Page 20 of Seeking Salvation

Snow tapped her watch. “Can we focus, please, and have the science lesson later?”

“Yeah, go on, Maya,” Reaper encouraged, casting a side eye at Watchdog, who’d gone back to typing on his laptop.

Their friend was getting worse, not better, and everyone was worried sick about him but, for now, Maya and Tyrique needed his focus.

“Well, she was fine until Tyrique was born. Don’t get me wrong, she loved him and she was a good mum, but having a baby is hard work and she struggled with sleepless nights. I tried to stay as long as I could after he was born, but my company wouldn’t let me take any more leave. I thought she was fine. We talked every day on the phone, but I could tell after the second week that she was using again even though she denied it. She began to make excuses as to why she couldn’t FaceTime me because she knew I’d see it on her face. I urged her to contact Tyrique’s father and she said she had, and he didn’t want to know. I had no reason to think she’d lie about that, but she clearly did.”

Maya gave Titan an apologetic look and he tried to reassure her that he wasn’t mad about that with a wink.

“I’d just decided to quit my job and move in with her to help when I got the call that she had died.”

“What did the police say about her apparent suicide?”

“They tried to tell me that she cut herself in the bath, but I know my sister and she hated the sight of blood. If she’d really meant to kill herself, she would’ve taken something. She never would’ve done that and she wouldn’t have done it with Tyrique in the house with her.”

“My son was there?” Titan felt his belly coil with anger that his son had been put in that position.

Maya nodded. “Yes, which is why I’m certain she didn’t do this.”

“So, the police ruled it a suicide and then these thugs turned up?”

“Yes, they said Rose owed them money and now she was dead I’d be paying her debt.”

Snow pursed her lips in thought. “But why kill her? Why not make her work off the debt?”

Titan caught her eye and nodded. “I was thinking the same thing.”

Maya shrugged. “I don’t know, but I do know they’re into some nasty shit. A few of the girls have disappeared from the club and I was sure they were dead, but then they were back a few days later looking sick and moving like they’d been hurt.”

“They could be pimping them out and the Johns are getting rough?” Bishop ground his jaw as he spoke through his teeth.

Maya shook her head. “I don’t know. They wouldn’t talk about it.”

“Did any of them know Rose?” Val asked kindly.

Maya shook her head, her dark curls moving about her shoulders. “Not that I know, but I haven’t exactly been trying to make friends.”

“Watchdog, can you get us some names if Maya gives you the name of the club?”

“Already got them. That’s why I know they’re just thugs.”

“We’ll fix this. I promise.”

“Titan’s right. We won’t let this go. We’ll take them down.”

Maya turned to Snow as she spoke. “Who are you people?”

“We help people, and we have specific skill sets that allows us to do that.”

Maya seemed to battle some internal struggle before eventually nodding. “Okay, what now?”

“Now we eat and then we plan.”

As a unit, his friends stood and began to file out of the room, and he got up to see them out, giving Maya a few moments to process it all.

At the door, Bás stopped. “We’ll have a plan in place by morning. You just take care of your family tonight.”

Instinctively he went to deny she was his family but the truth was she was, and he felt it on a subliminal level. From the second she’d opened the door at the hotel earlier that morning he’d felt a connection he couldn’t explain. Was that family? It was different to how he felt about his team and he knew he’d die for them but Maya and Tyrique had, in the space of twelve hours, superseded all of them.

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