Page 191 of Bossy Hero

Junior raises his hand above his head, twice as high as Tomer did earlier. All heads whip in his direction.

Mia snickers under her breath. “I guess he does that to everyone and not just me.”

Alan squints at Junior and nods once, encouraging him to speak.

“Sorry. Force of habit.” He lowers his hand, his cheeks flushing red. “If the chief and the detective already know these people are guilty, then why don’t they just arrest them?”

Sawyer leans toward Junior, brushing his arm with his. “Excellent question.”

Alan responds. “If they did, Lenkov would know the intel came from the inside. That would make Katia the prime suspect since she assisted Viktor with that ring at Nikolai’s direction. We can’t risk her safety like that.”

Mia and Tomer have some silent conversation across the table, making me wonder if they’ve discussed this before.

She finally speaks, making her statement sound like a question. “Soweneed to find shit on these seventy-two fuckers that links them to the trafficking while keeping the mystery list out of evidence. That way, as far as Lenkov would know, the names were found by us and not handed over in full.”

Alan nods twice. “Yes. And we need to do it in waves rather than everyone at once. That would be far too coincidental.”

Lettie straightens beside me and offers, “Perhaps some of the girls who were rescued can be witnesses. I’d be willing to talk to them.”

Her father smiles warmly at her. “Thanks, Lettie. We’ll see what we need for that.”

“My pleasure. Happy to help.”

Silence settles around the room, giving me hope that the meeting will soon end so I can get Alan to bed. He needs some rest.

Klein dashes my hope by asking, “Without seeing everyone’s faces, I can’t tell what everyone is feeling about Patterson now. Do we trust him, or are we supposed to keep digging?”

“I still don’t like him,” Tomer mutters, then looks to Alan. “But we haven’t found anything alarming in our research yet.”

Alan takes only a brief moment to deliberate. “For now, I want to focus on the list of seventy-two and find out what’s going on with the mayor.”

Leo extends his hand toward Big Al, hovering it a few inches over the table. “Alexei, err... Chief Bigsby didn’t have anything to share about the mayor?”

“As far as Bigsby knows, there’s nothing going on with him. However, he didn’t rule it out as a possibility. As soon as we get something we can use, we’ll feed it to the chief, and he’ll approach Lenkov about it.”

Shep’s eyes bulge. “Why would he do that? Wouldn’t that be tipping his hand?”

Alan shakes his head assertively. “It’s what the chief would be expected to do if Redleg started sniffing around one of Lenkov’s assets. In doing so, he could potentially find out even more about the mayor’s role.” He lowers one ear toward his shoulder. “Assuming he’s part of this.”

I don’t know the background or history with the mayor. But in looking at Alan’s reaction right now, I’d bet my life that the mayor is involved. Now, they just need to figure out how and why.

Like Shep said earlier,piece of cake.

Alan dismisses the group, ordering them to get some sleep.

When everyone stands, Sammy balls up a napkin and tosses it on the table. “Well, this meeting was simultaneously interestingandsadly uneventful. Next time, I want more drama, people. If not, I’ll have to hire someone to pretend to be a long-lost secret relative back from the dead. Don’t tempt me.”

Chapter34

What if?

Big Al

A few weeks later

The urge to fly to Georgia for aprobably-not-hostileconfrontation with Lettie’s grandmother is beginning to outweigh my rationale for not doing it. I’ve gotten to the point where I’m manufacturing excuses to justify making the trip.

However, I don’t think anyone around here will buy my suggestion that Climax, Georgia, is fertile ground for the next generation of Redleg guards. Nor could I convince them that the sleepy little town has all we need to take down the Lenkov Bratva.

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