“Smart,” Fallon said as Junior’s typing got faster.
“I have my moments,” Nave agreed.
“Curtis. Curtis Carver,” Junior said.
“Doesn’t ring a bell,” Fallon said, brows pinching. Because he made it his business to know all the major players.
“Yeah. That makes sense. Not a big player. From this little nowhere town in the corner of Florida by the Alabama border. The fuck was Valen doing in that area?” Junior asked, mostly to himself as he continued typing.
“Probably heading into Alabama. He was just traveling through the country,” I reminded them.
“Shit,” Junior said, letting out a hiss, making my heart drop.
“What? Shit, what?” I asked, voice sounding choked.
“He and his crew have rap sheets as long as my arm,” Junior said. “But that’s not the shit part.”
“What’s the shit part then?” Fallon asked, straightening.
I didn’t know Junior well, but it seemed as though Fallon did. And if Fallon was alarmed about what Junior was saying, it was time for my own panic to trip into overdrive.
“The rumors about the shit that this crew hasn’t gotten locked up for. Lot of bodies missing. A lot of unsolved rapes. It’s ugly. These fuckers are some of the worst of the worst, it seems.”
“How the fuck did Valen get wrapped up with them?” Fallon asked.
“Who knows,” Junior said, shrugging.
“He wasn’t with them,” I insisted.
“No fucking way,” Voss agreed.
“Look, that shit doesn’t matter right now,” Fallon said, clearly not believing us, leaving me offended for Valen’s sake.
I mean, other arms dealers? Sure. Even enforcers or loan sharks? Absolutely.
But rapists?
Fuck no.
Not Valen.
Not any of the guys raised in or around this club.
“What would they be doing in Jersey?” I asked, choosing to ignore Fallon for the moment, but reminding myself to give him a piece of my mind at some later point.
“Looking,” Junior said, then made us sit there in pained silence for almost five full minutes before he spoke again. “There we go. New sheriff in town. Literally,” he added with a little smirk. “Chased them out of town. Looks like they’ve been a little directionless since then, creating havoc everywhere they happened. But one of the guys that works for Curtis has an aunt up near the city who owns a pretty successful jewelry store.”
“You think they want to rob the jewelry store?” I asked.
“If they’re desperate enough. You blow through a lot of cash when you’re moving around too much.”
“And then, what, Valen was just a loose end to cut off on the way?” I asked, my anger boiling up again at the idea of waiting this long to move. Even if we hadn’t had a direction.
“Or a fall guy,” Fallon said, shrugging.
Shrugging.
The bastard.