“For both our sakes I hope that’s not true.” While she knew her brothers wouldn’t do anything to her, she knew the man on the other end of the phone wouldn’t fare too well if they thought he held back information from them about their little sister. Especially after they learned he helped place her in the lion’s den in the first place.
“You tell them and you might as well be signing your death certificate. I don’t think you want any of them on your doorstep or your precinct.”
“You have an uncanny way of putting things. Always have, Rhia. I knew better than to do this. I should have gone to Chicago with you.” Exasperation carried over the line. Rhia wanted to reassure him, but what could she say?
“You’re of more use to me in New York. Keeping your fingers on the pulse there.”
“But your father was killed there. I’m not sure I can be of much more help.”
“You are. Trust me.”
Together since diapers, they were inseparable at first. Their high-society parents had moved in the same wealthy circles and they went to school together. He was her first everything. To most, it seemed they’d end up together. Especially her.
Then he’d moved cross-country for college and time had a way of working like a wedge.
They’d stayed in contact over the years and met up for coffee a time or two when he returned home.
After hearing he made detective they’d tried to rekindle the romance over fine wine and a little dancing. But it’s true what’s said about long-distance love. It never works out.
And now fate had drawn them together once again. Having a foot in the blue-collar and white-collar worlds meant one forged ties that would make a politician envious. Lucky for her Adryan was a people person and kept his family’s ties strong. She had the best of both worlds in him, and it tore at her to use him like this, but she had little choice.
“You never could say no to me. I’m sorry I placed you in this predicament, but you know I had no choice.”
Adryan sighed a raspy reply. “You didn’t exactly ask for your father to be killed, sweetheart. I’m the one who is sorry. But you know at some point I’ll have to answer your brother’s. You know that, right? They will find you and they will come.”
He was probably right.
“It was either you help me or I found a way on my own.”
“You’re a dirty player. You can say what you will, but you know I’m right.”
“Right now they think I’m staying with a friend, grieving our father. Let them think that for a while longer.” She was grieving. Just in her own way. “I’ll just need to work faster.”
A long pause carried over the connection before her friend broke and forced a sigh. “What do you have?”
“I’m sending you several pictures. I found my father’s name on some paperwork and the word red beside his. And then there’s a set of initials. I think they stand for our company, but the name he’s associated with I don’t recognize.” She pulled the pages she’d torn from Haven’s books and stashed behind a bag of sugar on a top shelf as soon as she returned home. Albeit it wasn’t the smartest hiding spot, but she didn’t have a lot of time to consider her options with Maya and Indigo on the way over.
She set the flash and snapped pictures of each page. “I need to know who the names on these pages alongside my father’s belong to. I know you have some friends in high places here in Chicago who owe your family some favors. I’ll owe you big time if you can call in a few for me. Get some answers. I need to know. Those take precedence.”
She queued up the other pages she took pictures of in the office. “There’s a second batch. If Haven is dirty and working as a middle man or whatever, I don’t know, then maybe someone on those pages is dirty too and willing to spill what they know for some leniency from the authorities.” She hoped all that made sense. In her mind it did, but she didn’t know the law. What she did know was that a few of those names belonged to politicians and blackmail worked in all languages. If Adryan couldn’t do anything, she’d have to find a way to do it herself… if she didn’t find what she needed here.
“Sweetheart, you’re pulling some major risks. Do you think it’s worth all this?”
“I have to know why my father was killed. If I don’t do this, who will? My brothers? They’re too busy trying to save the company. Not many people want to deal with a business where the owner is murdered for suspicious reasons. And the cops? They have so many cases. What’s one more dead billionaire?” She paused and forced the tears from her voice. “And I need to know if he had anything to do with the missing containers.”
Adryan kept quiet.
She hit send. “You should have them now.”
“I’ll go over them, but I can’t make any promises in finding the answers you’re looking for.”
“Volkov doesn’t know I was in his office or that I took these. I hope they give us something.” She paused. “That reminds me.” She searched around under papers spread out over her dresser. “Hold on a second. I found a case file number I wanted you to check out. A cold missing person case.” She searched the inner pocket of her uniform. Dread dripped into her veins.
She’d dropped it.
Inside Sevastyan’s office or his hidden chamber, she didn’t know, but where else could it be?
If Adryan found out she’d been compromised he’d flip. “Never mind. I must not have written it down,” she lied.
Rhia eased her bedroom door open and checked on Maya, who stirred on the couch.
Closing the door quietly, Rhia eased out her window to stand on the fire escape, drinking in the early morning light. “If I find it again, I’ll send it through. I have to go now. I’ll call if I find anything else. You do the same.”
“Wait, Rhia.”
“Look, Adryan, you can’t protect me from this, so just find the information I need. I have to do this.” Monsters were real. They hid in plain sight and almost always were wolves in sheep’s clothing, and she had to find out if her father was one of them.