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“All the time.”
“So if you go to—”
“No!” she asserted, smacking the top of the chairback. “This is my story, you can’t send Sersha in there alone.”
“She knows how to take care of herself and has been fighting off Vex Manzani for years.”
“I can go in there,” Sersha said. “It’s poking the bear, but I can do it.”
Strat folded his arms. “Vex been leaving you alone since…?”
Sersha shrugged. “As alone is alone with Vex.” She shook her head. “He has other things on his mind right now.”
Sersha McLeod, daughter of Police Superintendent, granddaughter of a beloved alderman, and sister to Lachlan McLeod, vice detective. Also known as her last boyfriend. The woman should be about the great and good, like the rest of the family. Yet she talked about one of the most dangerous men in the city like a friend, a benign entity, like they were talking about a store clerk or bank teller.
“Vex Manzani’s a killer.”
As Sersha’s attention rolled around to her, a smile formed on the woman’s lips. “Yes, just like his father and brothers and everyone else in that world. They’re all capable of it, if not already guilty. This is a dangerous road.”
“Yeah, everyone likes to tell me that a lot. You don’t shy away from it.”
“An odd confluence of relationships gives me a kind of safety net.”
“Because your dad runs the police.”
“That and…” Sersha again glanced at Strat, “and other things.”
Ford chose that moment to come over and get involved. “Sersha can go in there clean, talk to Vex, find out what he knows. There’s no reason for you to go to a sex club.”
“What the hell is with the men in my family—”
“No one has to go to Hustle,” Sersha called over her rising irritation. Everyone silenced. “You want me to ask Vex, I’ll ask him. But if I open my mouth and tell him you’re on this, we’re on this, whatever, I don’t have to name names, then it’s out there. I ask, he’ll know someone’s watching.”
“And they might shut up shop,” Strat said. “Good. Contact him.”
“I don’t want them to shut up shop.” That sounded a whole lot like Yvonne’s death knell. “Shutting up shop means getting rid of evidence. It means never getting justice or tracking those responsible.”
“Or…” Sersha drew out the syllable. “Vex dishes out the punishment.” That didn’t sound like a daughter of law and order speaking. “If this is on Evander’s order, yeah, he’ll clean house. But this isn’t like him. It’s too… complicated.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” Ford asked.
“Evander doesn’t apologize for who he is and would never feel guilt or shame. If he wants to kill a woman, or a bunch of them, he’d slit their throats in a club full of people and never blink. No one will roll on him. No one’s going to the cops with that.”
“Could be well known on the street.”
“And you’re who I go to for that,” Sersha said to Strat. “You can call around.”
“He’s already refused to help,” she said.
That startled Sersha. “Why would you refuse? You got skin in this game?”
“Yeah, right, Scamp,” he said. “I’m the killer.”
“Don’t doubt you’re capable.”
“Everyone is capable in the right circumstance.”
“Or the wrong one.”
