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“What? But you—”
“It’s true,” I cried. “He’s not dead. But... someone did try to... kill him. This was a plan, Sunny’s plan, to draw them out. I swear, Ryker.”
“You’re lying.”
“Talk to him yourself! My phone— It’s under the name Trouble. Call him. Ask him!”
“Get me to drop my hand so you can get free? Nice try, bitch.”
“I’ll do it.” Sienna scrambled for the phone.
“Hey! Drop it!”
“Or you’ll what?” Furious, tear-filled pools burned him. “Kill us both? If you do, Sunny will kill you. This isn’t a trick. What kind of scam involves calling a dead man? He doesn’t answer and you kill us anyway. Sunny is alive. Let me prove it to you.”
He growled, clenching me tighter. Black spots danced in my vision.
“Put it on speaker.”
Sienna smashed her fingers on the buttons and held it up as it rang.
“Sienna?” Sole’s unmistaken baritone poured through the speakers. “Everything okay?”
Ryker’s gun hand flopped at our sides. “Sunny?” he breathed. “How—?”
In a breath, Ryker was gone. His arm flew off my neck and the rest of him with it. Roaring, Bane clamped his throat and tossed him across the alley. Ryker crashed into the brick, collapsing to the ground in a still, bleeding heap.
“SO IT WAS ALL SUNNY’S idea?” Ryker winced, pressing a dishcloth packed with ice against his head. “Why didn’t he tell us? Tell me at least.”
The four of us sat in Bosco’s Diner—the best place to get chicken and waffles, according to Bane. I’d give him that, they were pretty damn good.
“No one outside the family knew,” I croaked. My voice had yet to recover from my throttling. “Hard to play dead when everyone and their brother knows the truth.”
“Nah, that’s not it.” Ryker leaned back in his seat, that familiar scowl returning. “He suspected one of us, didn’t he? Even me. The smug, shit-eating bastard.”
“He didn’t actually,” I replied. “Sunny refused to believe you guys had anything to do with it, but it made more sense to be sure. Especially since he was drugged the night he went to Laser to check out the connection between Xander and the owner.”
Ryker made a noise in his throat. “Yeah, well, I guess I’m a smug, shit-eating bastard... because I checked Xander out too. I checked out everyone in the crew when Sunny went missing without a word.”
“You did?” I pushed my waffles aside. “Did you find anything? Is anyone in the crew connected to a guy named Lochlan Grant?”
“Lochlan Grant. You and Vito were talking about him. What’s he got to do with this?”
“You first,” Bane barked. He hadn’t forgiven him for my sore throat and Sienna’s scraped knees. “Sunny’s kidnapping went down at Laser. He suspected the owner of running a bootlegging operation with Xander getting a cut.”
Ryker shook his head, then stopped, grimacing. “Nah. Xander’s clean. He’s hooked up with the owner all right, but not because they’re cheating Sunny. It’s because they’re cheating on the owner’s wife. They’re fucking.”
My brows blew up my forehead. “Are you sure?”
“Yep. Didn’t catch him with more cash than he should’ve, but a friend of mine clocked a recurring charge at the Lotus Inn. Xander meets him at the club, and then they duck out and go to the hotel. All of my people are clean.”
“Are you certain? Sunny has almost forty people in his crew. How do you know every one of them is trustworthy?”
“I know.” His tone clanged the bell of finality. “I checked them twice and I checked you twenty times. If I suspected any of them for betraying Sunny, I wouldn’t have hesitated any longer than I did with you.”
“Fair enough.”
Sienna brought the conversation back around. “Are we saying it’s just coincidence that Sunny was taken at Laser?”
“Not a coincidence,” Bane said. “He was watched. Followed. What was special about that night wasn’t where he went, it’s that Sunny went there alone. Whoever was tailing him saw their chance and struck.”
“Maybe Grant,” Sienna said. “Is he bald? White?”
Ryker spoke up. “White, yes. Bald, no. Full head of salt-and-pepper hair. Again, what does he have to do with this?”
“Everything. Possibly,” I added. “You know what’s been going on. Your routes hijacked. Your warehouses raided. Genny, Liam, and Bane dealt with sabotage attacks too. This enemy hates the Merchants—all of them. Sunny stayed dead so I could find out why. That’s what you heard between me and Vito. He definitely fits the suspect list. The guy despises the Merchants for what happened to his family. We figured he’d have friends who felt the same. With him pointing us in the right direction, we’ll narrow it down to who brought Sunny up to that overpass.”
“I get it,” Ryker said, “but Lochlan? I overheard you guys talking about the warehouse blown up in Harlow. If Vito’s got you convinced Grant did it, the guy’s putting you on. Lochlan is small-time. He doesn’t have the balls to do it himself or the money to hire someone else.”
