Page 15 of Merciless Obsession (The Bloodline #2)

His shoulders lifted. “You don’t have to, but it’s the truth. You can think what you want about my family, but we’re not bad people. The law doesn’t always do what it’s supposed to, so sometimes other actions need to be taken.”

I squinted and rolled his words over in my head. “When you say other actions, you mean…?”

He didn’t respond but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to read between the lines. I shifted my eyes to his wife.

“The Cavanas weren’t known to be good people, yet you married one.”

Cashlynn continued to stare blankly at me. “And your point?”

“I’m sure the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.”

A crude half smirk formed on her face. “Guess you’ll never know, huh?”

“Anyway, I got a proposition for you,” Nazai cut in.

“What is it?”

“Work with us.”

My brows furrowed. “Work with you?”

He nodded and leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. “You want to find out who’s running this trafficking ring, right? Regardless of what you believe about us, we don’t take kindly to people who hurt children. We have ways to get things handled when the police fail.”

Circling the room with my eyes, I studied each brother. “What are you saying, you guys are some kind of vigilantes?” I snorted.

“Bumblebee, just know we’re not so different from each other. You just decide to spread the news while we take care of it.” Ezra grinned at me.

My bottom lip tucked into my mouth. “You’re resourceful but you’re not going to catch these guys, not by yourself. Work with us and we’ll find out who’s behind this thing together.”

“And why should I join you?”

Lucas spoke up. “I don’t believe Adrian is dead. If she was taken and thrown into this fucking trafficking ring then I want to know.”

I licked my lips and brushed some flyaway curls out of my face. “I looked into your friend’s disappearance. I didn’t get too far because I was interrupted.” I frowned and rolled my eyes. “But it doesn’t make sense to me.”

“What doesn’t?”

I leaned forward. “Your friend didn’t fit their normal criteria, her cousin did, yet they killed her and not your friend. It doesn’t add up. I need to look more into it, but it doesn’t fit what I’ve learned about these people over the years.”

“I want to look at your files,” Emmet said for the first time. I had actually forgotten he was there. “I didn’t have enough time to get through all your spyware and encryption to learn everything you know.”

“And why should I share anything with you?”

“Emmet’s a private investigator. A damn good one too,” Ezra expressed. “The two of you working together can make this thing move along a lot quicker and easier.”

Everything they were saying made sense. I had hit a block, even with my sources I was still coming up short.

The Tavarezes knew people and clearly had a hand in the underworld I didn’t, which would make getting certain info easier.

My concern was could I trust them. For years I made it my mission to expose them for the crooked fakes they were.

If I teamed up with them I would be a hypocrite, and if they were playing me, then I would be spitting on my sister’s grave.

A frantic knock on my front door halted the conversation and caused me to jump.

“Who is that?” Nazai asked, reaching for his side. I noticed his wife did the same and the brothers grew alert.

“You all can relax, it’s probably one of my neighbors.” I rolled my eyes and stood.

“Bumblebee. Wait!” Ezra called out, but I ignored him. This was my house. No one was going to tell me I couldn’t open my own door. Walking to the front door, I checked my peephole and released a heavy sigh. Unlocking it, I pulled it open, seeing Inaya’s pissed off face on the other side.

“Ziora!” she shrieked. “Where the hell have you been!”

“Inaya…”

“Don’t Inaya me! Every time I’ve come by here you’ve been gone. All I’ve gotten from you were cryptic ass texts. I was surprised to drive by and finally see a sign of life inside.” She stepped forward, pushing past me. “I thought you had been taken or something.”

“Ziora.”

“It’s been almost a month since I laid eyes on you and—” Her mouth snapped shut when she turned and noticed I wasn’t alone.

“What the…” Spinning around, she stared at me with a thousand questions bouncing around in her eyes. “Those are the Tavarezes. What the hell are they doing in your living room?”

I sighed and shut my front door. “It’s a long story. One I’ll explain later, but for now, just play it cool.”

Her lips pinched tightly into a straight line.

“Inaya,” I warned.

Turning on her heels, Inaya walked deeper into the room. “You must be Inaya.” Ezra stood and held his hand out.

“How do you know who I am?” Her hands went to her hips.

Inaya was small, only five two on a good day, but she was a force to be reckoned with.

What she lacked in size, she made up in personality.

Her light brown skin had patches of white scattered on it due to vitiligo.

We became friends the day I saw her beat up a girl for making fun of her skin condition.

