“You’re kidding me.” Raven sits on the oak cabinet against the wall, lightly swinging her feet. “He was having an affair?”
The word makes my stomach churn as I drum my fingers against the table, nodding slowly. A few hours after Ivy and I returned here, I called a meeting with the team. Bradley’s still out of state, so he isn’t able to attend, and Cassian’s late, so Raven, Valentina, and I discuss the new detail revealed by Ivy’s friend.
Ex-friend?
“That’s brutal,” Valentina murmurs, seated across from me. “What a cold way to find out.”
“Maybe Moira really did think she was doing the right thing?” Raven suggests, tilting her head to the side. “As like a sort of protective… ness… thingy.”
“There’s nothing protective about that. If you catch someone doing something once, then you don’t need to catch themmultiple times to understand that they’re doing something wrong,” Valentina replies.
“Does that apply to the Russians too?” I cut in quickly. “Or are the rules different?”
Valentina sighs. “Of course they’re different. Family and friends is one thing. Us and the Russians? That’s different.”
“But linked,” Raven points out. “Somehow.”
The door creaks and soft light spills into the dark room as Cassian enters, flashing an apologetic smile. “Sorry. Was bringing Ivy tea.” He passes Raven and pats her knee, then takes a seat on the other side of me. “So, what did I miss?”
“Camden’s passport that you and Ivy found in the house, with a different name?” I rub my jaw, tracing the prickle of facial hair. “He was having an affair.”
“Have we confirmed that?” Cassian asks. “There’s no chance Moira is lying?”
“About a dead man?” Valentina scoffs.
“No, about the woman.” Cassian’s gaze darts between us. “She exists, right?”
I meet his eyes. “You think he was having an affair with her?”
“It’s possible, right?”
“Nope.” Raven pops the P as she speaks. “I mean, it could be possible, but I already used Camden’s finances to track a few ‘business dinners’.” She quotes her fingers in the air. “CCTV shows that he was definitely getting cozy with a young, hot brunette. Not Moira.”
“Do we know who she is?” I need to know. Regardless of whether she’s connected to anything important, knowing who this woman is might give Ivy some peace.
She was painfully silent on the drive home and I couldn’t bring myself to ask her anything in case I disturbed whatever thoughts she was trying to untangle. It bothered me, though, and it still bothers me. I’ve spent the past two months trying to help and protect her, but how do I help her with this? To suffer so much and then learn that her family was falling apart under her nose?
“Nope. No clue. Camden always paid. All I know about her is that she's young and beautiful.”
“Typical,” Valentina mutters. “What is the point in that? If you’re unhappy, just end things. Cheating is beyond scummy.”
“Agreed,” Cassian says, drumming his fingers on the table. “So we have the Russians and Italians refusing to be at peace, we have Ivy’s assassins still at large and her father’s killer, and the only lead we have that might not be a lead is a woman her father was having an affair with.” Cassian glances at all of us in turn. “Does that about cover everything?”
“And the plane,” Raven reminds him. “We don’t know who brought down the plane.”
“We don’t know a lot of things,” I murmur, slowly standing. “I know it’s not much, but finding out who she is might lead us somewhere. I don’t know where, but until we get a break in the plane case, we’re stuck.”
“I’ll reach out to my contacts in the cops,” Valentina says, pushing away from the table. “Maybe they’ve found something else out and haven’t shared it yet.”
“Cassian, you can help me track down some info on this woman,” Raven says, sliding off the cabinet. “I also want to run a search on tattoo parlors since Kraven still insists that the tattoos are a set-up.”
With a small plan in place, we exchange goodbyes and I head through the apartment in search of Ivy. I find her up on the balcony, wearing nothing but her jeans and a pink tank top as she stares out over the city. Her eyes are red but there are no more tears lingering on her lashes.
“Ivy?”
She flinches and glances over her shoulder. “Hey.”
“Thought I would find you here.”
