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Dornan had already peeled off somewhere, and Emilio was nowhere to be seen. John was talking to another Gypsy Brother, and I leaned against the wall and tried not to attract any attention – easier said than done when you were the only woman in a club full of men. It didn’t matter at any rate, because while I was trying to remain inconspicuous, the doors to the club burst open, and FBI officers started streaming in. I saw Lindsay across the room, before he could see me. I acted on autopilot. I locked eyes with John, gestured to the fire escape at the back of the club, and we ran.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
DORNAN
Dornan backed up and let Viper speak.
‘After I found these transactions, I decided to take a look at John’s house . . .’ he trailed off.
‘Don’t get shy now,’ Emilio said. He seemed intrigued, but it wasn’t his money. It was John taking pity on some girl and sending her some of his cash. Dornan could tell that his father thought this was no big deal.
Viper placed a cellphone on the desk. He looked like he was about to have a damned heart attack.
‘Whose is it?’ Dornan asked. His head was throbbing. He almost didn’t want to know. He definitely didn’t want to be blindsided while his father was standing beside him.
‘I found this phone in John’s garden shed,’ Viper said. ‘It was hidden thoroughly. When I unearthed it and turned it on, guess which number was first on the call list?’
Dornan closed his eyes briefly, pinching the bridge of his nose. He already knew the answer. The phone in front of him was a cheap burner phone. He’d seen one exactly the same.
‘He’s been calling your wife,’ Viper said, his eyes darting around as if he didn’t know where to look. ‘Or rather, they’ve been calling each other.’
Dornan’s resolve shattered. It made perfect sense. Of course! He knew she’d been seeing somebody else, even when she tried to deny it. Of course it would be John – the man who was everything Dornan had never quite been able to emulate. The good one. The kind one. The one who didn’t beat you until you miscarried. Or, for that matter, the one who didn’t beat you at all, because he was just a fucking stand-up guy.
‘There’s more,’ Viper said.
Emilio was openly entertained now, apparently having forgotten the time and their impending meeting. Seemed this juicy news was reason enough to be late.
‘Please, by all means, go on,’ Emilio said, steepling his fingers and leaning his chin on them. ‘You’re really very good at setting the scene. Very thorough.’
Viper glanced at Dornan. ‘Once I figured out they’d been talking, I decided it was worth looking into something that’s been bothering me ever since you told me about it, Mr Ross. The ashes you mentioned to me. You asked me to track down where she had the kid cremated at such short notice and I found it – Budget Funerals. We’ve already talked about this, but after I told you I decided to do some more digging. I asked the guy if I could look at his security tapes from the week Agent Murphy went missing.’
Emilio drew a sharp breath. There was nothing playful about his attention now.
‘John took a body to be disposed of the same day Murphy disappeared,’ Viper said. ‘I asked the guy about it, convinced him that John had sent me to make sure any personal effects had been destroyed along with the body.’
He dug into his pocket and pulled out an ID badge, with Murphy’s face staring out next to the letters DEA.
He slid it across the table for Emilio to see. ‘I rechecked the tapes. Mariana was waiting in the car while John loaded Murphy’s body for burning.’
Emilio stood, pounding his fist on the desk. ‘That fucking cunt!’ he roared, his eyes so big Dornan thought they might explode out of his head and roll along the floor. Dornan didn’t know what to do. His wife was a traitor. His wife wasn’t loyal to him. She was loyal to John. She was in love with John.
And they were both standing five feet away, separated only by the soundproof walls this office boasted; thank God for small miracles in a sea of shitty news.
‘I’ll kill them both,’ Dornan decided out loud, reaching for his gun.
‘Stop,’ Viper said. ‘There’s more. I checked the accounts after I found all of this. She’s been skimming your money. I didn’t have time to put it all together, but the amount so far is over seven figures.’
Emilio looked like he was about to cut Viper’s skull open and rip out his brain, just to see if he could get the answers faster than Viper was relaying them.
‘But seven figures is–’
‘Millions,’ Viper confirmed.
Dornan and Emilio both moved for the door at the same time.
But they never reached it. It exploded open, a stream of FBI agents yelling commands at the three of them, and then Dornan was on the floor, hands behind his back and his face pressed into the rough carpet as the bony knee of an FBI agent dug into the small of his back.
Emilio was cursing in Italian, the same sentence, over and over again. ‘I will cut her fucking head off. I will saw their fucking heads off!’
