He turned to us, leaving the door wide open, and I cringed. Luca shot me another meaningful glance before reaching back and closing it.
“You know I’m Wes and that this is Luca, but what’s your name?”
“Everett, what’s going on? Who’re you talking to?” someone interrupted before the kid could answer my question.
Out walked Charles Ramirez in blue pajama pants and a light robe. He froze in place when he saw us, surprised, but more relieved than anything.
“Agent Hayes,” he greeted cautiously, coming to stand behind the kid, Everett apparently.
“Not anymore. Wes is fine.”
Charles nodded. “Wes, then. I was hoping you would find me here. I should have tried to contact you when I found your apartment, but your old landlord was asking too many questions, and I was worried he was going to call the authorities.”
“Which, I’m assuming, is not the outcome you’re looking for?”
Ramirez flinched slightly before smoothing out his face. His gaze darted to Everett, just briefly, but it was enough. “Yes, well,that’s quite a story and I need coffee. Join us? Everett, can you get the coffee maker working? You know I can’t figure out that damn thing.”
“Uh, okay, Mr. Charles.” Ramirez turned toward the kitchen with Everett on his heels. Unsure what else to do, we followed.
Ramirez stopped us in the hallway and waited, allowing Everett to get out of earshot before speaking. He glanced behind him, assuring that Everett was busying himself with the coffee and not paying attention to us.
“I almost feel guilty for getting you involved. But I didn’t know where else to turn. You have a reputation, Agent— Wes,” he whispered, his voice gruff. I hadn’t seen Ramirez in years, but he looked like he had aged decades since the last time. His eyes darted to Luca. “As do you. And I think you’re the boy’s only chance.” Ramirez leaned forward and dropped his voice even lower. “Everett is . . . different. Spend a few minutes in the room with him and you’ll see. Unfortunately, that makes him a target. For the last seven years, Everett has been held by the Crimson Rose and forced to use that brain of his to make them millions and grow their criminal empire.”
The Crimson Rose. A secret organization largely believed to be fake, but looking at Ramirez and his conviction in their existence, I knew that wasn’t true. And now we were about to be directly in their sights. Fucking hell.
CHAPTER 9
SKYE
“So letme get this straight. This Ramirez guy, who’s an accountant, by the way, somehow ended up protecting this Everett Longwood kid after his safe house was attacked and both the U.S. Marshals and the FBI that were supposed to be guarding him were compromised? An accountant?” I reiterated, leaning back in the chair. I was pushing it to the limits, the front legs no longer on the floor.
I took a bite of my apple as I eyed Maverick. He was sitting on the other side of the desk, in the spot that was typically Luca’s, as he handled all the day-to-day crap that came with running a business. I was happy to let him deal with it, even if I was perfectly capable of doing it as well. I was more of an action guy, anyway.
Maverick snorted.
“A forensic accountant,” he corrected, like that somehow made the guy more capable of protecting anyone. “But yeah, that about sums it up. Diego is digging into it further, but I guess this Everett kid is a fucking genius with one of those eidetic memories. He has a thing with numbers and patterns and figuring out connections.” Mav shrugged and took a sip of his water. He must’ve had a chance to shower and change becausehe was wearing dark jeans and a black T-shirt that strained over his muscles, rather than the workout gear he had been in when we’d left. I knew from experience that he would smell faintly of mangoes, and I was really tempted to clear the desk and sit in his lap.
Brooks and I were out running some errands when Luca had called. When we’d gotten home, Mav had given us the quick and dirty rundown. Then Brooks had gone to Diego’s office to help his brother. We knew he’d be in research mode, trying to fill all the gaps that we had, and Brooks was the best person to help with that because he had the most experience with Diego’s system. I’d followed Maverick to assist him in handling the rest of the bullshit. Tag team effort.
“Anyway,” Mav continued, “Luc said that once Everett’s parents figured it out, they home-schooled him because they were afraid he would get taken advantage of after an incident with one of his teachers during a conference where she casually mentioned that he could make a lot of money gambling when he got older. Everett had overheard the conversation where they admitted that maybe it was paranoia, but it would be worth it to protect their kid. Luca implied the kid is really fucking innocent and maybe a little too trusting. Then his parents died when he was ten and his aunt and uncle got custody. That’s when everything went to shit.”
Maverick then told me that the aunt and uncle had done exactly what the parents had always been afraid of and had exploited Everett. We still didn’t know all the details, but somehow his aunt and uncle had discovered that with Everett’s help, they did really well at gambling. It had started online only but had escalated as he’d continued to make them more and more money, and they’d ended up getting involved with the wrong people who became suspicious of their winnings. The Longwoods had ended up indebted to several mafia familiesand many of the other heavy hitters when it came to shady organizations with a lot of reach. They’d forced a thirteen-year-old Everett to do the dirty work for them. I still wasn’t perfectly clear on what he’d done, mainly because my brain couldn’t comprehend, but I guessed that didn’t matter. The results were the same: he’d seen a lot of shit that could be used against said shady people and had the brain to remember every fucking detail. In short, he was fucked.
The Crimson Rose had then gotten wind of him and had essentially held him for the last six years, using him as their personal computer.
The Crimson fucking Rose. It was hard to believe they were real, but if Luca and Wes were convinced, then so was I. They were supposedly an elite shadow criminal organization compiled of all the biggest players in the underground. Cartel, mafia, the triads, Yakuza, you name it. And Everett had information on all of them.
“So once the kid turned eighteen, his shitty ass guardians began to panic,” Maverick continued. “They were smart enough to realize that the only reason they had been kept alive was because Everett was a minor and needed someone to look after him.” He wasn’t looking at me anymore, instead focusing on the monitor in front of him. His ability to multitask without missing any details had always been impressive to me.
I whistled. “So that’s why his guardians went to the feds? Because they were afraid they’d be killed?”
Maverick grunted. “Looks like. The fuckers tried to pin it all on Everett, like he was the mastermind, but it didn’t take long for the FBI to realize that was bullshit. Luc said after spending just five minutes with the guy, he knew there was no fucking way he’d be in charge. Especially since he was only thirteen when things got really heavy.”
I was dying to see Everett for myself. Luc and Wes could read people better than anyone I knew, so I trusted their instincts about him, but it didn’t sate my curiosity. They’d agreed to help, but it would probably be a few more days before they came home with him. The situation was complicated over there, and they had to make sure everyone was safe.
“What else do you know?” I prompted when Mav drifted off. He had more or less told me all this already, but it was good to hear it from beginning to end.
Mav’s lips pursed in annoyance, but he started to talk again. “Like I said, Everett has an eidetic memory, so everything he’s ever been shown by these criminal organizations, he fucking remembers. The FBI agreed to put him into WITSEC in exchange for information, but they never got that far.” Maverick scrubbed his face, exhaustion kicking in. “His aunt and uncle were taken out before they even made it to the first safe house. They were hit on the road and the agents protecting them were killed.”
