Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 64362 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64362 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
There hadn’t been a word on any lead since Wilder Jones had contacted Liam to tell him he thought he might have something, but he needed some time. That had been over a week ago.
My days had become one endless nightmare that I couldn’t wake up from. The nights I did fall asleep for a short time, I’d open my eyes to the realization all over again.
Salem was gone.
I battled with the fear to hope as I rode my Harley to Pepper’s bar. I didn’t think I could handle another lead that got us nowhere. Wilder not calling with anything wasn’t a good sign that what he’d thought he had was going to help.
Liam’s bike was parked outside the bar when I pulled up. He’d been in Ocala, so I hadn’t been expecting him. When he called I thought he was still in Ocala. Climbing off mine, I headed inside. I’d wanted to come the moment I got the call, not in two hours, like I’d been told. Waiting had been difficult, and I’d paced in my room for more than an hour.
Pushing open the door, I stepped into the bar, and my gaze swung to the bar. Liam leaned against it, his arms crossed over his chest. I started to ask where Marlana was when my eyes shifted, and my steps faltered at the sight of Blaise Hughes. The Mafia boss was not who I’d expected to see here.
I looked back at Liam.
“Marlana won’t be here for thirty more minutes,” Liam told me. “Before she arrives, I wanted you to hear what Blaise has found out through his sources.”
I didn’t ask what sources. “Okay,” I said and turned my attention back to Blaise as he stood up from the table he’d been sitting at.
“I can’t promise you this is all completely accurate. The connections I had to go through were questionable,” he began.
Anything. Fucking anything to lead me in a direction close to her would help. I needed something.
“Over a year ago, some of the larger dealers in the southeast worked a deal with a Travis Mitchell. He owned a trucking line out of Mississippi. The cocaine was coming from overseas, and when tested, it had a higher purity than from where they had been previously buying from, and it was the same price they had been paying. They made a deal with him and only had contact with him via a messenger.
“One of the men got suspicious and did some research to find the trucking line didn’t exist, and he could find no trace of this particular Travis Mitchell. He let it go because the product was selling for higher dollar and his profits were up. But he went through his security footage from his house, where he’d met the final time with the so-called Travis Mitchell, and pulled an image of him from the camera to keep since the man didn’t seem to exist, but the product still arrived at the designated time and place it was supposed to.”
Blaise picked up a file from the table and held it out for me.
Taking it, I glanced at Liam before opening it to see if there was any sign on his face that he knew what was in here. My eyes scanned the first paper, and I frowned.
“Is this a background check on Salem?” I asked, my eyes shooting back up to Blaise. I hadn’t asked for him to snoop into her life.
He nodded. “You need to know someone to find them.”
I closed the folder and handed it back to him. “I won’t invade her privacy. Her background won’t help us.”
Blaise took the folder, then opened it and turned to the next page and took out a picture. He held it up for me to see. It was a photo of a man I’d never seen.
“This wasn’t in her background check, but you need to see it first,” he said.
I glanced up at him, confused on how this was a lead. He put the photo down on the table before he took out another photo, then held it up for me to look at. My heart began to hammer in my chest as I stared at Salem in a wedding dress, looking like a goddamn angel. Fuck, that hurt. I swallowed hard through my tightening throat, then reluctantly shifted my attention to the bastard by her side.
“What the…” I hissed as I looked back down at the photo in my hand.
“As you can see, this is Salem with her husband on her wedding day. I have more recent ones, but I felt the younger version of Eamon Murphy resembled the man in the photo the most. Wilder did a test, and it is not the same man. There are differences, but looking at them, one would assume they were closely related. Brothers.”