Page 20 of Cruel Savior

"Don't we have serious shit to do this morning? I thought we were going to talk about the case?" My surly attitude hit its intended target. Mandy's momentary cheerful mood disappeared as fast as it had shown up. She dropped the pastry on one of my paper plates and grabbed a napkin to wipe away the sugar she'd seemed to be enjoying just moments ago.

The word dickhead filtered through my mind, which I decided to embrace, rather than take as some sort of sign to stop. The smartest thing we could do was to get down to business.

"By all means. Get on with it, boy." What normally would have been an endearment from JD definitely didn't come out that way today. I'm not sure why he seemed so annoyed with me, but I was going to ignore it—for now.

"I have all the case files and the pictures from last night if you want to see those."

"Yeah, might as well. Axel gave me a rundown on what happened, but it doesn't hurt to look."

"Got it," she said, leaving the island to retrieve her bag as well as a pad of notebook paper and a pen. "I'm going to take notes in case anything we say now jogs something loose later. I'm more of a visual learner than anything else, so seeing it in writing or in a picture really helps."

"Makes sense." JD turned his full attention to Mandy, and for the next thirty minutes, she went over every detail of the case while I grabbed a second cup of coffee and slid one to her as well, fixed the way she’d described yesterday.

“Thank you,” she said, her demeanor as rigid as ever, except for her eyes. They were definitely softer than they had been yesterday.

"Are we absolutely one hundred percent sure that this couldn't have something to do with Mazzeo?" JD asked.

"That was my thought exactly. I don't believe in any coincidences, and this one has way too many. I'm going to put in a call to Houston and see if there's anything he can contribute. But my understanding is that both Izzy and Frank were only children, and his parents are long gone. That doesn't leave anyone behind to seek revenge."

"What about business associates?" Mandy asked. "Surely, one of those could take up the torch a son might have."

"You would know his business associates better than us," I bit, teeth and all.

"I was surprised to hear that you were helping Frank." JD's words caused Mandy to flinch, and instead of finally feeling vindicated, I wanted to stand up for her. Because there had to be some reason she would help a piece of shit like him.

"It's not as cut and dried as you might think, but that's a long story for another time. Suffice it to say, no one in his organization cared enough about him to go to these lengths. Although someone had to take over the business. The mafia would never allow the business to go fallow without someone new to take over."

"They haven't," I said. "We've already started to see trouble brewing out of Seattle. It sounds like his organization has been taken over by a secret cabal type of thing. Whoever’s in charge now are keeping their individual identities a secret."

"Seriously? Wow. That's fascinating." She sipped more of her coffee.

"Is it? I pretty much think it's a pain in the ass. Ours, specifically. They seem to be aligning themselves with a rival MC out of Seattle that has been nothing but a colossal headache since they hit the scene. If they are going to be the muscle for the new mafia of Seattle, we're all going to have a lot of new problems down the pike."

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," JD offered. "Why don't you go make that call to Houston, while I go through these files again. There must be a clue here somewhere. Otherwise, we are going to be stuck waiting for him to make another move, and that is not my preferred choice."

"Agreed," I said, slipping my phone out of my pocket and disappearing into my bedroom. Not only would a call to Houston give me something to focus on, but it would also give me some much-needed headspace away from her.

Chapter Twelve

Amanda

"We should probably talk."

Those were about the last words I wanted to hear from anyone, let alone the president of the Sins of Wrath motorcycle club. I'd thought Axel leaving the room wouldgive me a chance to breathe and pull myself together. His biting words were wreaking havoc on my emotions this morning and I needed to pull myself together.

"Yeah. There's a lot of details to go over. Although I don't know if it's going to help. I feel like I'm at a dead end. I was going to ask if your guy Tel could help me access some security cameras outside my own network... I hoped I wasn't reaching too far asking to help me hack into the county system and any other private businesses in the area who might have cameras. But someone, somewhere, had to have picked up something. In this day and age, no one could get around without being filmed one way or another.

"Sure. Tel can do that in his sleep, but that's not what I meant. I'm talking about Axel—and you."

"There is no Axel and me. That is ancient history. We were just kids. Neither one of us is looking to re-hash any of that."

"You sure about that? From what I can see, he's still looking at you for answers. He might not ask the questions, but trust me, they're there. And they aren't ever going away if you don't answer them."

"Why? He already hates me. What good is it going to do to talk it out? Nothing is going to change what happened. It's done. Why not leave it buried in the past where it belongs?"

"But is it buried?" he asked. "That boy is the best damn VP a man like me could ask for, but when it comes to you, he still wears his heart on his sleeve. Or the pieces that are left anyways. He deserves to know the truth."

I narrowed my eyes at that. It sounded like he might know more than he should, but how could that be? Just like Axel, I'd chosen to bottle it all up and bury it. It was the best way then and it was the best way now for me to keep moving forward.

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