Some of the girl’s friends tried to jump in and I didn’t know why but I jumped in to help Inaya and we’d been thick as thieves since.

“I know everyone Ziora surrounds herself with.”

Inaya turned and looked at me with a bewildered expression. I shook my head and returned to my seat. I knew how my friend was but hopefully she would keep it under wraps until it was just the two of us.

Inaya took a seat on the couch, putting her between Ezra and Emmet.

My eyes zeroed in on Cashlynn. “Your parents were involved in a lot of stuff. Some of the shit I found when I looked them up made me sick to my stomach.”

“Your point is?” Cashlynn asked, cocking her head to the side.

“Were they into human trafficking too?”

Cashlynn crossed her arms over her chest. “And if they were, again, the point? You think I took over for Mommy and Daddy?”

Nazai placed his hand on her knee. “Wildfire,” he warned.

“Don’t,” she hissed, still peering at me.

“I’m asking because maybe they said something that might give us a clue who could be behind all this.”

Cashlynn snorted. “Let me make one thing clear, miss techy girl. My parents, as we all know, were shitty ass people. They were mercenaries who would do anything as long as the price was right. Most of their clients were shady people I wouldn’t spit on if they burst into flames.

So whatever you think I know, get it out of your head because as flashy as my parents were they were also sneaky as hell.

Don’t ask me about them again.” She reached down into her bag and pulled out a bottle of apple juice.

Nazai cleared his throat. “Look, I get you don’t trust us; I don’t give a shit about all of that.

In the end our goal is the same. Get the guys the law lets slip through the crack.

It’s that simple. You want to find out who’s responsible for your sister, right?

Don’t let your pride stand in the way of you getting that. ”

I hated that he was right. If I had to call a temporary truce with the Tavarezes to get the answers I needed, then so be it.

“Okay. Fine. We can join forces for now. But I want to meet with your dad. I have questions for him.”

Nazai nodded. “We can arrange that. You and Emmet can get together and do whatever tech shit you two do, then?—”

“I work alone,” Emmet piped up.

“E, not now, a’right. I know you’d rather not have a partner, but for now it’s necessary.” I couldn’t read Emmet, but I was curious why his eyes were burning into the side of my friend’s face.

“Is there a reason you’re staring at me?” Inaya asked, whipping her head in his direction.

“Does it bother you?” he asked calmly.

“I mean, if a random stranger was staring at you like a creep, wouldn’t it bother you? You act like we know each other or something.”

“I do know you.”

Inaya snorted. “How do you know me when this is the first time we’ve met?”

Emmet blinked. “Inaya Scott. Twenty-five years old, born August thirteenth two thousand. Raised as an only child by a single mother who passed away four years ago. You work at Ace of Diamonds Casino owned by Wise Bennet. You?—”

“Okay, what the hell? Are you some kind of stalker? How do you know all that?”

Emmet didn’t respond, he just continued to stare.

“My brother’s thorough. When he looked Ziora up, that included everyone connected to her,” Lucas explained.

“Mhm,” Inaya hummed, tilting her head to the side. “That’s creepy, but also kind of hot.” She grinned. “Emmet, you’re the smart brother, right? The one good with computers like Zee? A private investigator too. Sounds exciting.”

Inaya was fascinated with danger. Her taking interest in Emmet didn’t surprise me. His quiet nature was slightly wary to me. While it seemed like he wasn’t paying attention, he was always listening, only talking when he had something to say he deemed important.

The meeting didn’t last too much longer after that. The alliance was set in place and hopefully it wasn’t one that would come back and bite me in the ass.

“You owe me answers and a lot of guacamole and queso!” Inaya expressed, pointing her finger at me.

I snickered. “I know, I know.”

Her face turned serious. “I also got some info for you.”

My lips tucked in my mouth and I nodded. “Anything I need to be worried about?”

She shrugged. “Not necessarily, but you’ll be interested in it for sure.”

My tongue swiped across my lips. “Let’s meet up in a couple days. Since I’ve been away I got some things to catch up on so I’ll probably be off the grid for the next couple days.”

Her eyes shifted behind me to where Ezra was still comfortably seated on my couch. He made no attempts to leave when his brothers did. “You gonna be okay? I don’t mind staying longer.”

Ezra chuckled behind us.

I shook my head. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

“Okay, call me if you need me.” She looked around me again. “Hey, Ezra, right?”

I stared at her curiously. I inhaled a sharp breath when Ezra’s body pressed against my back.