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"Don't fucking tell me to take a breath!" Arnold yelled. "Have you looked at how many men the explosion killed? How many of them are in the hospital? I'm not going to sit here and jerk off while I wait for Damian to destroyed something else of ours."

"I'm with Arnold," Aaron said, "we have to retaliate. I know were trying to build a gentler, more caring image, but we can't let anyone kick us in the balls this way and get away with it."

"You just want another fight," Alex sighed. "I'm not saying we sit here and fuck while waiting for Damian to mount another attack, but we can't just shoot blind and hope he's the one we hit."

Arnold stared at his brother, the surprise cutting off his anger. "So all this is--" He indicated the half dozen officers standing nervously around the room-- "is because you think I'm about to go off half cocked?"

"It's what you do when you're angry, Arnold. You want to lash out and the most convenient target. This is Damian, we can't believe he hasn't already set up contingency to keep you from finding him."

"Who said anything about me wanting to hit him?" Arnold replied, which earned him a set of stares. "Okay, I do want to hit him, but I'm not that stupid. He know I want his ass because of this, which is why I don't want to go after him." Arnold brought up a picture on his desk and flung it to the wall display.

A boar in a gray military uniform with a cross stenciled over the right breast stood among buildings speaking to a group of men and women. "That is Archbishop Vincent Petrus, officially in charge of the Catholic Church's dealing in Sao Paulo."

"That's in Brazil," Aaron said, looking at the officers, "for those of you who flunked geography in school."

Alex scoffed. "Says the guy who knows geography only because he wanted to know which country had the record holder for holding their breath." He pointed to a building. "Isn't that the compound we attacked last week? You know, the one where you broke rank and risked your life?"

"I didn't risk anything, I saw a potential trouble and dealt with it. It's my job as head of this family."

Alex sighed. "We need to go over delegating the work, again, but later. I thought they'd scrubbed most of their system before we could get anything useful."

"They did," Aaron answered, "I mean we got planned attacks schedule, but who was in charge of them was wiped. We informed the closest families, like the good tigers we are, and the few attacks that still happened were stopped, but no one of importance was there, so even if they did have the time to scrap those attacks, they at least got enough warning it was compromised to pull people they couldn't afford to lose."

"Aiden's tech pulled the picture off one of the phones," Arnold said.

"Fans will always want their pics," Aaron replied.

"Yeah, and knowing how Damian has infiltrated the Denver police force, his tech worked under the assumption every law enforcement agency was infiltrated and used third and fourth party facial recognition companies to identify him. As a Archbishop, he has to be important in the Gray Church, which means to Damian. We capture him, and we will have a trove of information."

"If he's that important, Damian will have him protected," Alex said. "And I mean more than marks. He's going to have bodyguards."

Arnold smiled and sent a new picture to the wall. The same boar accompanied by four muscular men and two women. "He always travels with these six. We backtracked their movements for three months, as far as the techs can tell, that's when he arrived. We haven't been able to find instances of him meeting Damian, but we know the Society has men who can communicate telepathically over a distance, so Damian probably as a way to do the same."

"Okay," Alex said cautiously, "if you know all that, I'm guessing you know where they are."

Arnold flicked a new picture to the wall. A luxury SUV caught entering an underground parking lot. The driver was one of the women, and the silhouette of a boar was visible in the back.

"It's the parking entrance to the Pendry, in San Diego, taken last night."

Aaron cursed. "He's in our backyard? How come you haven't taken him down already?"

"A was wondering the same," Alex said, although his tone was cautious, instead of angry.

"We are a family," Arnold replied, "and the three of us are the military branch. We agreed we wouldn't do anything major would running it my the other two."

"And even as angry as I know you were about Royal's destruction, you sat on this until now?" Aaron asked, a hint of awe in his voice.

Alex studied Arnold, then raised his voice. "Your dismissed. You say one word about what you heard here and you are not going to enjoy the way I fuck you next time, am I clear?"

The officers nodded and hurried to leave.

Once the three were alone Alex fixed is gaze on Arnold. "If we disagree with this plan, what are you going to go?"

"What?" Aaron asked, "why would we--" Alex raised a hand to silence him without taking his eyes off his brother. "Don't shush me," Aaron said.

"I'm going to call the two of you idiots for letting this opportunity pass," Arnold answered.

"Hey, I'm not going along with the gun nut," Aaron complained.

"So you'd go ahead over our objections?"

Arnold ground his teeth, ignoring Aaron's continued objections. He wanted to storm out of the room, grab the men he still had available, the jet and fly to San Diego. He could feel the edge of the desk crack where he dripped and forced himself to relax. Alex wasn't an idiot, he reminded himself, if he had objections they would be reasoned.

"I'd listen to your arguments," Arnold said, letting a breath out. "If you can convince me I'm the idiot for wanting to strike back at Damian, I'll stand down."

"I don't think you're an idiot, just hot headed at times. Have you considered this might be a trap? We don't see the boar, just a shadow."

