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I pull my phone out. “Let’s just ask him.”
A woman answers, and I frown.
“It’s probably Sabrina,” Bellamy whispers.
“This is Owen from High Card.”
“Oh, hello, Master Owen. Do you need Tyson?” The woman asks.
“I do. It’s rather urgent.”
There’s a shift in the background noise before she speaks again. “He’s up to his neck in a sauce that will ruin if he stops what he’s doing, but he should be free in about an hour after we get dinner service started.”
I want to tell her to interrupt him, but it can wait an hour. “Have him call me the second he’s available.”
When the call disconnects, I pick up my tablet and open a browser. Tyson is a rather famous chef and has an active social media presence.
“Looks like he’s cooking for the mayor of Las Vegas and her family tonight. Some fundraiser for the schools.”
I search for the first mentions of Tyson being at the event. Sure enough, it first appeared on his social media a little under six weeks ago.
“Looks like that explains that,” I say, showing her the posts.
Bellamy’s hands fly across the keyboard, and I lean in to see what she’s doing.
“Those posts reminded me of a conversation we had. You were there. He was complaining about cooking for someone, and he wasn’t thrilled about it. Then he said the mayor and her snotty son were holding up his restaurant. I didn’t put two and two together until just now. Phineas Draven is the mayor’s son. She remarried after his dad died. Phineas sits on the boards of half a dozen companies in the valley. I’ve seen at least two of them in our searches.”
I struggle to follow her logic.
“Are you saying the mayor’s son is after us?”
She nods. “I can’t even begin to tell you why. But it’s got a whiff of plausibility.”
I’m still not sure she’s on the right track, but it’s more than we’ve had to work with up to this point, so I follow her lead, and start digging into Phineas. His finances are harder to track, but she’s right that he’s a listed board member for at least two of the shell companies we’ve uncovered in the past two days.
As I dig deeper, I realize he’s on every single one of them. Phineas Draven might be the head of our snake, after all. The trouble is, I don’t have a clue what he would have against us. And even if I figure that out, he’s practically untouchable. Aside from Hunter Novak, he’s one of the most powerful men in the city, and he’s rumored to be running for Governor of Nevada in a few years.
“Let’s go back to the office, I need more monitors to sort this all out. We have a lot more digging to do into Phineas Draven.”
“What about Draven?” Tobias startles me, and I look over to find him awake and scowling.
“It looks like he’s the money behind all of this. At the very least, he’s tied to the cash flow even if he isn’t controlling the purse strings.”
He struggles to sit up, and Bellamy rushes to help prop him up with pillows.
“You’re sure? That’s really fucking bad if it’s true.”
“Tell me about it. What do you know about him?”
“Until a year ago, he was the other fucking silent partner in my restaurant group.”
I close my eyes. “For fuck’s sake. He saw an opportunity to bring us both down a notch or two. It doesn’t explain how he knows so much about our world, though.”
Tobias drinks the water Bellamy hands him and shakes his head. “His old man was quietly involved with the Russian organization that ran Las Vegas before you lot showed up. They put his ex-wife in the mayor’s office.”
This is all so much more fucked up than I imagined. If Phineas is angry with us for being the final nail in the Russian’s coffin, it would explain a lot.
“What are the odds Tyson Vance is wrapped up in this?”
