Page 82 of Devil's Azalea

“Put a tail on Sergey. I want to know everything, and I meaneverything—when he eats, where he sleeps, who he talks to. If he so much as sneezes the wrong way, I want to know the exact trajectory of his snot. And keep eyes on Jason too. I want to know the second he walks out those doors.”

Something is off. Way off. And I will get to the bottom of it.

Enzo nods, pushes off the chair, and walks out of my office.

I turn to my laptop, fingers already moving across the keys as I navigate to the encrypted site where I chat with SP. It’s been a few days since I asked him to dig into the new FBI director—I hope he has something for me by now.

“By the way,” Enzo says, dragging my door open again and poking his head back in. “I think I might be getting onto something in my investigation into Tomassi’s death.”

“Well?” I wave an impatient hand when he doesn’t follow up right away. If he has finally cracked something about the death of Emilia’s father—and why I was framed for it—he better spit it out.

“Remember the car from the abandoned building? The one that wasn’t really abandoned?” He steps back into my office, closing the door behind him.

I remember exactly what car he’s talking about. “You mean the sedan that was used to snatch that last child a decade ago? What about it?” I ask skeptically. The sedan was deliberately kept dilapidated so it wouldn't raise suspicions when parked on random streets. Perfect camouflage for predators hunting children.

After the events of that night—my brothers and I almost losing our lives, watching Tomassi die, finding out about Emilia’s betrayal—I sent Enzo and a couple of my men back to the building to wipe any trace of us ever being there.

“Well, I had jotted down the plate number during the cleanup, but somewhere along the way, it got buried in my files and I forgot about it. You know how it is when shit hits the fan—details get lost in the chaos.”

Get to the fucking point, I want to scream, but I force myself to stay quiet.

“When I was going through my old archives, I came across it again and decided to run it through our systems. Turns out it’s registered to a different car now. Guess who’s using it now?” He pauses for dramatic effect, the bastard.

I raise an eyebrow.

“Sergey.”

“What?” If he was involved in that mess a decade ago, then it’s insanely stupid of him to be using that plate number again.

“I knew something about the plates on one of those vehicles at the restaurant seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place it at the time, so I let it go,” Enzo goes on. “But looking into that old plate number unraveled that mystery for me. Although Sergey is using it now, it was originally registered under his brother, Vladimir’s name.”

I shift my weight until my back sinks into the backrest of my chair. So… Tomassi was working with the Russians back then? Of course, I knew the former detective couldn’t possibly have committed those heinous crimes alone, but I never really cared to look into it again—especially not when the kidnappings stopped after his death.

But now I’m wondering: did they really stop? Or did those sick fucks just move the operation to another territory?

“If that plate number really belonged to Vladimir,” I say slowly, “then they might have moved operations out of New York after their partner died—got spooked or something. Or maybe they changed gears completely, turned the traffickingring into a full-on crime syndicate.” Back then, the Bratva didn't have much of a foothold in New York. Not like they do now.

“The plot thickens,” Enzo murmurs with a dark chuckle. “The events of ten years ago might be a hell of a lot bigger than we initially thought. I’ll keep digging and let you know what else turns up.”

With that, he backs out of my office with a little salute.

The feds covered up Tomassi’s involvement in the trafficking case ten years ago, letting him keep his shiny image as the heroic detective who died fighting a just cause. Could that somehow have something to do with Sergey getting released now? Could he have a contact in the bureau?

I glance down at my laptop and see three new messages already came in from SP while I was talking to Enzo. I lean forward, scanning the new files: one document and two image attachments. This has to be the intel on Stacey Rodrigues. Finally.

My pulse kicks up as I open the document and start reading the two pages of information he’s curated.

Stacey Rodrigues. Mid-60s. Dark hair, dark eyes. Never married, no kids.

A top agent in the FBI for twenty years. She slowly worked her way up the ranks—first becoming Assistant Director of the New York field office, then Executive Assistant Director of the National Security Branch, and now Director of the entire bureau.

Decorated with multiple medals, including a shared Medal of Valor with the late police detective Tomassi Rossi (awarded on an honorary basis since he wasn’t an FBI agent) for —

My eyes widen, lips parting as I pause. She got a medal withTomassi? That would mean she was the agent who worked with him to take down my father. I continue reading.

— bravely going up against the criminal ring in Little Italy

and their leader, Alfonsi Moretti.