Page 140 of Veil of Lies

“There’s a safe deposit box in my name. Dad opened it for me. No clue what it contains.”

Mateo sat up straighter in his chair. “Was that why you visited the Wells Fargo bank in Cincinnati?”

Had his goons been following me? Was he responsible for our car being driven off the road and me being shot? It was beginning to seem like he was.

“Yes, but I didn’t take my ID, so I couldn’t access it.” I stared at the polished wood floor, my expression impassive. My poker face was actually pretty good, so unless he was a pro at reading body language, I might actually get away with the lie.

He frowned. “Hmm. I could get someone to pretend to be you, but that’s going to take too much time. I guess we’ll have to pay a visit to the bank, so you can access the safe deposit box.” He smiled at me. “Let’s hope for your sake it contains the documents I’ve been looking for.”

Behind me, Lily sat drinking wine. She was on her fifth glass but hadn’t loosened up at all. The woman had a stick so far up her ass, it was a miracle she could walk.

“Surely you have a girl who can impersonate her?” she interjected in a loud voice. “She’s not that special.”

Fuck, if he agreed, I was in trouble. The only way I was getting out of this was if he took me back to Cincinnati.

“It’ll be quicker if we fly back. I’ll escort Estella there.” He pulled a cigar from a wooden box and lit the tip. Sweet-smelling smoke drifted my way. “I have a meeting with Diego in two days. I’d like to reassure him we have everything under control, darling.”

Lily nodded. “I suppose. Let’s hope the girl isn’t lying.” She fixed me with a gimlet eye and I tried not to shudder. The woman was like a spitting cobra. One false move and I was dead.

Chapter 106

Quinn

Brax was slowly losing his shit. We all were. I’d barely slept in the last 24 hours. Trawling through data, trying to follow breadcrumbs, was taking far longer than I’d hoped, even with help from some online buddies. My efforts were focused on Mateo Silva and his connections.

Agent Norcross had shown up three hours after Stella disappeared. None of us trusted him but we needed his help. He had people looking for her too, but that didn’t mean I was going to abandon my own investigation.

“I’m not dumb, kid, I know you are doing illegal shit,” he’d told me when he arrived. “Just do me a favor and don’t tell me about it. Plausible deniability protects both of us.” I nodded and returned to my online conversation. “I want to be kept informed if you find anything.”

“Sure.”

“I mean it, kid! My team is good but we have to work within certain parameters.”

“I’ll tell you,” I lied. I was reserving judgment. He needed to earn our trust.

Now, more than a day later, we still had nothing. Mateo had vanished into thin air, along with Stella. The guy had to have a lot of fucking resources to achieve that level of invisibility.

An encrypted message pinged on my screen from a hacker friend.

Delilah: Lily Walker caught a private jet to a private airport just south of the Mexican border. Flight manifest shows she landed four hours ago.

Me: Anything after that?

Delilah: I’m looking.

Well, that was interesting.

Brax stopped his endless pacing and turned to look at me. I glanced down, fully expecting the carpet to be threadbare given how many kilometers he’d walked in the last few hours. He looked awful. He hadn’t shaved in days, his tee was wrinkled, and his skin was sallow beneath his tan.

“What?” he asked. I swear the guy was like a bloodhound; he read me like a book.

“Any reason why your grandmother would catch a jet to Mexico a few hours ago?”

Brax frowned. “Not that I know of, why?”

“Let me look into it more. I don’t see your grandmother hitting Cancun for a beach vacay, do you?”

If Lily was there, it made me wonder if Mateo had some kind of connection to the area. They’d seemed pretty friendly at the gallery, and Brax had already mentioned they had a long history together.

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