Project Trouble X Three

Dedicated to all my readers. Thank you so much for your support. Another shout out to oddball, N.Y.O.B., PenumbraMINE, and Jo Jo Sprout. Y’all are the best.

Recap

She smiled. “I was going to ask for your help after the mission was over with.”

I smiled back. “No problem, right, Madrid?” I looked at him, a smirk on my face.

“No problem. Sophia, you are now in the military, too. I was going to ask you after the mission was over with, but you should know I wanted you all along.” Madrid rubbed his hands together. “You two will be unstoppable.”

We both laughed and Sophia brought the screen on the wall, startling us. She turned up the sound. “Do you believe him?” The cartel leader asked.

“He’s scared shitless, so yeah. You can ask him yourself if you want to,” the enforcer answered as he sat down.

“I’m trusting you. You know I will always trust you.” He rubbed his hands down his face. “So, what are we going to do with him? Do we give him the money and send him on his way?”

“He can still be used as a hostage...

Cats POV

“He can still be used as a hostage, but I’m not too sure they will want him back. He’s a traitor to his own family. You know the way Selina was raised up. She doesn’t like traitors. She’s a tough cookie. I can’t wait to get our hands on her daughters,” the enforcers explained, both of them laughing at the last comment.

I hissed at the screen, trying to reign in my anger. I would kill them before they could lay their hands on me. I needed to make sure Sophia knew how to get out of their hold. I didn’t want anything to happen to her. She would never be the same again if they raped her.

“How much should we give him?” The enforcer asked as he stood up.

“Give him five million. Let him know he should be happy we haven’t killed him.” The enforcer nodded and opened the safe. “But, if he throws a fit, kill him.”

I heard Cruz going on about how they were going to kill him now. He would never get any money to leave the country to Mexico. I was glad to hear his plans. I was going to be paying him a visit very soon.

The cell door was opened and Cruz stood up. I could tell he was trying to act brave, but I knew the enforcer could smell his fear. Hell, I could tell without being close enough to smell it.

“Here’s your money. It’s five million. You need to be out of our territory by twelve o’ clock tomorrow afternoon. Do you hear me, boy?” The enforcer asked. I could tell he was waiting on Cruz to complain about it not being ten million but Cruz didn’t say a word about the money. “Follow me.”

We watched Cruz follow the enforcer to the door he had come in from. The enforcer pushed Cruz out the door and slammed it shut. Cruz caught himself and took off in a hurry. I knew he was headed to the boats. I wondered if he was going to steal one or hire one, but he was gone. And, he didn’t know our plans.

“Well, he’s safe from the cartel. But, he’s not safe from us. He might not have told the cartel about us, but he did take their money in a transaction of his services,” Madrid said, a look of sadness on his face.

“Yeah, for us,” Sophia quietly added, a look of shame on her face. She was close to Cruz and thought it was because of her that he had sold us out.

“Not your fault, Sophia. Never your fault. Don’t you think I felt the same way? He is a junky, Sophia, he would do anything for money to get his fix and unfortunately he sold us,” I explained what I knew to be true.

All the guys nodded. We were very lucky to have these warriors in our life. The Shadow Cats were the best of the best the military had. They haven’t failed a mission yet and I knew they wouldn’t now. Madrid had seen the value they carried. The different cats worked well together. They liked working together. They didn’t have to hold back their power or hide their shifts. It was amazing to see all the cats together. I especially loved Madrid’s cat. His lion was fierce, and he was fiercely protective of us.

I shook myself out of my thoughts. “Now, we make plans,” I said as I looked around us. “How many men do you have on standby, Madrid?”

He smiled and brought a radio out of his rucksack, one I knew was coded for the military only. “I’m going to find out right now.” I sat down and waited on Madrid to finish his conversation. It took him a while to get finished with his plans, but he really needed to wait until we figured out what we needed to do. If he talked to anyone who wasn’t a cat we needed to know how to work it to not show ourselves.

I thought of something and waved my arm in front of Madrid. “Wait one,” he told them. ’What is so important that I couldn’t finish my conversation?”

“Oh, I don’t know...The fact that there is still a woman traitor in the military,” I said sarcastically.

