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I set a finger against her lips to calm her. Then I smiled and admitted, “I missed that time we usually get to talk too.” Leaning in, I pressed my mouth to hers, only to pull back and frown. “Wait. Did you mention Daffodils and hitmen?”
“Oh! Yes. Oh my God, it’s pure craziness. I walked into Preston Estates this morning and crossed paths with Diego who, get this, had his face all busted up and a cast on his arm. He accused me of hiring a frigging hitman to scare him away from me. Can you believe that? Me? He said Mad Manny—or something like that—paid him a visit and threatened to kill him if Diego ever bothered me again. And then he—”
“Wait.” I cut in. “Did you say Mad Manny?”
“Yeah. I’m pretty sure that was it. Diego called him the most dangerous hitman in the entire city.” Gabby rolled her eyes over such a dramatic phrase, only to take in my pensive expression and pause. “Why? Have you heard of him too? What the hell? Why has everyone heard of this guy but me?”
“No. I mean, hold on.” I leaned past her to reach for my phone on the nightstand. She hummed in appreciation when I brushed past and stroked her fingers up my rib cage, causing me to rumble out a sound of pleasure and send her a heated glance.
She wasn’t going back home any time soon; I was going to make sure of that.
Then I straightened and opened my phone to pull up a picture. “This was one of the few things I was able to take a picture of from Lana’s box tonight.”
I showed her the screen, where the photo on it depicted a scrap of torn paper with a phone number scribbled under the name Mad Manny.
“Holy shit,” Gabby gasped, slapping a hand to her forehead before turning to me. “It was Lana who called a hit out on Diego. Why did I not guess that before? It seems completely obvious now. Diego was hanging around her door Thursday morning, and that no doubt annoyed Lana into—Wait a second.” She gaped at me before pointing at the screen of my phone. “Lana has a fucking hitman’s phone number.”
“Exactly.” I stared hard at that number. “I wonder how she got it.” Glancing at Gabby, I winced as my stomach tensed with worse concerns. “Or what other jobs she’s hired him to do.”
Gabby gulped, her eyes huge with worry. “Diego did say Mad Manny usually killed his marks, not just broke their bones.”
I hissed a curse and ran a hand through my hair. “Jesus. I wonder if he can make his murders look like natural causes. Like, say, heart attacks.”
Her eyes widened. “What are you saying, Hayden?”
“This paper looks worn,” I noted, holding my phone closer and squinting at it. “She’s had it a while. What if Arthur’s death—?” Unable to finish that thought aloud, I shook my head, feeling sick. “Or even the missing married couple whose phones she has…”
Gabby just gaped at me before timidly asking, “Do you really think she’s truly capable of putting hits out on people, though? One of them being her own husband? This is taking someone’s life you’re talking about, Hayden. That’s a whole other level.”
“I know. But why does she have a phone number for this Mad Manny guy in the first place, stashed in a secret box she hides where no one would find it?”
Looking a little green, Gabby could only say, “I don’t know.”
We stared at each other for a minute longer, our expressions growing more troubled by the second. I’d only started this mission because Arthur’s will had sounded all wrong, because Lana had nosed her way into JFI, where she didn’t belong.
Life had been okay until then; it’d been manageable, at least. I’d finally felt as if I’d shaken loose of my mother’s controlling ways and could be my own person. She’d had no interest in the b
usiness side of things, so I rarely ever had to have contact with her. Arthur had hired me to work for him, and I was making my way up the ranks. Then Brick had come on board and seemed to be doing okay with his place in JFI as well. But after Arthur’s heart attack, there Lana was, strolling into the first board meeting following his funeral, taking over, and ruining everything once more.
I think she’d only decided to try her hand at running the company to spite Kaitlynn, to make sure her deceased husband’s adored daughter couldn’t go anywhere in the place. But it had affected a lot more people than just my stepsister. It had plagued all of us. And I had just wanted my fucking freedom back; the one bit of breathing room where Lana had never wanted to butt her nose before.
Who knew merely trying to nudge her out of JFI would lead me to finding these kinds of clues? Brick and I used to joke that she was behind that couple’s disappearance, and sometimes we’d even suggest Lana was the reason our own father had died. But we’d never seriously believed that. Except now—now it was beginning to look a lot less like jokes and more like reality.
Right when I’d pulled Gabby into this mess, too.
Jesus, what if she got hurt?
“What else did we get a copy of from her secret box?” she asked.
I shook my head, trying to control my climbing heart rate. “Other than the phone number for Mad Manny and the letter from Isaac, not much. Just a receipt for some kind of bank transaction.”
Gabby lifted her eyebrows. “An illegal transaction?” she asked.
I shrugged. “Who’s to know? It’s just a number from one account to another.”
“That we found in a hidden box, which also contains a hitman’s number,” Gabby reminded me. “Whatever it’s about, it can’t be good.”
“I’m sure,” I agreed dryly. “Except it gives us nothing. Just numbers. No names, no reasons, no explanations. I couldn’t even tell you if the money was moving to her account or from it.”
