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“Not just him. Trust me, both of you, don’t piss her off. Don’t hurt her.”
“She threatened us?” she asked, affronted enough to consider calling to yell at Lachlan.
“No, and she never would. She looks out for people, like you do, but other people pay attention to her life and wanna win points with her. So, again, trust me, let her be.”
TWENTY-SIX
“THIS IS UNBELIEVABLE,” Sersha said, poring over the pages spread on her dining table. Why was it only women who grasped the gravity of the situation? “Someone should’ve put this together.”
When the woman looked up, it was clear she wanted agreement. “I put it together.”
“Yeah, sorry, but I meant the cops. Why isn’t anyone investigating? If you told Lach—”
“I did tell him, many, many times.”
“He doesn’t believe it?”
“Not until things got a lot more serious when a woman ended up in hospital a couple of days ago,” Strat said, from his post leaning against the wall at the other side of the table. “Which I was in the dark about until a half hour ago.”
Ford was in the kitchen, not doing much, just being… there. Strat didn’t blame her for getting involved with something dangerous. No, that was too logical. It was her brother’s fault, apparently, despite him not being anywhere close to her at the time of Mila’s accident.
“Why would we tell you? There was nothing to tell. I’m fine.”
“You won’t be if you keep this up.”
“And you’re here because it involves one of the families,” Sersha said, thankfully just glossing over the Stratford tension. “The organized crime families.” Curiously, her dad and Sersha fixed on each other. “Which one?”
“Aren’t you the Manzani expert?”
“Some might say,” the beauty breathed out and straightened, putting the notes down. “They’re wearing the Manzani mark, which you must know.” Yeah, not that it came easy. “But they’re not working women, judging by the notes on their backgrounds. These are ordinary, everyday career women, college educated with prospects. How would they get mixed up with the Manzanis?”
“Exactly,” she said, bouncing a step closer. “We need the connection.”
Sersha pushed around some of the papers to reveal the pictures. “And how he picks his victims. They’re all in the same age range—”
“Different areas of the city, different backgrounds.”
“Different physical features, other than they’re all white, but that’s a big net to cast. How did you get to the Manzanis? Who are we thinking? Silvio or Vex? Because if you start down the cousins and—”
“Jagg thinks whoever is doing this needed permission, that he wouldn’t just kill for fun.”
“It might be fun for him, but he wouldn’t get away with doing this unless someone higher up sanctioned it. Some of these women were tortured for days.”
She rested a hand on the dining chair next to Sersha. “That’s what happens. They go missing, people notice, but no one makes a big deal of it—”
“No one makes a big deal of it because the cops are ignoring it. Because the media—”
“I don’t want to spook anyone or cause mass panic. Yvonne Ingham is still unaccounted for. He could have her now. They could have her.”
“You think this could be one guy? Do the targets have connections that could’ve put them on the Manzani radar? Is this revenge? Payback? Leverage?”
“We know at least two of the victims were seeing a guy called ‘Bryan,’ probably not his real name, before they disappeared only to wind up dead. Bryan is the same guy who called Mila and lured her to the spot she got hit. And the only place Mila knows Bryan mentioned to Stephanie wasHustle.”
“The sex club.” Said like it was no big deal. “If you go in there, they’ll want a show. Evander doesn’t like being told no.”
Hmm, Sersha used Vex’s real name. Whatever was between them obviously ran deep. How could anyone consider…? Was Sersha intimate with Vex? Shit, that was a nasty visual.
“But you know how to do it, Scamp.” Strat got their focus. “You say no to him.”
