Five years ago at Grandma’s Pantry, arms dealer Salty Trebbiano was killed, and his twenty-two million went missing. After Mint and the rest of his Semper Vigiles team raced in to investigate, two dirty U.S. Marshals also showed up dead, turning every person there—Mint, Rashida, Elijah, and of course Nola herself—into instant suspects. In the weeks that followed, O.J. drove the internal review. To this day, Nola assumed one of Salty’s white supremacist groups was behind it all, but in the end, the only truth was this: whoever took the money got away with it.
That is, Nola thought, until a few years passed, and maybe, they finally started spending it.
With another swipe at the iPad, Nola glanced down at Mint’s bank account, now flush with nearly a quarter of a million in the last month alone. The needle in her throat expanded, thick as a nail, pushing out from inside her skin. Nola shook her head, praying she had it wrong. All these years . . . all the good Mint had done . . . all he’d done for her. Sir, you’re supposed to be better than this.
Just the thought of it made her feel gutted, exposed . . . and so damn na?ve. It also made her feel something else, like someone was yanking an ancient piece of armor from her chest, one that she didn’t even realize she’d been wearing.
She replayed it all, reshuffling the details. From the photo, it looked like Mint was once again cheating on his wife with Rashida. That, she could deal with. Good men make dumb decisions every day. But did that mean that he was the one who killed two U.S. Marshals and took twenty-two million dollars that night at Grandma’s Pantry? Maybe. Or maybe someone else took it, and Mint—or Rashida—somehow found out about it. Could that be where Mint’s deposits were coming from—a hush payment, or Mint asking for his own cut? That actually made more sense, especially considering the one trapdoor at the center of the maze: that Mint and Rashida were dead. Someone ordered that hit—and from the sums in Mint’s account . . . that money came from somewhere. Find the missing twenty-two million, and she’d find who was really behind this.
It wasn’t a long suspect list. With a final swipe backward, Nola spread her fingers, enlarging the original photo of Mint and Rashida. With them gone, the only remaining team members from Grandma’s Pantry were O.J. and— “Elijah,” Nola blurted.
“The guy with the bar,” Vess said, still clutching his leg on the floor.
Nola turned. “What’d you say?”
“Elijah. That’s his name, right?” Vess said. “The Reds . . . they mentioned him . . . said he had a bar. Selling faggoty microbrews.”
“Who told them that?”
“No idea. They said—”
Nola leaned closer, giving Vess a deep, long look at the fight he didn’t realize he was picking. Later tonight, Vess would still be thinking about her stare. Her eyes were patient, like they knew something was coming. There weren’t many people who knew about Elijah, much less that he had a bar. Zig was one, though he’d never share info with the Reds—which left . . . “Mr. Vess, how do you know my brother?” Nola asked.
“Your brother?”
“Roddy LaPointe. He’s a cop in Jersey—and a general scumbag. You’re a drug boss in Philly. Barely an hour and a half from each other. You’re telling me that’s just coincidence?”
Vess stopped, glancing up. He was still in pain, but his brow was furrowed. He looked lost, confused. “Roddy? That’s an actual name? Roddy?”
Vess didn’t know him. It made no sense. To track Vess here, Nola had relied on his listing in the Special Identities Unit. It was a watchdog list—the ultimate Do Not Disturb—usually for people the government had under surveillance. But one of the other biggest groups on that list? CIs. Confidential informants. Some were petty criminals, but some were bosses themselves—ratting out their fellow scumbags, hoping that the government, or even a local cop, might turn a blind eye or somehow take it easy on them.