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I clench my jaw, fists tightening around the note until it crumples in my grip. Has someone been following me? Who the fuck has the nerve to threaten me like this?
Enough is enough. It’s time to find out who’s behind these notes and put an end to it once and for all.
I stuff it in my pocket. “Don’t tell a fucking soul about this, Leon,” I threaten, and he lifts his hands up.
“I didn’t see a thing.”
“Good. Gather as much information as you can regarding the missing crates and reach out to our contact at the port. I’ll talk to Xan.”
I turn on my heels and head to the office. When I walk in, Xander is sitting at the desk, staring at the computer. He nods in my direction.
“What are you up to?” I ask, sitting in the seat in front of him.
“I’m looking into the cameras at the port. I believe the perpetrators were able to steal from us right before we got there for pick-up.”
Xander is our in-house hacker. He works with a team, but when we need to get something done quickly, he’s the man for the job. He’s also been my best friend ever since we met twenty-one years ago.
I was twelve when he stumbled upon our door, beaten and bloody. Ignatius had been warned by the guards that a young boy was trying to get through the gates, and when they let him in, we were shocked to find him in terrible shape. His face was swollen with a black eye and a busted lip, and his legs were covered in scrapes.
Turns out, his father had beaten him up so badly in a drunken stupor that he ran away, not stopping until he found help. He cut through the woods and came across Ignatius’s estate in the middle of the night.
The only thing I vividly remember was his smell. It was foul.
As he was running through the forest, he’d gotten sprayed by a skunk. Evan and I have never stopped giving him shit about that.
Ignatius had ushered him into the house and asked Helen to clean him up. She had bathed him in a mixture of dish soap, baking soda, and hydrogen peroxide.
Evander was fast asleep at the time, and when he woke up the next morning, he almost beat the shit out of Xander when he found him sleeping on the couch. The memory still makes us laugh.
Xander finally looks up at me from the monitor and must notice my unease. “What’s going on?”
I pull the note out of my pocket and throw it at him. “Someone addressed this to me in one of the crates.”
He quickly peruses it. “Do you have any idea who could be targeting you?”
I shrug my shoulders. “My only guess would be Philip Kastellanos.”
Aria’s father is a known enemy of ours. Given his relation to Peter Kouvalakis, he’s on our shit list. They’re both involved in some shady shit that we’re trying to uncover, and I expect he wouldn’t be too happy if his daughter started seeing someone like me.
When I dropped Aria off the morning after our little encounter, I hadn’t noticed anyone watching us from the house. Then again, he has guards and cameras all over the property, so I’m sure if he was, he hastily figured out my identity.
“Is this the first time you’ve received a threat?” Xander asks. He’s aware of what happened with Aria that night.
I bring my attention back to him and shake my head. “This is the second one.”
Xander’s eyes widen in shock, his usually easygoing demeanor replaced by concern and frustration. “Why the fuck didn’t you say anything before?”
I shrug again. “I didn’t want to worry you unnecessarily.”
“Could it be her fiancé?”
I debate my answer. “Not sure. But I haven’t looked into the fucker yet. I don’t even know his name.”
Xander takes another look at the note and throws it back to me. “I’ll investigate. We’ll get to the bottom of this. If someone left something in one of the crates, I’m bound to find footage.”
I let him type away for several minutes, watching him get completely engrossed in the task, and then he speaks up. “I found something. Come look.”
He really is the best hacker in the city.
