I groaned. God, men were exhausting.
“If you dragged me out here just to flirt, Iwillkill you.”
He laughed, putting his hands up in mock surrender, but his smile faded as he glanced around the garage for the tenth time. He lowered his voice, stepping closer until I could see the serious change in his expression.
“Relax, Evie. I didn’t risk my neck to ask you out. I actually have something for you—but you’ll want to be careful with it.”
“Yeah, I’ve been hearing that a lot lately,” I snapped, impatience biting at my words.
He pulled a folded piece of paper from his jacket and handed it to me.
My fingers brushed over the cool paper, dread settling in my stomach.
I opened it carefully, already bracing myself for the worst—but it still wasn’t enough.
Because there, among a list of various names, was one that stole the breath from my lungs.
Cameron Fletcher.
Regan’s dad. The man who had murdered my parents. The ghost who still lingered even after we buried him.
“What is this? Why are these names on here?”
His dark eyes steeled, making me feel like I was looking at something way more important than I thought.
“Those are the clients of Veritas,” he said, the words a quiet hiss. “And a few who I assume to be owners. There isn’t much on it, but I think Veritas was a group with members—these members—who worked together. And not in a ‘share an office’ type of way. These were guys doing major business together and most of it was illegal. They helped each other claw their way to the top and I’m sure they did plenty of sinister deeds for each other. And if you look through them, you see why I said be careful. Those aren’t guys to be messed with.”
“I mean, they messed with me first, so any retaliation is their problem. Where did you get this?”
“You know I can’t tell you where I find information any more than you can tell me why you are looking into this. But I can tell you this will be all the information I can get from this source, so no promises to what else I can deliver.”
“So, all I get is an old list of names and nothing else? How does that help?”
“You’re looking into things from more than ten years ago, Evie. It’s not like I’m digging up fresh, new information every day. This list is the closest thing I can get to who your parents were working with back then.”
I kept looking down the list of nearly twenty names until two more jumped out at me.
My parents’ names were there, written near the end of the list.
“How do I know who owned it and who was a client?”
He shrugged. “No idea. I didn’t get that far with it.”
“Well, now I’m going to need you to get that far.” I bit down, my teeth gritting together. “I need to know everything I can about Veritas, and how each of these people were involved.”
Another name jumped out, my eyes narrowing. “Cross? He’s involved in this?”
“Ahh, that one I know more about with all the information collecting I do for you guys. Cross was as involved in this as Cameron Fletcher. I believe he was one of the original five who started Veritas. I don’t know what companies he was involved in after, though. I would imagine he had plenty of ties to them all still.”
Cross. One of the biggest drug lords in the city, if not the state. The one apparently sending people after us now.
How is everything somehow starting to lead back to Veritas while also having nothing to do with it?
Is it a coincidence since most of the big criminal players were involved in it?
“I need the other company names. His, Cameron’s, any of them.I need to figure out who all worked for companies my parents were involved in.”
“You got it. One more thing,” he started, fidgeting before he continued. “Veritas. Whatever it was, it wasn’t only a business. I mean, they seemed to do something but I think it was more the kind of group that once you were in, you werein, and since your parents’ names are on the list, I think they were stuck there. Veritas seemed to shut down, only to be opened by the same people under different names.”
