“Did you know Hunter got in touch with me last night?”
“We were conferring before I got the call Kitty had been picked up by her brothers,” I said by way of confirmation.
“I know the Irish appreciated him updating them.”
“Good. We want to work together. Manhattan’s plenty big enough forus, no fucker else.”
“Exactly.But Hunter and I deep-dove last night?—”
“You’re talking?”
“He doesn’t forgive me for siccing Dead To Me on him—ungrateful shit when I was trying to save his life—but he’ll work with me in an emergency.
“A US-based group backs the brothel, Stan. We’re still looking for weaknesses in the shell company setup, but so far we’re just seeing dividends being paid out to US bank accounts.”
“Any joy on who owns those accounts?”
“More shell companies so far. Real labyrinth of shady corporate BS.”
Mind whirring as I fought my way through traffic, I exclaimed, “Fuck.”
“Yup. You sure Aurora didn’t know anything about this?”
“Aurora’s network—” The homeless we sheltered in our territory that acted as her spies. “—had no idea about the fighting ring. Just the brothel. And nothing re. trafficking goddamn children.” The steering wheel creaked, I grabbed it so hard. “If Rory… Let’s just say, we’d have acted sooner if we knew what their product was.”
“Product. Makes me sick.”
“Me too.”
“I knew about the fighting ring,” she confided.
“Confess your sins—do I want to know how?”
“Nope. But I can tell you who told me.”
“Taube?”
“Yup. She’s tighter than a monk’s ass about her source, though.”
“Why?”
“God knows. While snitches need stitches, you gotta protect ‘em sometimes.”
“I’ll never understand that woman.”
“Hey, I’ve fucked her and I understand her less than you do. Must be a good reason for her to protect them. She hates traffickers as much as we do.”
“You spoken with Lyanov?” Lyanov was the last head of the NYC Bratva, and now led The Forgotten Boys.
I heard her nails tapping on a keyboard. “Aidan has.”
“Think the Bratva is involved?”
“I think nothing good will come of this.”
“We know the Bratva wants their turf back. Maybe Bratva operatives are behind this. Using the Albanians as a front, bringing the Italians in too, and with that hybrid union kidnapping Kitty, who just so happens to bemine, they manage to singlehandedly piss off the three major factions in the city—seems like something that’d work in their favor.”
“There are a lot of ‘maybes’ in that theory.”
