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“Do you think she knows?” Kendric asks.
“Knows what?”
“About the mayor’s extracurricular activities.”
Raylan raises a curious eyebrow. “She strikes me as rather indifferent to the guy, but then again, they don’t have the tightest bond either.”
“She’s nothing like him,” I blurt out. “She’s a bookworm. I don’t even know what she’s doing working for scum like Estes in the first place.”
“Well, she did get a degree in design,” Raylan replies.
“And she could’ve used her daddy’s money and connections to open her own jewelry shop,” I retort. “Instead, she’s selling Estes’ blood diamonds.”
Kendric gives me a hard look. “How innocent can she be, though?”
“I’m not sure it matters at this point. She’s our leverage. That’s all we need to know,” I say.
Raylan can’t help but scoff. “She’s feisty, let me tell you. You can call her a bookworm if you want, Sky, but the three of us already know that Ariana is something else entirely.”
That she absolutely is.
None of us expected Ariana David to be so appealing. She’s so different from her father. He’s the charmer, the politician with just enough of a sociopathic streak to help him navigate and get rich off the political landscape. The man’s hands are filthy, yet the whole state adores him. He’s deep in the worst kind of pockets, and someday, we’re going to bring him down. Ariana is an innocent—a pure fucking innocent.
She pays for her rental apartment. She works a decent day job. She barely has any friends and spends most of her time at home reading. There are bookshelves in her living room loaded with books. She likes to paint. She likes French press coffee. And she does design her own jewelry, but she hasn’t exactly pushed those ideas anywhere, not even to Thierry Estes.
Then again, that French prick is a notorious thief. I think Ariana knows he’d just steal her designs and call them his own. He’s good friends with the mayor, though. So, where does she fit in? What is her position in all of this? Kendric asked a very good question—how much does Ariana really know about her father?
“It’s time to take things to the next level,” I tell the guys. “We need to turn the heat up a notch or two.”
Raylan and Kendric agree.
An hour later, we’re around the corner from the mayor’s residence. The whole block is swarming with cops who have created a protective perimeter around his mansion in order to keep the reporters away. Ariana’s apartment is considered a crime scene now. We can’t go anywhere near there for the time being, but out here, we simply become part of the swelling crowd.
We’re all wearing sweatpants and hoodies because Steel Knights gear would make us stand out like a sore thumb. We don’t need that kind of attention, especially not when we know our names and pictures are on a list of the mayor’s enemies on a corkboard in the sheriff’s office.
“How’s it looking?” I ask Kendric.
He’s done a quick sweep of the area. “Mostly neighbors and concerned citizens,” he says in a low voice. “Cops are out on patrol, but they’re not interacting with the people much.”
“The mayor’s inside, keeping busy,” Raylan replies. “Their focus is on him, anyway.”
“Which means we can send the kid in, right?” I look at Kendric, and he gives me a slight nod. “Where is he, by the way?”
“He’s in position. Waiting.”
We planned this carefully. We paid a kid via a third party who couldn’t be traced back to us. And as I look to our right, I see him moving through the crowd. Slowly but surely, he approaches the yellow line that the police set up in order to protect the mansion’s perimeter.
I’m relieved to see him dressed like he was asked: jeans, a red hoodie, and a white ballcap. I’m even more relieved to see him carrying the envelope that he was instructed to bring over.
His lips move as he reaches out to one of the cops on duty. I can’t hear him over the sea of murmurs around us, but I do know what he’s telling the officer.
“Excuse me, sir, I was told to give you this.”
The cop frowns as he glances down at the envelope. “What is that? Who gave it to you?”
“A gentleman with white hair and a brown coat, sir.”
“What’s in it?”
