting out of bed.
These days the smallest of noises woke her, the softest of whispers had her on edge. She had to be careful so anything out of the ordinary set her on alert.
Getting in was easy, staying alive now that she was inside was a whole new ballgame.
Luke had guys watching Sophia Ramos for a while, and Nick helped her set it up so that Sophia would notice her and reach out when the opportunity presented itself.
Sophia Ramos was sixteen going on seventeen and had been dealt a bad hand by being born into the wrong family. Guns and Gangs had been paying careful attention to her since she hit fourteen and then she became an unwilling pawn in their game. They suspected her of running large deposits of heroine and uncut cocaine, but they weren't sure. It was just stabbing in the dark.
Quinn Ramos was different from his father, and his younger brother, he had morals and had been really active in Sophia's life since their parents were gunned down and killed in an unsolved hit when Sophia was twelve. Since then Quinn had forced her to stay in school even though she probably didn't have too.
Sophia was never seen in the company of a male of any age outside of a few know close associates of the Ramos family, guys coming near her had resulted in a few broken bones in the past so she carried the stigma of 'stay away' heavily. She was a beautiful girl, bright and sparkly too, and she had a mouth like a snake, but she held no fear.
Andy saw it in her eyes the day that they set up the sting and Nick tried to grab her backpack before Andy came to her 'rescue'. Nick had dressed like a homeless guy and went for her backpack just like Luke had told him too, acting like he was slightly deranged helped, but it didn't phase Sophia at all. Or Sophie, as she proffered to be called that, Andy just kept forgetting.
That day, Andy had chased the homeless guy away and gotten Sophie her bag back, subtly exchanging their books and papers that ended up strewn all over the sidewalk. Andy had shuffled her college transfer papers and her dorm and class schedule into Sophie's paperwork before handing it to her and saying goodbye.
Later that night Quinn Ramos showed up at her dorm room to hand her papers back and check her out as well as ask for Sophie's report card back. He thought that she had been hiding it from him.
He had opened it in front of Andy before grabbing her transfer papers out of her hand and asking her if she wanted to earn extra cash.
Sophie was failing math and english, two of Andy's college majors so it work out perfectly.
She was now a college student (again) and tutoring Sophie three times a week where she got a chance to look around and take mental notes of faces coming and going at the Ramos house, or the restaurant they spent a whole lot of time at.
'Business' wasn't really a part of their homelife and Andy could tell that was how it would stay.
But being here, being someone else did little to calm Andy's longing or cover up the hurt that still swelled up inside her.
She had tried to leave it behind, but it tagged along anyway.
Andy had spent some time trying to distance herself from herself and how she felt, but no matter what she did, she still remembered that no matter what happened, no matter what Sam had done or hadn't done before or after she left, she quite frankly never deserved him in the first place.
*****Thanks for joining me at the bottom!
I have the feeling that Sam and Andy will be crossing paths soon, so see you with the next chapter!
Have an awesome day!
Jelly Bean Jenna©