Page 104 of Coveted By Cupid

My enforcer nods. “Apparently, he’s been looking for her.”

“That sneaky sonofabitch,” I growl, ready to go ex hunting in Fort Collins. “Can’t believe he’d send his bitch to do his dirty work. What a prick.”

“She grabbed Psyche’s wrist like she was going to drag her to him,” Crypt adds, his lips thinning.

I snort, crossing my arms over my chest. “Bet that went over like a lead balloon. Did Vanessa break out the claws?”

“It headed that direction, but I intervened,” he says with an apologetic tone.

“Probably for the best,” I say with a disappointed sigh. “We don’t need Vanessa getting into trouble with campus security. Did the woman back off after you got involved?”

“Yes, but she said she was going to inform Boden Psyche was back on campus.”

My eyes narrow, trying to make sense of the interaction. “I don’t understand why his sidepiece wants to connect them. Usually, a homewrecker wants the man to stay far away from his ex.”

“There’s more,” he says, his face growing grim. Crypt reaches into the inside pocket of his leather vest, retrieving a folded piece of paper. He unfolds it, handing me one student ID photo he had taken off my desk the day before.

I take the photo from him, staring down at the young woman in the image. The name on the ID lists Anna Riley Sutherland.

My eyes snap back to Crypt. “Is this her? Is this our Riley?”

“I can’t be sure. The hair is different, no longer brown but bleach-blonde. She looked familiar to me when she approached us today, but I couldn’t place her. I had a nagging suspicion on the drive home that she was the woman from the suspect list. After scanning through the images, I stopped on this one. Same nose, same face shape, same eye color. She even has the same small scar on her chin.”

“Same woman,” I say, confident Crypt’s observations are correct. He’s a stickler for detail.

“We still don’t know if she’s the Riley working with the Russians,” Crypt points out.

“What are the fucking odds she’s not?”

Crypt’s face puckers, as if he’s doing the math in his head.

“It was a rhetorical question, buddy.”

“Oh, gotcha.”

“If this Riley was hooking up with Boden, she could be really butthurt he still wants his ex over her, angry enough to suggest Vanessa be taken for the trafficking ring. It’s an extreme reaction, but bitches can be like that sometimes.”

“Do we let Psyche know?”

If there’s one thing I’m certain of, it’s my woman going full Terminator on her ex for getting her into this mess. She’ll raid poor George’s deli to retrieve all the day-old bread and cannon-launch them at Boden’s head until he’s unconscious on the ground.

Having him in a coma will be unhelpful. We need his sorry ass to lure Riley to us.

“Not yet. Not until we know more about whom we’re dealing with.”

My enforcer frowns, possibly not agreeing with my choice, but following my instruction with a nod of confirmation like the loyal brother he is.

“Do me a favor?”

“What do you need, Prez?”

“Round up the crew. We have church.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

CUPID

“Her name is Anna Riley Sutherland,” I say to my crew, lifting her photo for all to see. “Crypt recognized her from the student IDs of our suspect pool. The only difference between this image and how she looks today is that she’s a bleach-blonde.”