Page 148 of Deceptive Vows

Sebastian shakes his head and opens his palms. “I don’t know what else to do.”

“You head home, too. I’ll need you at the house twenty-four-seven starting tomorrow night. Switch things up with Levka.”

“Sure thing.”

He leaves, too.

I lean against the wall with my head pressed against it, thinking about my next move.

I saw José this morning. We talked about what I wanted him to do. Aleksander said he was at the house around lunchtime, and he wasn’t there for long. I’d given him permission to talk to Natalia, so I expected him to go to the house.

That time frame checks out, but not after, and there’s a huge gap when no one saw him.

I had him doing some odd jobs for me when he wasn’t working on the cartel stuff. That’s why he was mainly here. It’s not uncommon for a person to be working inside the warehouse itself amongst the containers and deliveries without being seen for hours. What makes this particularly weird is that normally, a few would have encountered him because of the job I gave him.

This all stinks of Ivan. I’m no longer pussyfooting around the truth.

José saw Ivan talking to a guy who worked for Raul. He saw them here. Maybe something like that happened again.

I know what my gut tells me. It’s screaming at me that José must have witnessed Ivan do some shit and he killed him.

When, though?

When did it happen?

My phone rings. I answer straightaway.

It’s Eric. He came by when I first found José’s body. He looked at him with the coroner. He seemed to have suspected something more.

“Hey,” I say into the phone.

“Hi, are you still at the docks?”

“Yeah.”

“The coroner just finished his first examination. I went with him because José’s wound looked off to me.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like he got it after he died,” he replies.

I grit my teeth. “After?”

“Yeah. I wasn’t sure, so I thought I’d check with the coroner, and I was right. The cause of death wasn’t slashing his throat. It was poison. There’s a needle mark on the back of his neck. It also looks like he died a few hours before his throat was slashed, and I don’t think it happened at the docks.”

Holy fuck. If it’s a fewhours, that matches the statements I’ve been getting.

“So, someone poisoned him first then brought him back here to the docks to make it look like he was attacked?”

“Yeah. That’s what it looks like.”

Fuck.I feel like I’m heading deeper into a maze, and I can’t find my way out.

That makes no sense.

None of that makes sense.

Ivan, what the fuck are you up to?