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I’d listen to it later when I wasn’t worried about waking her.
Gum. Breath mints. An empty bag of Sour Patch Kids. A few stray pens. Her ID badge. Nothing incriminating and nothing that told me why she’d been at the club.
I couldn’t dismiss the idea that she’d been the one to plant the faulty spark plug to cement her story and make us believe she was the victim.
Bingo.
Her cell phone was tucked at the bottom of her purse, beneath all the crap, and it wasn’t locked. What the fuck? For a reporter, she was really fucking stupid. Who didn’t lock their phone?
She had a slew of missed calls. Jaysus, there were nearly sixty. Most of them from a number labeledStepcunt, while the rest came from one she’d labeledCHEATER, in large capital letters with a puke face emoji.
Cute.
Opening her messages, I snuck a peek at some of them. There were a few from the stepcunt asking about where she was and telling her she needed to talk to Drew.
Stepcunt: You need to come home. Drew said you walked out with all of your things. Where are you planning on going? You two need to figure this out. We can’t let your premarital spat ruin your father’s plans.
Bailey never answered.
Stepcunt: Bailey Elizabeth Crowe, I am not kidding. Men cheat. Get over it and get your ass back home before I involve your father in this.
Crowe? That wasn’t the last name she’d listed on her driver’s license.
Why did that name sound familiar?
Shaking my head, I focused back on the text messages. None of which Bailey had responded to. There was a whole host more of them from her stepmother, mostly dragging on about how she couldn’t let this ruin everything her father had worked for and how she’d regret leaving Drew, the one I assumed was labeledcheaterin her contacts.
Damn, I thought my mother was a frigid bitch. The two of them could be best friends. Both worried about social standings and how things affected the family image, not caring about how the family itself was affected. Not that we had much of an image. It wasn’t a secret my father ran the Irish Mafia.
Not even from the police, who we had in our back pockets. Most of them, anyway. There were always the few who thought they could beat the system of corruption we had going. It never worked.
It never would.
We ran this city just as much as Dashkov and Romano, just with less pomp and circumstance.
They called us rats because we kept to the shadows. Hidden from prying eyes. We had more people than most realized we did. More control than they could imagine.
The Wards had the shipping port.
The Romanos had several billion-dollar hotels.
Dashkov had his fancy security corporations.
Businesses like that were easy targets. They were out in the open and everyone knew of them. It made them stand out. It was only a matter of time before someone somewhere got curious. The FBI. IRS. DEA. You name it. There was always some gung-ho newbie agent desperate to prove themselves and willing to go the extra mile.
All it took was one small lead.
One minor mistake.
One very good reporter, like Bailey.
Dammit.We were risking everything by bringing her here. We should have killed her.
But…
My phone vibrated in my pocket. I pulled it out, bringing it to my ear without bothering to look at the number. There was only one person it would be at this hour.
“Tell me you got something for me, Bridg.”
