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“Don’t start with the twin ESP shit,” he scolded, setting the tankards down on the table in the middle of the room. “Look”—he ran a hand through his graying hair—“with everything that’s going on with Ava, I’ve come to realize some things. You can’t choose who you love. I also know that I would do anything for my family. Eriksen hasn’t been killing our men because he enjoys it, or even because he wants to.”Hopefully. “He is no doubt doing it because it was the only way to keep Bailey safe. I realize that we could have rescued her earlier, and if maybe I hadn’t been so stubborn and distracted, she might not be in the predicament she is in now.”
Wasn’t that the truth.
All hell had broken loose at the gala just after Kiernan had handed over Bailey to Crowe. A sniper had taken a shot at our sister from one of the balconies concealed by heavy curtains that were only used during performances.
We’d been so caught up in the aftermath of the gala that we’d completely missed every red flag regarding Crowe and his involvement with the information we’d found on Bailey.
For days now, I’d been going over the audio from Kiernan’s comm device dozens of times. Trying to pick up anything I could, but all I could hear were her screams and the sound of her heart breaking. It took several times before I could get through the audio without the urge to vomit.
“I’ve been going over things.” My father tilted his chin toward the board we’d set up with all the new information we had. “We didn’t know all the players before, and now we do. I noticed something about Lina at the gala that had me wondering a bit.”
“What was that?” I asked.
“While Bailey was here, she mentioned that she recognized the tattoo on one of Crowe’s guards,” he said. I remembered that. She’d mentioned it idly, but I’d seen her gaze drawn to the photo several times when she was going over the evidence we gave her. “Then I found this.”
He pinned a photo of Lina wearing a black leather jacket with a logo on the back to the board.
An Iron Horsemen logo.
“Up until twenty-five years ago, Eriksen was never seeking any kind of expansion,” my father continued. “We’d never had an issue with one another. Then, out of nowhere, he started killing our men in the streets.”
“We know that is most likely because Crowe was directing him to.” Kiernan pointed out what we already knew. “Using Bailey as a tool to get him to do his dirty work.”
“Except that Crowe would never have wanted the Iron Horsemen to expand.”
I traded a look with my brother.
“You know…” I bit my lower lip. “That Horsemen we roughed up a few nights before the gala, he was adamant that Eriksen wasn’t expanding and that there was no way in hell they’d even try.”
“Look here.” Kiernan pointed to the board we set the map up on. “Every red dot is a hit that we believed was done by the Iron Horsemen.”
“They’re all concentrated in the lower district.” My father stepped up to the map, surveying what we’d laid out so far. “Near the shipping ports.”
“Why would Eriksen need the shipping ports?” Kiernan asked. “He does all his shipments by ground. The only things done by sea are drugs and humans.”
“And we know that Eriksen doesn’t ship drugs by sea, either.”
“So why would he be trying to run us out of the port?”
“He wouldn’t,” my father noted. He turned his attention to another board. I’d strung up every picture Mark, Ava’s hacker friend, could pull off their network from that night. “This was everyone that was there?”
I nodded. “There are only a few people we couldn’t identify.”
“This one of them?” my father asked, pointing to a tall woman seen talking with Kiernan. My brother nodded. “You can’t tell much because of how grainy the footage is, but that’s Sarah Crowe.”
“That’s Bailey’s ‘stepmother’?” Kiernan asked in disbelief.
“The old witch herself,” my father muttered darkly. “Quite the social climber, that one.” He pointed to another woman whose back was turned toward the camera. “That is Lina.”
I squinted at the photo.
“How can you tell?” I asked. “You can’t see her face.”
“The jacket.” He pointed to the other photo. “It’s the same as the one Lina is wearing in this photo. Look at the patch.”
Peering closer, I was able to just make out the patch of the Iron Horsemen. Underneath the main symbol was something I hadn’t expected.
“She’s Eriksen’s old lady?”