"Aiden has a singer in San Diego giving a concert, he moved him to the Pendry as soon as he found out they were there. He got visual confirmation it's him. No pictures," Arnold added, "he didn't to risk tipping them off."

"Okay, it could still be a trap."

"In the week since we took the compound, the archbishop hasn't changed anything to his movement or personnel. Damian was able to pull people off attacks taking place the next day. Of he suspected we knew about this man, he would protect him. Damian knows us, he's blood, that we like it or not, that means he knows the extents we are willing to go to for revenge. I'm trying to use take against him."

Alex nodded. "I want twenty-four hours to go over the information."

"Alex, they might move on in that time."

"Then they move on and we get him at his next stop. You're not a idiot, Arnold, but you're angry. Your anger has blinded you to the obvious before. All I'm asking for is the time to confirm what you see here and formulate a distraction so Damian things we're reaction how he expects."

Arnold forced himself to stay relaxed, to keep his anger down. Alex was being reasonable. Twenty-four hours shouldn't make a difference if the boar was in San Diego to coordinate with church agents there.

"Okay, you have your day. Word of warning, I am going. You try to keep me away from that capture and I am going to pound your ass so hard you aren't going to be able to walk for a week."

"No worries there," Alex replied.

Arnold looked at Aaron at the same time as Alex.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"You do have a history of looking for excuses so Arnold will fuck you."

"Brian set that up, not me!"

"How about the dozen previous times you challenged me to a fight?"

"I was trying to get Royal and you now it, if you didn't always cheat, I'd have won!"

Arnold kept quiet. He agreed with Alex, but knew better than to prod their more volatile brother.

"Then we reconvene here tomorrow morning," Alex said. "Aaron, we're going to need two dozen of your best men, I can use mine for this. How many can you bring, Arnold?"

"This isn't sounding like you're planning in trying to stop the assault," Aaron said.

"I'm not, I just want to double check things. If I find it's a trap, it's easy to stand down."

"I have eight men in the city who weren't at Royal when it was blown up. In twenty-four hours I should be able to pull a few more from jobs outside the city, but I don't know how many. Ernest is the one who keeps track of that and last I heard he still hasn't regained consciousness."

"If needed, I can have three dozen men ready," Aaron said.

Alex nodded. "Okay, do that. More will be better."

"I'll call Adam so he can get transportation ready," Arnold said. "In the meantime, I'm heading to the hospital." He felt better now that Alex had taken charge of the planning. He'd keep a level head through it all.

He was halfway to the elevator when he saw Arthur exit it. Arnold froze. He hadn't expected to see him. Arthur avoided the corporate building as much as he could. He was contemplating turning around when Arthur called to him.

Arnold swallowed and did his best to keep the wistfulness off his face as he joined his brother. "Arthur, I didn't expect you to be here."

"I figured you'd be bust planning the retaliation, so I came to give you the news."

"Simon?" he asked, unable to keep the fear out of his voice.

Arthur gave him an undecipherable look. "The surgeries went well. The prognosis is that in time he'll make a full recovery. Your gift probably saved his life."

Arnold breathed a little easier and found the urgency he'd felt at striking back at Damian diminish. "Ernest?"

"I got the call on my way here, he regained consciousness. How he managed to end up with only a contusion, bruises and scrapes considering the survivors say he rushed the bomber, I have no idea. Probably your gift again."

"He doesn't have it. It was a condition of working for me."

"And you let him?"

"He brought too much to the company. It was a mess when I inherited it. He had contacts in the military a gift for managing the office. I think I was planning on forcing him once things settled down, but we just worked too well, I didn't to screw it up. And to be honest theres just something about him that doesn't stroke that side of me." Arnold shook himself, he needed to go fuck someone and get the stress out if he was becoming this maudlin.

Arthur's expression was again inscrutable. The smaller tiger opened his mouth, closed it and shook his head.

"Is everything okay?" Arnold asked, trying to keep his tone neutral.

"I'm fine. It's this building. It's too much all of you, it rubs me the wrong way. I'll send a file to your phone with everyone's status. I just knew those mattered more to you."

"Thank you, Arthur. You didn't have to do this."

Again his brother looked about to say something. He shook his head and heading to the elevator in silence.

Arnold gave Arthur two minutes before going down to the garage. Now that he didn't need to go to the hospital, he was heading to his club to fuck his entire staff and the clientele too for good measure.

* * * * *

The capture was anticlimactic as far as Arnold was concerned. Alex sent a dozen men ahead to secure the building and to keep the staff from getting in the way, then the entire force went in.

At the same as a police raid took place on a minor compound north of San Francisco. Adam was coordinating it, acting as if the man Aiden had somehow found, who looked too much like Arnold, gave the orders.

Ten minutes later the seven church agents were captured without a shot fired and only two injuries on his side. The archbishop could generate searing heat from his hands. It hadn't prevented one of the men from striking him from behind.

By the time Arnold set foot in the room all seven were sedated and would remain so until they were ready to begin interrogating them.

Take that Damian. That'll teach you to mess with my people.