Page 40 of Broken Promises
I’d do anything for Hannah, and I could see us starting a family one day, but the idea that Devlin and Lucian would be my kids’ uncles chaps my ass. I’d learn to live with it, but it was going to take some getting used to.
Devlin took a seat and signed into his computer, and a moment later, his face took up one of the blank screens in the meeting. “I told Lucian I’d fill him in if there was anything important, so what’s your progress?”
“I’m working on the layers of fake companies and shell companies, looking for who owned the house we rescued Rylee and Hannah from. I think I’m getting close, but since some of the companies are overseas, I have less access to systems, records, and deeds,” James explained.
I hoped we could start to get some of the simpler questions answered, so the answers to the bigger ones would come easier, but so far, we were running into walls. Someone or something was protecting the key players, and even with all the technology we had access to, I didn’t feel like we were any closer to the truth.
“I’ve got three more boxes to go through, but I’ll be done by tomorrow, or Wednesday at the latest,” I reported. “So far, I’ve found the names of three associates of Sergey’s who I hadn’t considered to be possible players.” Devlin perked up as I added, “Two are dead from unrelated causes, and the last one I’ve got asearch going for. I’m looking for connections to any of the people we identified from the house.”
“Are we any closer to figuring out who the black-haired man in the suit is?” Devlin asked, and James and I shook our heads.
“If we had a fingerprint, or even a drop of blood, we may get lucky, but who knows?” James surmised.
“I talked to Rylee about him,” Skid’s voice came through James’s phone. “She doesn’t remember seeing him, but she was isolated in her room until the night you rescued them. Has anyone spoken to the girl?”
“I talked to her father, and he allowed me to speak with her. She said they kept her locked away the whole time, so it seems Hannah was the only one given access to roam around,” I answered.
I hated to reach out to Claire’s father, but I was grasping at straws and coming up with nothing. When I explained what we suspected, he called Claire into the room and calmly asked her about the man. She seemed to be doing better, and I worried I might’ve been setting her back in her recovery.
“I wonder why she was allowed to roam when the other two weren’t,” Skid remarked, and I agreed it was a valid question.
“I’ll speak with her tonight, but she’s gone over almost every second of her time with them. I don’t think she’s leaving anything out, so it’s possible that’ll be another question we need answered,” I reasoned.
Devlin sat quietly, rubbing his beard while he appeared lost in thought. James turned his head toward him, since they were in the same office, and spoke directly to him. “What are you thinking?”
I hated they were as close as they were, but I understand the reason why. When they were with Marco, they had to depend on each other to survive, and that often meant reading each other’s body language. I’d been around Devlin enough to know when hiswheels were spinning, and I could tell he was starting to see the pieces of the puzzle, maybe not the way they fit together but the pieces themselves.
“How old was Titus?” Devlin asked, and I checked my records.
“Twenty-four,” I replied.
“And Nico?” he inquired. It took a moment for my building anger to subside.
Nico was the fucker who not only attacked Rylee in an alley fifteen years ago but also the one who’d hurt Hannah. When they told me how Rylee had killed him, I was shocked she had it in her. But now that Hannah and I were starting to build a life together, I was glad he was dead and couldn’t haunt her.
Checking, I lifted my eyes to the screen. “Thirty-four.”
“She and Titus met, what, three years ago?”
“Not quite three,” James replied.
“Hannah said the man in the suit with black hair . . . fuck, let’s call him ‘douche’ to make it easier. Douche seemed to be around her age, so why is there such a range of ages? Thirty-four, twenty-four . . . what were the others?”
I looked down the page and began listing ages of the men who died in the staged explosion at the house. When I finished listing the ages, James had a curious look.
“Didn’t Lucian say they tried to have the initiation every other year for men who had come of age?”
“That’s what he recorded as the frequency, according to Sergey,” I responded.
“Then why were there so many different aged men? They should’ve all been within a year or two of each other, three maximum, but Nico and Titus were a decade apart,” Devlin remarked. “Why?”
“Was this the first gathering since the Syndicate was broken apart?” I heard Skid ask in the background.
“Yes, as far as we can tell,” Devlin replied, and I realized what they were thinking.
“You believe someone came of age and that’s why they made the move so suddenly. And they dragged distant members of the various families who weren’t part of the business, like Claire and her father.” Devlin’s blue eyes looked directly into mine through the screen, and he nodded. “So, who finally grew hair on his nuts and turned eighteen?”
“That’s what we need to figure out. But think about what Hannah said. The lady she remembered from the house, Martina, she said she was five and Martina was pregnant. What if Sergey fathered another child with Martina? It’s not a stretch to believe, and that child would be about eighteen this year, if Hannah’s memories are accurate.”
