Page 58 of Anything But Convenient

His words triggered something in my brain. It was like all I needed to hear was that single word for the pieces to start to come together.

I dug through what I had in front of me until I saw the document I was looking for. I leaned over, handing it to Ronan, along with the original sheet, laying them side by side. He glanced over everything.

I saw the moment it clicked for him, too.

"It is a woman," he said. “And she's been at this for far longer than anyone's giving her credit for.”

The paperwork I found was for a shipping business. It was a company under a family name, a very rich family name. One that we had pushed aside and ignored, ruling it out from the very beginning.

But now that we had some kind of indication that we might have been wrong all along, it makes us double check things.And the name of the family when scrambled, could spell out "Mordecai.” At least the name of the original owner would.

The current owner was one Shelley Mori. Her great-great-grandfather was Cade Mori.

“What kind of fucking bad guy has a name like Shelley? I wonder if she goes by Mordecai to sound more badass,” Cohen joked as he handed the papers off to Godric.

Memphis interrupted. “We didn't even know what her damn name was before now. What matters is if she's the person we need to hunt down and get Archie back from. I can trace Shelley, but I can't do that for the fictional "Mordecai" person.”

I typed out“trace her"in a text and sent it to him. The sound of his keys picked up speed as he went to work.

No one had to speak to know that I was egging him on. Tank had disappeared early on in the investigation. He needed to contact the guy who he was going to get a favor from. I wasn't going to question any of it. His contact would be the thing that would bring my husband home.

At the end of the day, he could be making a deal with the devil for all I cared. So long as it brought back Archie, I’d accept whatever came after.

When Memphis decided to deep dive, he dove. His screen was connected to the main display. We watched as his focus shifted to scanning through everything it could about Shelley Mori. Pictures popped up of her at events with her family. She was a thin woman with long brown hair. Beautiful by most standards, yet there was a hardness in her gaze.

One that spoke to a darkness. A darkness that all of us recognized because we had come up against it more times than we cared to admit.

“She has multiple properties,” Ronan pointed out. “He could be at any one of these.”

Godric grunted. “He wouldn't. She's not foolish enough to put the person she kidnapped somewhere connected to her real name.”

Cohen hummed in a way that didn’t fully agree. “Or maybe she is. I doubt she thought we'd find her real name.”

In the quiet that followed, Memphis lifted his keyboard and slammed it against the wall. The next thing we knew, we were purged into darkness.

A flashlight came on, illuminating his scowling face. We all turned the lights on on our cell phones. Confusion swept through us.

What the fuck was going on?

“We're being watched,” Memphis said. “Everything we've done is being transferred to someone else. Someone likely on Shelley's payroll, if I had to guess. She's been one step ahead of us the entire time.”

The men around the table tensed, losing their cool. It made us wonder just how much of what happened was orchestrated and how much of it was just circumstance.

There was no difference in my mind. We were on Shelley's tail. She knew we would be coming. And there was nothing that would stop us.

The sound of footsteps came from the doorway. Memphis turned his flashlight to the entry, which illuminated Tank.

“What the hell is going on? Why is there no power in here?”

Memphis repeated the information about us being spied on. We watched as Tank's entire body language changed. This was the beast. This was the man who had earned his name.

“If Shelley wants to play a game, then let's play it. We'll hunt her down and slaughter her the way she deserves, the way you could only do with people like her.”

The chill I got from his words fed the anger inside me.

“Any updates on your contact?” Godric asked.

I was thankful he did because I was so caught up in my blood thirst I hadn't thought to ask.

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