“Shit! I forgot.”

“I need pictures of the female military. I don’t want our plans to get to her. Can you do this quickly?” I asked. He nodded his head and called his secretary on an encrypted phone, letting her know the fax number to where we were at. I saw my dad get up and turn on the fax machine.

It wasn’t about ten-minutes later that the fax machine started spitting out pictures. I grabbed each page and went over them. I found who I was looking for after I looked at over fifty pages. “You can tell her to stop now, Madrid.” Madrid called his secretary and halted the emails and walked over to me.

“This is her?” I nodded my head. “Well, shit! She’s on one of my Shadow Cat teams. I’m going to give her Commanding Officer a new order. I wanted them to watch over the other cartels anyway.”

I nodded my head and stared at the picture. She was a grunt with her eyes set on a higher position. I knew her kind. If she would sell out the military, she would frame her C.O. I never understood how someone could do as she has. Why would she enter the military at all? Was this her plan all along?

“Trigger, did you tell her where you were going?” Madrid asked Sohia’s mate.

“No. She was off and I didn’t say anything to her. She kept pushing for me to tell her where I was going,” Firash told Madrid.

He turned to Tesso. “Did you tell her?”

Tesso huffed and rolled his eyes.“No. She pushed me to tell her, so I felt as if she was trying too hard, but I didn’t leave anything to tell her where we were at. And, I burned all the paperwork before I left. I made sure it was all ash too.”

’Good. It’s time I sent her on another mission with a ten member crew. They don’t know where we are at, so she can’t bug them." He smiled. "Plus, she won’t be able to change into her cat,” Madrid commented, a look of satisfaction on his face.

“Good,” I said, an evil grin on my face. The guys chuckled, knowing I was going to enjoy beating her ass. ’Oh, and for some reason she comes back to the base and says she was ‘ambushed’ don’t believe her. Please tell your men not to tell under the threat of kitchen or latrine duties.”

“I will link all the Commanding Officers as soon as she leaves.” He paused and nodded his head to what only he could hear. Come, let’s get our plans made.” Madrid walked back over to his satellite phone and radio.

We all sat at the table, each of us throwing ideas out. Sophia stood up and looked at the map, her eyes widened and a sly grin appeared on her face. Everyone had gone silent as soon as she stood up. She grabbed her I-pad out of her rucksack and took a picture of the map as she stood on her chair, Trigger holding her legs. I knew she had a plan as soon as she took the picture. I watched as she sat back down and started marking her map with calculations I had never seen before.

She stood back up and sat her I-pad up as she would a projector. She showed the map on the wall and walked over to it. “Cat, did you bring any material with you to make some bags that can disappear?”

Smart girl

Very smart girl

“Yes. I didn’t know if I would have to use it for something,” I answered, a big grin on my face.

“Good. We will make bags to carry in our weapons and our sparkles. If we put people here and here we can get in every time the cartel members leave to look for us. These areas are good to use bunker bombs to crush the walls in. If we can get a few more people they can storm in and after the bombs go off then we need to get a helo up in the air. The extra men and women can repel down and help. What do you think?” Sophia launched her plan to us and all of us had our mouth hanging open. How in the hell did she get so smart and perfect?

Damn good.

It was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop. All of our jaws were hanging open other than mine. I was sure I was smiling creepily. But, damn, my sister was incredible when she put her mind to use.

Sophia turned towards everyone, noticing the room had gone quiet.. “What?” Sophia asked, a confused look on her face.

Our mom stood up, our dad and Madrid following. “You’re a natural, girl. You just gave us a great plan and you don’t even know it,” our mom told Sophia, jumping up and down as soon as she said something.

Sophia rolled her eyes and pushed our mom a little ways from her. “It wasn’t that hard, Mom.”

“Don’t you realize you came up with a plan for a mission in minutes instead of months? It would take us months to come up with a plan for this operation. We don’t have months. Girl, you were amazing,” Madrid told her, giving her a side hug and bumping knuckles with her. I saw her eyes widen as she turned to look at me. Her smile was bright and happy. I had told her that if anyone bumped knuckles with her that she was accepted. I guess she realized this.

Fist bump 101