My focus shifts to Luna. “What’s going on with your Bel-Air case?”
She closes her eyes for a beat, long enough that I know the answer isn’t simple. “The bureau formed a special task force to investigate DeShawn Crown.”
I blink. “The rapper? What is he called again? GoldT?”
“Yes—the rapper and mogul himself. The Bel-Air parties have been at his properties. The theory is that the private guest lists, the secure location, the weird invite-only ‘charity events’ he’s running—they think his record label is a front for trafficking. The scope got big enough they moved Stone off as lead and brought in an outside expert. I caught wind that someone upstairs made a link to Maribel Island and Jared Whiteman.”
I feel a cold twist in my stomach. “Sometimes I hate when our hunches are right.”
“It gets worse.” Luna’s voice softens, but not in a comforting way. “The new head of the task force is Jax Novak.”
Oh shit.Luna and I turn to Jules.
“He’s in DC,” she says slowly, testing the words, not believing them.
“Yes,” Luna replies. “He’s leading the investigation from here, but traveling to LA and New York, too. I’ll be reporting all my findings to him directly.”
“Why Jax?” I ask.
“After heading up anti-trafficking for Interpol, he went freelance for all the major agencies. He’s considered a leading expert on—” Jules realizes we are both looking at her as we learn she has been keeping tabs on Jax. That’s new information.
“Have you seen him since Russia?” I ask.
She shakes her head.
Luna leans forward slightly. “There is one more thing.”
We both shoot her a look. “He asked me to pull info on all the private security firms with client lists that overlap with attendees of these parties. The assumption is they may have intel we’ll need on the buyers and bidders. Redline was on the list.”
Jules nods slowly. “Thanks. I appreciate the heads-up.”
I take a deep breath, once again feeling like we are standing at the center of converging storms. Everything is crashing against the shore at the same time, from all directions.
Jules fell hard for Jax during her CIA missions in Russia and Ukraine. He was her Interpol liaison, and they ran anti-trafficking ops for over a year together. He was a man fighting the same demons and they had a whirlwind romance. She thought when her assignment ended, they’d find a way to make it work.
They didn’t. As it turned out, he was married. He claims theyhad been separated for years, but it was a fucking mess. She returned from her missions completely destroyed.
I pat Jules’s arm and Luna gives her a hand squeeze, but it’s clear she doesn’t want to talk about it.
“If you find out he’s headed to Redline to see Jules, see if you can join, Luna,” I suggest.
“I will,” she agrees. “While we are on the topic of Maribel, I tried again to get eyes or ears on Junior, but no luck.”
“It didn’t seem imperative to know what he’s been up to when we thought he was simply hiding from the Lucianos, but if these parties really do tap into Sophie’s or Jared’s networks, or the Volkov money trail, it opens a lot of questions about what Junior has been up to since his dad died,” I say, vocalizing what we’re all thinking.
I look to Luna to see if she’ll share anything she’s thinking or feeling. We were all friends with Junior back at Maribel. He was ouronlyfriend, the only other kid our age who was ever around.
He and Luna shared a special bond. They were inseparable.
I know she’s tried to get a handle on his comings and goings for a long time. She doesn’t take the opportunity to open up, though. She’s played her feelings about Junior close to the vest for years.
She was upset when we decided not to wait for the Volkovs to retrieve us from Maribel. She was too young to understand why we needed to flee. She trusted us as her big sisters, but she’d also trusted Junior and his father her entire life. She’d trusted our dad, too, but she came to learn she was wrong about all of them. I think she’s had a hard time letting go of the version of Junior she remembers.
“Okay, my turn.”Time to lighten the mood.“Hudson asked me to go to his apartment for a meet up tomorrow night. Him and Enzo. They want to ‘address the tension,’ whatever that means.”
“You should go.” Luna wiggles her eyebrows.
Surprisingly, Jules agrees. “Honestly, yeah. You’ll all keep spinning if you don’t.”
