Page 110 of The Blood we Crave

While she continues sharing the details of her Nancy Drew moment that almost got her killed, our waitress drops by for long enough to slide a glass of soda onto the table towards me.

Thoughtlessly, I tear open a straw, dropping it into the carbonated liquid before pushing the drink towards Lyra silently.

“Is that all you found?” Alistair asks.

For her sake, I hope it’s more than that. If she put herself on death’s doorstep to only find out about Stephen running for mayor, I’ll make her wish she were dead.

“Godfrey is on his payroll. I saw some invoices still pulled up on his computer. There wasn’t a description of the work he is doing, but it’s…” She swallows a drink. “A lot of fucking money.”

“Woah,” Rook breathes, throwing his arms behind his head and kicking his feet out. “I’m impressed. Stephen actually pays for the whores who suck his cock. Who knew?”

My ego can’t help but want to say something along the lines of “I told you so.” In fact, we all told her that Conner Godfrey was not the man she thought him to be.

Yet, it wouldn’t be Lyra Abbott if she wasn’t hell-bent on always seeing the good in everyone. Even if there was little good to be found, she would snuff it out and cling to it.

It’s who she is. Who she has always been.

“I also found a door. It was hidden behind a bookshelf and secured with a padlock. It could be standard practice to hide your tax information that securely, but I felt it was worth mentioning.”

“Probably where he keeps all his skin suits—”

“How exactly did you find this door?” I ask, talking over Briar.

A passive look settles onto her face as she looks at me. “Through hard detective work and raw intelligence.”

She chews the inside of her cheek, looking away from me before muttering, “I tripped on the rug and hit a statue on his desk. That’s what moved the shelf.”

The group of people around us laugh, and I can feel that same sound tickling my throat as I hum, “That sounds more accurate.”

She mumbles something to herself, probably cursing me as she digs into her bag, retrieving her phone. I watch her put in her passcode, something about it familiar, and then she pulls up an image, sliding it across the table for everyone to look at.

“There was this too. I think it’s a schedule. Certain dates when Stephen meets someone at Term thirteen? But I wasn’t sure what it meant. I thought maybe one of you did.”

“Terminal thirteen,” I say. “It’s a shipping port twenty miles from Ponderosa Springs. What better way to send off kidnapped girls than in a cargo container?”

It’s the only deep-water port close by and responsible for helping move goods through Portland’s marine terminals. And, apparently, aid in the illegal transportation of human beings.

These dots we’d placed in our mind, we’re trying to connect, desperately looking for a way to make sense of everything that had happened and all we’ve seen in the past two years.

“Is it that easy to sell and trade people?” Briar asks, eyebrows furrowing together.

Her confusion, as annoying as it is, is valid. She grew up in a small town in Texas, dirt-poor. Something like this is only on the television for her.

“If you have the right amount of money,” Rook replies. “You can do anything easily with money.”

“I’m surprised. I didn’t think the Sinclairs had two brain cells to rub together, let alone were smart enough to run an entire sex trafficking ring,” Sage says, a coldness in her voice as she speaks about the people who had almost become her family.

“It’s still not enough to prove anything,” Alistair points out. “Rook, have you gotten access to Silas’s computer? Able to see anything on the security cameras at the Sinclair estate?”

“Besides Easton in his boxers?” Rook cringes. “No, there are no cameras in the office or the billiard. Literally fucking anywhere someone might hide something is blacked out. Godfrey is over a lot, but nothing suspicious.”

When we had started this quest for revenge in the name of Rosemary, I never wanted to get in this deep. I’d theorized that someone in Ponderosa Springs that we had wronged went after the only weakness we had as retaliation.

We would find them, kill them, and that would be the end. We would go our separate ways, leave this rotting town in the rearview mirror. It was never supposed to go this far, run this deep.

I’m not the hero that takes down a sex ring. None of us are. But my loyalty to Silas won’t let me abandon him. No matter how far the lies go, I’ll be in it until he’s had enough.

I owe that to him. To Rosemary.