I force the anger to ebb from my veins, resolved to get to the bottom of this. I know Chad isn’t involved, and by the time we leave this restaurant, I’m determined Ares will believe it too. “Since his dad was arrested, Chad has been protesting his innocence and claiming his father was set up. I went to my dad, and he swore he didn’t know who Jasper was. He had never heard of him, and he was quite sure whatever had gone down was nothing to do with The Luminaries.”
Ash emits a shocked gasp, and I arch a brow.
“Shit,” Bree says. “I totally forgot.”
“So did I.” Ash turns to look at Ares, fixing him with a dark look. “I can’t believe I forgot.”
I can. It’s been information overload for weeks.
Ash jabs her finger in Ares’s face, looking like she wants to claw his eyes out with her nails. “You and Hera set Jasper Baldwin up!”
“What? Why am I only hearing this now?” I ask, letting my gaze jump between my fiancée and my sister.
“There wasn’t any time to tell you,” Bree says. “Then all this shit went down.”
I lean forward. “What the fuck is going on, Ares?”
“I’ll tell you if you’ll stop jumping down my throat.” Lifting his hand, he calls the impressionable waitress over. “I’ll take a beer.”
“Make that two,” Bree says.
“Make it three,” Ash adds.
The waitress looks at me, but I shake my head. “I’m good with water,” I reply, lifting the glass to my lips and drinking greedily from it. She chews anxiously on her lip for a second, her gaze darting between Ash and Bree. “Marcus knows me,” I tell her, referring to the owner. “It’s fine to serve us. You can ask him.” My word seems good enough for her, and she walks off.
“We’re listening,” Ash says, urging Ares to start talking.
Air puffs from his lips, and he leans back into the booth. “I returned to the US after Lilianna was taken. Initial intel pointed to Boston. If you remember, there was a big sex trafficking scandal there recently. We thought the same ring might have been involved. I connected with a guy who had mad hacking skills and hired him to help me. The Boston trail led me to Baldwin. He was in deep with traffickers, and it looked like one of them had taken Lili. My guy found nothing on his computers, but we knew there had to be some records somewhere. I moved back to Fenton, and Mom and I hatched a plan. She would seduce him, gaining his trust, so I could gain access to his home and office.”
He stops speaking when the waitress appears with the beers, only resuming his explanation after she has left. “It wasn’t difficult for Mom to start an affair with him. The guy was tripping over himself to hook up with her.”
I’m guessing the Luminary lifestyle rubbed off on Hera more than she would like to admit. She sounds like a natural. Though, to be fair, she had strong motivation. If I was a father and my kid was taken, I don’t think there is anything I wouldn’t do to get her back. I’m not going to criticize her for doing what she did when she was doing it for her daughter.
Ash scrunches up her nose but says nothing, sipping from her beer.
“It didn’t take him long to trust her either. She managed to make a copy of his home and office keys, and Mom distracted Jasper, on different occasions, so I could snoop in his things.”
“What did you find?” I refill my glass from the jug on the table.
“Not a goddamned thing.”
“What?” Ash asks, staring at him incredulously. “How can you say he was involved when you found no evidence?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“You’re not making sense,” Bree adds.
“I started following him after that. Later, after we became friends, Shoulders, Rocky, and I took it in turns.” Pain flares in his eyes for a brief second at the mention of his dead friends. Both men were members of The Bulls, and they died at the warehouse bombing in Lowell a few months back. Ares shakes the emotion off and schools his features into a neutral expression as he continues. “It became obvious straightaway that Jasper was hiding something. He was cagey and always looking over his shoulder. I watched him burn paperwork and receipts. His actions were not the actions of an innocent man.”
“That doesn’t mean he was involved in trafficking.” Bree picks at the label on her bottle.
“Would you stop fucking interrupting me,” he snarls before swigging from his beer.
“Let him speak,” Ash says, determined to be the mitigator.
“The floor is yours, Psycho.” Bree smiles glibly at him while Ash cautions her with a warning look.
“We took tons of photos. He was always meeting guys after hours in various places. Xavier ran the images for me, and they were always criminals. Gang members, guys involved in the drug trade, or guys suspected of trafficking. It was Jasper who led me to The Bulls. I knew they were involved in some way, and I only pretended to be a high schooler so I could enroll in high school and befriend Shoulders and Rocky. They proposed me for membership, and that’s how I was able to infiltrate the gang. Not that it did much good. I still couldn’t get near Ruben, and he’s the one with all the intel.”
