Page 43 of The Echo of Forever
“Plug this in for me on the monitor.”
Carmen eyed it but didn’t question my command and did as I asked.
“It’s a timeline,” she said, wheeling the monitor to me.
I stood in front of it and swiped through the secured documents on the screen.
“Florida,” I mumbled. “Constanzo. Weren’t there some issues with this family and the iron pipeline deal?”
The Constanzos had a foothold in Miami with ties to Cuba’s drug trade. Until a few months ago, they were leasing the rights to move product up and down the iron pipeline from the Collective.
But once the contract was up, the head of the family, Augusto, didn’t want to pay the renewal fee.
Dealing with those kinds of deals wasn’t in my job description, so some of the details were unknown to me.
“From my knowledge, yes. Augusto’s son was willing to pay the fee but was murdered before the deal could happen. They’ve been investigating since.”
We had the answer right in front of us, and it all led back to Demetrius.
He killed him for the routes and ended up in New York afterward, the documents told us.
“Why the fuck would he get in bed with the Albanians?” Carmen mumbled, not looking for an answer as I swiped one document away and enlarged another. “Ah. He used them to get close to the O’Sullivans.”
It was all laid out for us in black and white.
The Constanzo and O’Sullivan families had both been in the running for control over the pipeline. It’d been a highest-bidder-takes-all situation back then.
The Don at the time, the current Don’s grandfather, backed out after his wife was murdered by what they thought were the Albanians. Turns out, it’d been the Constanzos all along.
Violet said he righted a wrong for their family, and now she was helping him do the same.
My head was spinning.
He put the hit out on himself to get close to me. That’s what I got from all this.
I had more questions, only he could answer.
And since I’d been invited to seek him out, that’s exactly what I planned to do.
Something Demetrius seemed to have banked on happening.
“Take a ride with me to Cannon towers,” I said, kicking off my heels and reaching for my Sambas. “You’ve been before, right?”
She sighed and nodded, picking up on exactly why I’d asked the question.
Trying to reason with me about seeing Demetrius again, with my father lurking around every corner, wouldn’t work.
My mind was set.
I refused to kill him until I knew the full truth.
We rode most of the way across town in silence, but I couldn’t keep my thoughts to myself.
“Is there something I should know?” I asked, pulling over in case I had to kill her.
They’re all lying to you.
“I’m only doing my part, Forever,” she replied softly, cutting her eyes at me. “That’s all I can say.”
