Page 82 of Forbidden Wish

Her fingers dropped as the woman rushed off. Progress? Maybe. She had to talk to Mila.

THIRTY

SERSHA WASN’T AT the apartment when she got there. No one was there, but the door was open. Though going into the apartment alone was strange, the isolation only lasted a few minutes.

Strat and Sersha came back in together. Did they go everywhere together? How did they hook up? No, hook up was the wrong phrase. Another bad mental visual.

“Why are you here alone?” her father asked. Was she supposed to wait in the hall? Was he accusing her of something? “Where’s the cop?”

“Lachlan had work to do.”

“He abandoned you? How did you get back?”

“Sutherland gave me a ride.” And she’d deliberately neglected to tell him the other guys had dropped the ball on guard duty and let Swerve by. “Coak stayed at the hospital. It’s fine. I’m safe. And I know better than to get in a cab right now.”

No guarantees Ludlow was their only driver. No one could be trusted. And, in truth, she didn’t trust her ability to ID Ludlow on a quick glance given her only reference point was a grainy movie taken from several yards away.

“He shouldn’t have left you here alone.”

“I’ve been here less than five minutes.”

“Tell her what you found out,” Sersha said, doing her diversion thing again.

“I don’t know that she—”

“If it’s about—”

Sersha’s phone interrupted, but it was just a message. “Come here…”

Grabbing both of their wrists, Sersha pulled them across the room and into her bedroom.

“What’s wrong?” Strat asked.

“Nothing, Lach’s on his way back. I don’t want him to overhear us, or for us to shut up the minute he walks in.” Yeah, that would be a beacon of guilt. “It’s not that I don’t trust him. I don’t like to put him in any position where he might hear something he wants to report. He’s a cop and it wouldn’t be fair of us to test his integrity.”

“We shouldn’t test Imogen’s either.”

Again with the double standard. “So it’s fine to test Sersha’s integrity?”

“Sersh’s integrity sways into the gray zone.”

“Of its own accord,” Sersha said. “Sometimes circumstances steer me in odd, unexpected directions.”

The more she learned, the more fascinated she became. “Do you ever feel compelled to share what you know with the superintendent? In your research, you must have learned things that could be helpful to authorities’ investigations.”

“I’ve made it clear to my father that my professional integrity is not up for debate. If we start dropping a dime on our sources, we lose our ability to do our jobs.”

“Yeah, and your sources appreciate that,” Strat teased.

“Tell me whatever it was you learned. Please, just—”

“Guys say Swerve has been seen at the Carlyle,” Sersha said, raising her brows in a silent signal. With that reveal/cover, Sersha could talk about Swerve without betraying her confidence of the threat. Smart. “Your father’s sources say the frequency of his visits has caused some… upset.”

“Because no one knows why he’s there,” Strat said. “The guys think he might be checking up on them. Reporting back.”

He wasn’t. No, that building held a bigger game, a tastier prize. If the men on the street didn’t know it, Silvio was playing his cards close to his chest.

“Swerve changes things,” her dad said. “Swerve doesn’t do bullshit work and certainly not at ground level with guys like Ludlow.”

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