Page 37 of Poisoned Pawn

“No,” she barks out quickly, cutting me off. The idea obviously unimaginable to her.

“You will tell me. And when you do, I’ll tear them apart. Do you hear me, Star?”

“Okay,” she says in a small voice that holds no emotion but is clearly another lie. She takes hold of my wrists and pulls my hands away from her face. “Where’s the bathroom?”

Despite wanting to force her to tell me everything, I let her go knowing that it won’t do me any good because I have a feeling that Star is a locked vault and won’t give me anything she doesn’t want to no matter how much I try to force the issue. But she’s underestimating me if she thinks I won’t get answers.

“Down the hall, first door on your left is a small bathroom,” I tell her with a nod of my head in that direction.

I watch as she hurries off in the direction I told her. As soon as she’s gone from sight, I jog upstairs to my room and open the iPad I bought with me. I’m nowhere near as good as Koda but I’ve learnt a few tricks over the years, especially how to hack sealed records, although it takes a while my way. Once I’ve set the system up and am running the program, I head back downstairs.

I find Star in the kitchen clearing up our breakfast things, which went half eaten. She looks at me over her shoulder, mask firmly back in place, as I take a seat at the breakfast bar and watch her. She’s methodical and thorough, and I imagine her work ethic is the same. Which brings me nicely to the question of how she ended up working for a cunt like Perry Graham.

“How long have you worked for Perry Graham?” I ask as she wipes down the hob. There’s a fraction of a second’s pause before she continues.

“A little over a year. Why are you so interested? You obviously know him because you told me he wasn’t a nice guy.”

“He wasn’t.”

She finishes wiping the hob and the rest of the tops, then tosses the cloth onto the draining board and turns to face me, leaning her arse on the counter, arms folded.

“I never told you I worked for Mr Graham, just like I never told you my name, so how the hell do you know that? And don’t give me the whole bullshit spiel about not sharing info ‘cause it’s valuable.” The pitch of her voice changes to a sarcastic whine with that last part. “How did you find me, Carter?”

“The how isn’t important. It’s the why that matters.” Why the fuck am I holding back telling her what I do? It’s not like it would shock her to know I kill people for a living given who her family is. But something keeps me from revealing it.

“That’s not an answer,” she says with a roll of her eyes.

“Well, it’s all you’re going to fucking get. What do you know about Perry’s business or his associates?”

She pushes away from the top and walks to the breakfast bar then leans forward with her forearms resting on the counter in front of me.

“What I know is that you’re expecting me to tell you what I know while you give me fuck all.” She looks at me expectantly, tilting her head, but I hold my gaze and my tongue. “Stubborn arsehole. I used to deliver Perry’s dry cleaning every Friday and collect it on Monday, but when I arrived to drop it off on Friday the place was cordoned off and surrounded by old bill. I took it home with me, and let’s just say it’s not just the clothes that are getting laundered.”

Well that explains a lot.

“Where is the cash now?” I ask, my mind running through possibilities as to what the fuck Perry and Lev were up to and still no fucking clue as to how much Pavel knows about it.

“Still at my house as far as I know. After we…er I—”

I cut her off as she tries to back track on revealing someone else knows about the money. “We? Who else knows?”

“Who do you think, Carter. There isn’t much that goes on in the underworld my family doesn’t know about.”

“Fucking failed on this giant fuck up.”

“Whatever,” she mutters as I pull the burner from my pocket, tapping it on the counter as I consider how smart it would be to try Lev again.

With the Lawlers hovering over Koda, I don’t have a lot of other options. The only other is Lennox and I’m not ready to bring him on this yet. I don’t want that fucker knowing anything about my business till I’m royally screwed and out of options completely. He already knows more than I’d like.

I tap the phone on the counter one last time before getting up.

“Where are you going?” Star asks, rising to her full height.

“To make a call.” I feel her eyes follow me as I climb the stairs and disappear back to my room. I check the program I set up to hack her sealed records, but I don’t think they are going to give me what I’m looking for. Whatever Star’s hiding isn’t going to be here. I need to get it from the horses fucking mouth.

My gut tells me I won’t like it when I do.

Leaving the program to run in the background, I type in Lev’s number and hit call.

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