It’s chilly inside the base. Someone forgot to close all the windows, and Cove’s spent the past ten minutes going from room to room trying to close and lock them all up. Dad’s with Alexander, waiting for him to regain his consciousness.
With a deep breath, I sit on the couch, a bottle of whiskey in my hands. Lucas, Kaya, and Uncle Niko are all scattered around me. Niko has a defeated look on his face, while Lucas looks more determined than ever to figure this out.
“Is Aria asleep?”
Nikonods. “She went home. Noelle sent a couple of people to guard the house, just in case.’’
Cove returns, sitting in the armchair that’s furthest away. His expression is as passive as always, but I know that he’s listening. Cove Steele is always listening. His eyes flick briefly to Ekaterina, and I can tell he isn’t her biggest fan. Then again, who is?
“Anything on the connection between Hawke and and Adams?’’
“Nothing on our end,’’ Niko sighs, frustration visible on his exhausted features. Now that I think about it, all these people have been trying to help for the past four months. I don’t know when was the last time they got a proper night’s sleep. “But Kaya went out.’’
“And?” I turn to look at Kaya, and the smug smirk on her face makes me want to knock her teeth out.
“You won’t find any paper trail of them knowing each other.’’
“Digital footprint is real.’’
Kaya hums in agreement. “Yes, but it’s also possible to make it all disappear if you know the right people and have the right amount of money. Both of which Adams has.’’
“Are you going to tell me what you know or what?” I snap.
Kaya sighs, then pulls out a couple of images from the inside of her coat. She lays them neatly, one by one, on the table between us all, not taking her eyes off me. My main focus becomes the pictures, brows narrowing in confusion.
“Many years ago, while Hawke and the rest of them were in their late teens, they formed a club. It was mainly them going golfing, doing all the shit rich kids did at the time. It sounds way more dramatic than it actually is.’’
My eyes briefly flick up to Kaya. “And?”
“Alexander Hawke, Paul Simmons, Nelson Adams, and another two men were a part of the club.”
“Which men?” Lucas asks, and her attention shifts to him.
“Gabriel Woods and Edgar Flint.’’
“Gabriel Woods, as in GW Oils?”
Kaya nods.
“Jesus fucking Christ,’’ Cove breathes out, speaking for the first time since he’s arrived here. “Of course it couldn’t have been some lowlife, street-corner drug dealer. It just had to be a man worth several billion and one of the biggest oil moguls in the country. This is just fantastic. And yes, we should’ve seen all this coming back when we found out about this club.”
“And Flint has a chain of banks across all states,” I sigh.
“Correct. Now, what I was able to find out was that Woods, Flint, Simmons, Hawke, and Adams were the founders of that club. Rumor has it that it was just a cover for their illegal shit. Mainly prostitution, money laundering, and such. Which they were able to fund because of the wealth.’’
“And not a single person has heard about that,’’ a low scoff slips from me, my jaw clenching. “They bribed as they went. But this information isn’t new. We knew about Simmons and Adams’ involvement with the other two. We just didn’t know Blair’s father was a part of it, too.”
“That’s not relevant here,” Kaya says, then leans forward a little, her eyes drifting between all of us before they settle on me. “The juiciest rumor is that Hawke had a falling out with the rest of the crew years ago.’’
“Any reason why?”
“Blair.’’
For a moment, I freeze. “Excuse me?”
“Him knocking Blair’s mother up while being married might not have made the headlines, but it was a known secret. A scandal. Something the rest couldn’t afford to put up with, because it would cause people to turn their eyes to them.’’
“So, he was booted out.’’
