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“Potentially. I have some more notes and files to go through. Anyway, that’s not the point right now. I got to thinking that maybe Chapman isn’t the only one that can lead us to the UR’s main man. His brother is his second-in-command. He’s part of every dealing the Coster Kings have.”
“So we’re pimping Lizzie’s blowie lips out to his brother instead?” Simon asks.
“You’re a pig,” Julian groans at him. “But yes, for all intents and purposes.”
“Great,” Simon scoffs. “Moving on, do we have anything else on the briefcase?”
“No.” I’ve been tracing my father’s footsteps from his last few days, but there are one too many gaps that I can’t fill without his driver. Since he’s gone, it’s proving impossible. “But I’ve got Andrew on it.”
“It’s taking too long. We’re taking too long,” Simon states. “They’re having enough time to recoup from our blows.”
“Maybe, but if we use all our strikes at once, we won’t draw Chapman out, and we need him to get to the United Republic.”
“There’s just too much going on, Henry.” Julian’s worry is evident in his strained voice. “We need help.”
“No.”
“Then you need to stop entertaining a baby and—”
“Don’t bring Eve into this,” I cut Simon off before his whining gains momentum. “I’m here doing everything I need to do to get to the bottom of this shit. What are you doing? Lining your pockets and bitching like a miserable cunt?”
“Give it a fucking rest!” Julian snaps down the line. “We don’t have the luxury of being at each other’s throats right now. There are bigger issues to worry about than who you’re fucking and why he’s not here.”
“The girl’s a distraction,” Simon growls. “Can’t you see that? We might’ve been done with this if she wasn’t in the picture.”
“If it was that simple, there would be no need for any of us. We’re never done, Simon. This is what we live for.”
“The email you sent, there was a photo of a woman.” I go back to the attachments and scroll through until I find the photo in the email before I compare it to the one in the original file he gave me last month. “Mary Ann Nichols.”
“Chapman’s sister. She owns a chain of beauty clinics across the city. They’re all in backstreets with barely any foot traffic, and they’re appointment-only. Here, check the website,” Julian says just as a message pings in our group chat, and I follow the link he sent through.
“You need a password to book an appointment?” It doesn’t make sense.
“Odd, I know. This is why I think we need assistance. If we can get into the back end of the website, we’ll be able to pull everything from it.”
“Wait.” I chuckle at the irony that the legal mastermind is the one suggesting we do something highly illegal. “You want to hack into the website.”
“Yes.”
“You won’t be able to use any of the information we collect to bring the Coster Kings down.”
Julian laughs. “There’s only one bloody way to get rid of them, and this will help us find their ties.”
“We’re not running a criminal investigation,” Simon says. “I couldn’t give two shits what she’s selling to whom.”
“Of course you don’t,” I scoff in reply.
“When did you get so judgy?”
“When I killed men and women that traded young, innocent kids for weapons or they raped young girls so that they could sell their babies to fund their religious wars. That’s when. Maybe your disregard for these things is why she burnt your fucking house to the ground.”
“Fuck. Henry,” Julian warns.
“Do you ever think about that, Simon? Why she did it?”
“Henry!” Julian’s bellow reverberates in my eardrums as Simon puts the phone down. “Too far.”
Maybe, but I’m so sick and tired of pretending that Simon’s still one of us. He’s never here when it matters, and he leaves the first chance he gets. The only loyalty and duty he holds is to himself.
