Page 109
“I’ve got you,” he whispers in my ear again and I nod.
“All right,” Blaze says and a hush falls over the room. “You all know why we’re here.” A few guys nod and glance over at me. “Carly, I’m sorry your family is going through this but we’re all here for you. Your family is our family.”
“Thank you,” I say softly, nodding as my gaze sweeps over the room.
“Streak, why don’t you go ahead and get started?” Blaze suggests and Streak nods, standing up and setting a little white box down on the table. A couple guys chuckle and I look at Chance, who just shakes his head.
“Jesus, did you make another PowerPoint, Streak?” Fuzz asks, laughing and Streak shoots him a glare.
“Shut it, you’re going to be thanking me for this.”
I wring my hands together, unable to sit still and Chance holds me tighter as a white screen fills the back wall of the room. Streak sits down at his computer and after a few clicking noises, a photo of my sister in a gorgeous gold ballgown pops up on the screen. Her gray eyes sparkle as she laughs at something someone says and my heart aches.
“As far as I can tell, this is the first time Julian Henshaw saw Ivy Mills,” Streak says and my breath catches in my throat. “They were both at the same charity event held on New Year’s Eve.”
I gasp. “I was there.”
Everyone turns to look at me.
“Do you remember seeing him there?” Streak asks and I shake my head.
“No, but it’s not impossible. There were a ton of people there that night.”
He nods and turns back to his computer. “After that night, Henshaw hired a private investigator. I can’t know for sure what the PI was hired to do unless I hacked his system, which, of fucking course, I did.”
A few of the guys laugh but Streak keeps talking.
“He has multiple files on Ivy, everything from where she lives and her phone number to the lunch spot she frequents, bank account information, health records. When I say this guy found everything, I mean it.”
“But why?” Storm asks and Streak nods at him.
“That’s the million-dollar question. It seems Julian started inserting himself into Ivy’s life in any way that he could. But even that doesn’t explain why he needed all this other stuff.”
I remember my lunch with Ivy just after I met Chance. She was head over heels and said it felt right but everything she knew, everything Julian did was designed to make her fall for him – to trap her in that house.
“It was all orchestrated,” I whisper and everyone turns to look at me.
“What?” Streak asks and I shake my head.
“When Ivy first told me about Julian, she said he just got her and how they connected on so many levels but that’s what he wanted her to think. He learned everything he could about her so he could mold himself into her perfect man.”
All the guys are quiet, somber, as they look around the room at each other.
“And the bank information?” Blaze asks.
“He cut up her debit card. Could he have messed with her accounts at all?”
Streak shakes his head. “It doesn’t look like he’s touched any of her money but it’s possible he could be monitoring it to make sure she doesn’t try to run.”
“You have anything else for us?” Blaze asks.
“Honestly, I feel like I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole here, Boss,” Streak says, blowing out a breath and running his hand through his hair. “When I started investigating, I never expected to find all this and it seems like the more I dig, the more there is to find. I just end up with more fucking questions.”
“Like what?” I ask, scared to hear his answer.
He looks down at his computer and pulls up a bank statement. “Like the five separate hundred thousand dollar transfers he made into an account in the Cayman Islands starting three days after the charity event. Or the numerous calls to two different burner phones starting just before the event. Not to mention, the two guards he’s got on your sister whenever she leaves the house.”
“Why would she need guards?”