Page 11 of Cruel Savior

He continued to rifle through the file and photos. His demeanor as lax and casual as if he’d not just taken a knife to my heart and shredded it to ribbons.

"I don't see anything here that jumps out as cause for the kind of death Danvers endured. Is this all of it?"

As far as he was concerned. I’d whitewashed the case file a long time ago. There were a couple of agents at the CIA who knew some of the details surrounding my time with the Mazzeo organization, but not one knew everything other than me. That knowledge allowed me to take in a thread of air and answer him.

“Yes.” I took another small breath and forced my voice into an even tone. “And I would normally agree that that case is the least likely to give me trouble now. But none of the others are obvious choices, either."

He closed the file on Frank and looked up at me, his eyes as ice cold as his words. "Where are those? I'd like to look through them all. You never know what a second set of eyes could find."

I pointed to the remaining case files piled on the desk. "Have at it. I need coffee, and since I was in the middle of making some when you arrived, I'm going back to the kitchen." And if I didn’t get away from him now, I couldn’t guarantee I wouldn’t break.

He nodded without saying anything else. I'd basically been dismissed. Axel outside his club seemed like a lone wolf, but I'd kept up with them over the years, and he worked as well with a team as he did on his own. But he was the kind of man who chose who he worked with, and not the other way around.

I paused. If JD had forced him into this assignment, it would explain the hostility. Not that he needed an excuse. I wasn't naive or narcissistic enough to not realize that what happened that night so long ago, tore two lives apart. But after... our lives went in very different directions. So why take this job if he hated me so much?

These were thoughts and questions I had no intention of voicing out loud. Not only would I not like the answers, but it would also force both of us to look at a past we were better off not touching. Too much time had passed. We were different people.

He was a rockstar badass motorcycle man with a passion for righting wrongs, no matter what it took or what laws he broke to get it done.

I was... well...

Who the hell was I supposed to be?

I left him standing in the bedroom and went to the kitchen. Only then did I finally get a good breath into my lungs. Seeing him was harder than I thought possible, but working with him? God, that was going to be unbearable.

What did that say about me?

Chapter Seven

Axel

I took moretime than I needed to go through all of Mandy's case files, and it still didn't feel like enough. She'd gone to retrieve coffee and never returned. So, I'd moved on to the rest of the information she had posted around the room.

The room she was also using as a bedroom, if her smart watch and a book on the nightstand meant anything. Not to mention the small suitcase on the stool at the end of the bed. I picked up the book and flipped it open to read the dust jacket. The fact she was reading a book about high profile serial killers didn't surprise me a bit.

She'd certainly changed from the easy-going teenager I remembered who had nothing more important on her mind than dance routines and spending time on the back of my bike.

These little jolts of memories were not what I wanted to focus on. I didn't need any information on her personal life to make sure she stayed safe from a killer. I placed the book back on the table and moved back to the whiteboard with her scribbled notes.

I liked her brainstorming methods, though. She’d thrown a lot of ideas into the mix whether they were viable or not. It was a method that JD liked to use when he had a problem he thought seemed impossible to solve. No idea was too crazy, and all were at least worth considering. Because, nothing was impossible, and more often than not, the solution was right in front of your face...you just had to see it.

I grabbed the file on Mazzeo again. It was an insane coincidence that both she and Danvers worked on the case the MC was involved in as well, and now Danvers had been killed, his head delivered to her door and I stood here representing the MC.

A chill swept over me.I didn't believe in coincidences.

But who in that organization would give a shit about Frank's death? Izzy was out of the question. She was as close to lily-white as a mobster's daughter could be. In her short time with the MC, I'd learned more than enough about her to know she hated Frank Mazzeo as much as the rest of us had. That old bastard had arranged his only daughter to marry a psychopath who raped women for fun, and then sold them to the highest bidder.

If Houston hadn't killed him, any one of us certainly would have. Both men had gotten exactly what they deserved.

After what she'd been through, Izzy deserved a life free of her father's past, but she'd taken the money she got from Frank and used it to fund an organization that rescued women from sexual slavery and then helped them get back into society and on their feet again.

Not in a million years would she have anything to do with this.

But... That insane nagging at the back of my skull told me something wasn't right. I was missing something right in front of my face. I just had to figure out what it was. It looked like I'd be making a call to Houston to discuss it. In the meantime, I wanted to check my contacts again in Seattle and see if there was any news about the new conglomerate taking over the criminal space that Frank had once occupied.

The mafia wasn't known for keeping their leadership a secret, and they'd want to come in with a strong show of force.

"What do you think?"

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