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Gregorio frowned. “You will do this for me, regardless. Use your resources toget the job done.”
“Just as long as you don’t think I’m responsible for this.”
“That’s your only concern?”
“My concern right now is two potentially missing children.” She should have checked up on them. Hadn’t Bruce said he was going to do that? When he showed up, she’d have to ask him about it. When it came to Bruce, trust was an elusive commodity. The truth was, she had reason to distrust him. He was the kind of person who played the game but made up his own rules.
“My only concern is Nicola.”
“You believe she’s in danger?” Kenna needed to know if he had additional information.
Gregorio didn’t even move, but there was a shift in him, and it felt like a threat. “You don’t?”
“It would be far easier to work together. Pool our resources.” Kenna figured that Jax wasn’t going to like teaming up with a crime family from Las Vegas, though. “That will enable me to find Nicola more quickly.”
“I don’t get into agreements with the FBI.” He stood. “Not after what they did to my family.”
“Then why ask for my help? You know I married into the bureau.” Sure, she spoke about it like it was a family. In a lot of ways, that was true.
“Anthony spoke highly of you. He was my father’s cousin.”
“I’m sorry for your loss.” What else could she say?
Anthony Santino had been her father’s associate. She’d met him in Vegas the last time she was there—when Maizie had escaped, and Kenna had killed the man who held her captive for years. Santino had been looking for revenge, and he’d been killed by a dirty FBI agent who’d been controlled by a man who believed he had all the power.
“I know who you are and that you tried to help him.”
“He told me he made peace with what happened to his family, but he still wanted revenge.”
Gregorio said, “That’s why you’re going to find Nicola. Because you got yourself all in with the FBI, and I figure they owe my family.”
Chapter Sixteen
“You knew his father’s cousin?” Jax turned from closing the door behind the Santino family patriarch—or so she assumed—and his associates. The men who protected him.
Kenna leaned against the corner of the wall with the blanket wrapped around her. She was freezing. “You met him in Vegas.”
“Right.” Jax shook his head, then looked at the watch on his wrist. “I thought Bruce was gonna be here soon?”
She went and got her phone, her mind full of thoughts of Vegas crime families and the horrifying situation they’d pulled Maizie out of, which had connected Kenna to Anthony Santino. He had died in the course of her freeing Maizie. At least he’d told her he was at peace before he died.
Kenna needed everyone to come over so they could make a plan. A wave of anxiety shook her insides. Jax was vulnerable like her. Right now, he was as much of a target as she was. “I should put locators on all of them. Didn’t you call Ramon a few days ago? I thought he was coming to Phoenix.”
Bruce had told her that Ramon was recently working in Palm Springs.
“Might take another day. He was all the way up north in Wisconsin when I talked to him the day before yesterday.” Jaxsighed. “That whole conversation with the Santinos was crazy. Those guys think you’re just going to drop everything and look for that woman? Gregorio Santino, the guy who snaps his fingers and people jump to do whatever he wants?”
She was still stuck on the Wisconsin thing. “We don’t have any cases up there.” Ramon’s sister had been killed in that area. Maybe he’d wanted to finally say goodbye. But right now? “The only other thing I can think of is?—”
“Forrest Crosby.”
She stared at her husband. “Do you know something I don’t?”
“I know I thought he was in love with you.”
Kenna winced. The one time Ramon had kissed her was out of relief because they’d nearly died, and neither of them had ever mentioned it afterward. He knew she loved Jax, and he’d never made a real move on her to try and persuade her otherwise. She hadn’t been aware that Jax knew about Ramon’s feelings when she wasn’t even certain.
Jax continued, “He told me he and Forrest hit it off at our wedding. So, he went up there to spend some time with her.”