“Those are routes,” Gunnar said, his voice flat.“Transport schedules.And that’s --” He stopped, his jaw locking.
Griffin nodded.“That’s a judge’s name.”The room went still.The dangerous silence of predators who’d just spotted a threat.
“Keep going,” Knuckles said.“I want to see everything.”
Knight scrolled through everything, pausing on each page long enough for Knuckles and Gunnar to read over his shoulder.
“Stop,” Knuckles said suddenly.“Right there.”
Knuckles stared at the screen for a long moment, his face giving away nothing.Then he turned to look at me, his eyes cold.“You understand what you’re looking at?”
I nodded.“It’s a trafficking operation.My sister worked atÉclipsefor six weeks.Then she disappeared.The police closed her case two weeks after I reported her missing.”
“They would,” Gunnar said, tapping the screen over an entry name in her file.“Judge Marlin has friends in high places.”The same judge whose name had appeared, next to a five-thousand-dollar payment dated the night Tessa vanished.
Everyone started talking over each other in both anger and disbelief.I watched them from my spot against the wall.Griffin crossed back to where I stood.
“Hey.You OK?”He gave me an assessing look.“You’ve gone kind of pale.”
“Did I make a mistake coming here?”
He gave me a puzzled look.“Veda, no one here is going to hurt you.”
“That’s not what it sounds like.”I nodded toward the group of men where they discussed the situation unfolding in their lap.“They’re planning on killing people.”
“You know who all is in those ledgers.And we’ve barely been looking at all that information for five minutes.Can you honestly tell me you think the people in those documents deserve to live?They might not have been the ones to sell those women or to buy them, but you know as well as I do, they looked the other way.For money.”
“Shouldn’t the justice system…” I trailed off, glancing over his shoulder where the others still gathered around the laptop.
“Right.”He gave me a wry grin.“You see the conundrum.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“I’m asking you to trust me long enough for Knuckles to figure out what we need to do.”His voice was steady.“That’s all.Just long enough to figure out who knew what and who’s going to pay for it.”
One of the men still poring over the computer screen suddenly pointed.“You see that?”He stabbed the computer screen a couple times.“Knuckles, if Tonio or Seth know about this…”
“I know, Gunnar,” Knuckles sounded calm, but the look on his face said he was anything but.Hannah put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed as if in support.“Just because it’s Tonio’s business doesn’t mean he knows what’s going on.”
“Tonio or Seth?”I looked at Griffin in confusion.Griffin’s attention had swung back to Knuckles and Gunnar.“Who’s that?”
Pippa stood close to us and she gave me a pained look.“The Miles family.Seth and his son, Antonio.”
“Yeah,” Griffin said slowly.“Guess we’ll need to get that sorted out.”
The Miles family.And one of Tonio’s businesses had appeared in Carl’s ledger.The same Miles family that Kiss of Death had been running muscle for.Everyone in the city knew the connection though no one spoke about either group.The Miles family were prominent in Nashville, but it was rumored they controlled a very large portion of the city’s underground and ruled it with an iron fist.
“What does ‘sorting it out’ look like for a club like this?”I asked.
Griffin didn’t dress it up.“Knuckles finds out who knew what, then we take care of it appropriately.”
Knuckles turned back to us, his face hard.“She’s your responsibility until we know exactly what Iron knows about her and whether Steel Serpents are already looking for her.”
I straightened away from the wall.“I’m not anyone’s responsibility.”
Griffin looked at me, his expression unreadable.“You’re right.You’re not.But until every Steel Serpent is accounted for, I’m standing between you and them whether you like it or not.And you can be pissed about it the whole time if you want.”
“OK, people,” Knuckles raised his voice so the gathering crowd of men and women in the garage could hear him.“We might have a situation.I want everyone confined to the inner warehouses.There’s plenty of space for the kids so they don’t feel like they’re trapped inside.”
