“It was all over the news. I saw it on the front page of a paper someone left in the diner. He was weeks away from his parole hearing, although after what he’d gone down for, I wasn’t worried he’d be getting out anytime soon.”
She seemed so calm, like she’d spent a lifetime training for this, and I guess in a way, she had. She’d been raised in this world, and I hated that she seemed so comfortable in it.
“Murdered in prison, right, so we don’t think I did this one?” She raised her eyebrows, causing Thomas and Sean to side-eye each other with smug half-smiles curling their lips.
“Any family?” Sean asked, and Wren shook his head in response.
“Right, so a dead man bought a burner phone, killed a group of pretty high-profile people, shot at Hana and is coming after her,” Sean confirmed. “Sounds plausible.” He rolled his eyes in my direction. “Come on, guys, you’re the best in the world. Tell me you have more than this.”
“We don’t think it’s gang-related. In fact, we think Atlas Caldwell, who took over from Wolf, probably arranged for himto be killed so he could take over as number one. Wolf had no visitors in prison on record, but that doesn’t mean the evidence wasn’t erased by Preston and his friends. At this point, we have to assume that cover ups were happening all over the place.” Wren clicked through a couple of images until some handwritten letters appeared on the screen. “But he did get letters from someone called Angela Lowell, and he wrote back. We don’t have an address for her because they were sent to a PO box. We checked the camera footage, but the camera was disabled before the letters started and was never fixed, and we have no idea if she had anything to do with that or if it’s just a coincidence.”
“I think at this point, we can also assumenothingis a coincidence,” I said on a sigh, desperately needing caffeine or alcohol to get through the rest of this day.
Sean opened his mouth to speak, but Wren threw him a look like he wasn’t finished, so Sean closed it again.
“Angela Lowell is also missing, presumed dead.”
“Okay, this is getting ridiculous now,” Sean muttered.
He pulled up a grainy image of a woman in her early twenties with a thick fringe and glasses.
“She went for a walk one day and never came home,” Lev added.
“Dead people don’t cause this many problems,” I muttered, looking to Hana, who was staring at the screen, her eyes narrowed. “Hana?” I asked, but she shook her head.
“She looks… I don’t know. Familiar.”
“Like you’ve met her in the past?” Sean checked.
“Yeah, no… I don’t know. There is just something about her. It’ll come to me.”
“So, what now?” I asked before dragging my hand over my mouth.
“We’ve already started going through the spreadsheet. Seeing if we can rule anyone out or at least find a pattern orsomething that stands out to give us more of an idea about what’s going on,” Wren explained.
“And I just sit here and wait for someone to come after me?” Hana asked, her voice quieter, like she was losing her earlier bravado.
“I won’t let anything happen to you,” I told her, but she recoiled.
“You’re not coming anywhere near me, psycho. I’m not fucking talking to you. You’re a stalker, remember?”
“I was a stalker yesterday, and the day before, and the day before. I’ve not changed,” I told her honestly. “Just your awareness of the facts has.”
Sean hissed and grimaced like he was in pain. “Fuck, if I said that to Hope, she’d cut off my balls and make me eat them.”
Hana threw her hands up in the air. “Exactly. Thank you.” She offered Sean a wide smile like she’d made an ally, and then, when she turned back to me, her expression morphed into an angry scowl, and I resisted the urge to punch my boss in the face for eliciting such a reaction from my girl.
“You can stay here, Hana, or you can go back to Roman’s with him, and we'll send some guards with you. I don’t want you on your own until we know what’s going on, and someone already shot at your house.”
Hana looked like she was going to argue, but then stopped herself with a loud, “Fine, but I’m staying in the guest room,” she said, her tone clipped.
“As you wish, my little menace.”
Sean didn’t hide his chuckle before turning his attention to the others in the room. “Wren, Lev, see what you can do… work your magic. Jarrid, Lacy, you go with Roman and Hana. I want you front and back, perimeter checks, heat cameras, the works. Understood?” He aimed that last question at Jarrid, the gesture making it clear that he’d be taking charge of our protection.
“Understood.”
Hana’s head turned between everyone as they stood to make their way out of the room. “Thank you. All of you.” I knew how hard it was for her to ask for help, so having a team of us was bound to make her emotional. I reached out to put my arm around her shoulder, but she pushed me off. “Touch me again, Roman, and I’ll make you wish you were never born.”
