When her eyes drop to a surveillance image of my father, my breath comes out in a rush. “He killed Old Man V earlier tonight. You don’t get any credit for that.”
My brows fetter in confusion when she replies, “Not tonight. At the bar next to the restaurant your wife was taken from. I swear he was seated at the end of the bar, although he looked a lot younger back then than he does now.” She lifts her eyes to mine, even though confusion is clouding them, I can tell she’s being honest. She has truthful, wholesome eyes. “His hair was darker, and his stomach was a little rounder, but I remember him because he was wearing a St. Jude pendant, but instead of it being on his necklace—”
“He wore it on a leather bracelet on his left wrist?”
When her pupils dilate in confirmation, I feel like I’ve been punched in the gut.
“Was it him?” I ask after gathering a photo frame from my desk and clearing away the dust coating it. It’s a photograph of me with three of my siblings—Roberto, Ophelia, and CJ. It was taken by Rocco at my twenty-first birthday, a mere month before everything went downhill for my family.
“Yeah,” Roxanna answers with an unsure nod. “But he had put on some weight and aged by almost a decade. Who is he?”
“He’s my brother,” I answer, too shocked to think up a lie. “My brother, who’s been missing for almost five years.”
Roxanne raises her eyes to mine. Worry, I think she’s leading me astray, is seen all over her face. “Maybe it was your father, then? My head was all types of muddled that day. I was eighteen and in the big city alone for the first time. I could be mistaken.”
I know she’s lying, and so does she. She either saw Roberto or his biological twin. Either way, I need to knowexactlywho he is because there’s no way my missing brother being at the same restaurant my wife was kidnapped from could be classed as a coincidence.
“Smith…”
Forever on alert, Smith’s voice comes through the speaker of my cell phone two seconds later. “Yeah?”
Roxanne arches a brow when I ask, “Are you still friends with the composite sketch artist at Ravenshoe PD?”
“Yeah, but I don’t see her coming out at this hour.” His snickers out a laugh before continuing, “She might if you were willing to offer her some kind of incentive.”
By incentive, he doesn’t mean money. The male counterparts of Ravenshoe PD are all about favors, money, and uncut blow. The female half are all about the D. You can have anything you want around these parts if you’re willing to toss a few orgasms at the depraved women running this place. Even the chief of police’s daughter shared trade secrets when I was balls deep inside of her.
I’m about to tell Smith to get her here no matter the cost, but the faintest trickle of a whisper stops me. “I can draw.” When my eyes stray to Roxanne’s, hers roll at the shocked expression on my face. “If you don’t believe me, tell Smith to take a look at my Instagram page.”
“She’s telling the truth,” Smith chimes in as image after image pops up on the screen of my phone.
I hear Roxanne’s throat work through a hearty swallow when I move to gather my phone off my desk. Although her confidence is hot enough to blister my skin, she’s nervous about what my response will be to her drawings.
She has no reason to fret. She has an immense amount of talent.
“You drew these?” The drawings range from portraits of dogs and cats with their tongues hanging out to couples in various stages of erotic content. The detail is undeniable. Even with the sketches being black and white, I can see the texture of the dog’s shiny coat, and I’m not going to mention the realistic veins in one of her model’s cocks, or he’ll have a bounty on his head by the end of tonight.
“The animals were commissioned pieces on Fiverr. People emailed me photos of their animals, and I turned them into sketches for five dollars a pop.” She drags her tongue over her plump lips. “And the people are from the images in my head.” Shame burns on her cheeks when she mutters, “If I dream about them, they end up in the pages of my sketchbook.”
I’m torn between wanting to explore the shame in her eyes and getting back to the task at hand, so instead of picking, I do both. “Send someone out to purchase a sketchpad and pencils.” When Smith hums an agreeing noise, I send him a quick message about a request I can’t articulate in front of Roxanne before devoting all my attention to her. “Do you think you can sketch the man you saw that night?”
A current I haven’t experienced in years trickles into my veins when she once again dips her chin.
Chapter Twenty-One
Dimitri
His face is rounder than I remember, and his stomach is almost double in size, but there’s no denying the man Roxanne saw at the Slice of Salt is my brother, Roberto. His eyes are the same wintry blue coloring as mine, his bushy brows hang heavily over his eyes, and the faintest of scars from where I accidentally jabbed my stick-sword into his right cheek is present in Roxanne’s sketch.
It’s Roberto. I’m one hundred percent confident of this. The only thing I can’t work out is why. Audrey was taken less than two years ago. Roberto has been missing for almost five years. The math doesn’t add up. Roberto, along with Ophelia, CJ, and I wanted to leave the family behind, but we were meant to do it together. We were a team, a unit, and we pledged never to leave the other behind, so why did he? And does his reasoning have anything to do with Audrey’s kidnapping and Fien’s disappearance?
There’s only one way to find out. “Pack everything up. We leave in an hour.”
Roxanne’s eyes dart up to mine, seeking answers, but I’m out the door before a single syllable can be fired from her mouth.
“What do you make of this?” I ask Rocco, who leaps up to his feet since my unwarranted jealously saw me stationing him outside of Roxanne’s room instead of inside of it.
When I thrust Roxanne’s drawing into his chest, his lips purse. “What does Roberto have to do with this?”
