Chapter Fourteen
Bhodi
Throwing open the car door, I slide in, and Axe immediately tears out of the parking lot and heads straight into the busy traffic. As the vehicle weaves past oblivious cars and takes a few wild turns, we both look into the rearview mirrors, making sure we’re still not being followed.
“I left the second car in the lot, no one would be looking for this one,”
he states calmly.
“Are you positive that’s what Nate told you?”
“Positive, I think he kept that little nugget of information as a thanks for making sure he got out of New York safely.”
“We never guaranteed his safety,”
I scoff, resting my arm against the window. “He still fucked up. Luca and whoever else will get wind he’s fucked off and go looking for him. They’ll kill him and his family.”
“He made his choice, Bhodi, we both know that and so does he. He knows he’s gonna spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder, it was his choice to make. At least he had a head start.”
“Makes you wonder who else they’ve got on the hook,”
I say bluntly. “Any luck at Michael’s apartment?”
I side eye him and a small smirk slithers across his mouth, a cunning glimmer in his eye.
“It’s insane how well a quick flash of a fake ID and wearing a fireman’s helmet works, the reception team will let just about anything onto that floor.”
He smirks.
“They’re scared, they’re hardly going to refuse access to someone in law enforcement, are they?”
“No, and it’s good they didn’t too. The fire was deliberately started, but in Michael’s bedroom, just beside the bed and in front of the closet. Whoever it was doused the room, it would have taken a few minutes, but it did spread to the rest of the apartment.”
“So, they had enough time to get Summer, before it spread too far.”
“Yeah, there was blood on the far side of the bathroom, she must have hidden there.”
I feel my heart sink instantly. The thought of the pain and fear she was facing in that moment, with no one there to help but two fucking wolves waiting on the other side of the door.
“She found the photos and looked through them…then she tried to call me and Jimmy. How could someone have possibly known in that moment what was going on?” I ask.
Axe stares ahead, half concentrating on my question and half on the road as we drive out of the city and towards the warehouse. It seems to be the only place where we won’t be interrupted.
“I had a friend look into Rob and Eva’s claim about their dad too, looks like your partner was on the case.”
“Strode?”
“Yeah, there were barely any statements. One guy claimed to have seen a dark-coloured car on the street the night it happened and some shouting, possibly a struggle. But after a couple days he came back in and recanted the entire thing. Strode did note that the witness appeared scared and had a deep gash on his face along with a broken wrist.”
Axe raises a brow.
“They’d only know about the statement…because someone told the people involved.”
I let out a low breath.
“Why are they trying to frame you though?”
The same question has been hanging around for fucking days now and I have no idea why. I don’t answer, it feels like everything is just speculation and there’s no solid proof as to why someone tried to set me up. The familiar building eventually comes into view, Axe pulls up around the back where Jimmy’s car is already parked. Glancing up, even in the daylight the warehouse looks soulless and grim, a permanent dark cloud still hanging over the property. We step inside and Jimmy’s already digging through two boxes, with the workbench hauled into the centre of the room and the discarded tools on the floor, he flashes me a concerned look.
“Is it true?” he asks.
“I have no fucking idea.”
“Axe?”
“I haven’t been able to confirm if Nate was telling the truth.”
He shrugs.
“I didn’t get a chance to see the fucking body, once you called, I left the precinct. Captain Dean refused to let me back into work when he saw me outside the apartment.”
I glance over the boxes, mainly just paperwork and files that Michael asked Jimmy to hold on to, nothing seemed suspicious when he initially asked.
“Think he’s in on it?”
Jimmy asks.
“After his little show, it wouldn’t surprise me,” I mumble.
“Did you find any photos?”
Axe begins rooting through the boxes and flipping open files.
“No.”
He slaps a folder down on the bench. “It’s just old documents, a family photo album and..”
“Give me the album,”
I say, cutting him off immediately.
The album slides my way, an old looking A4 leather and spiral-bound photo album comes into view. Opening the first page, I can’t help but smile. Michael holding Summer as a baby, in the hospital, a proud moment in his life, his eyes shine with admiration as he smiles to the camera. Flipping through each page, it’s a timeline of milestones in her life from crawling, first steps, birthday parties, first day at school. As beautiful as it is, I feel the green-eyed monster crawling over my shoulder. Something I never had was the kind of love from a parent that Michael clearly had for Summer. I always felt resented at home, mainly because I was in the way and stopped my mom from living her life. Shaking away the unwanted memory, I finally land on the final page but there’s no pictures, just a handwritten note dated a couple months ago.
“If you haven’t found what you’re looking for….go back to the beginning.”
I almost roll my eyes and laugh, even reading it in Michael’s voice. But my brows pinch and I flip it towards both Jimmy and Axe who look equally as confused.
“Beginning of what?”
Jimmy looks to me.
“This is fucking stupid, there’s no way Michael could have known he was going to be murdered. If he thought that, he would have fucking said something,”
Axe spits out, throwing his hands in the air.
“Not if he didn’t know who was watching him,” I say.
“Why wouldn’t he tell us?”
Jimmy looks between us all.
“Because he could have led them to us too, put us all in the firing line. He began backing off, not coming with us to jobs, he’d give us the details but only communicate through the burner phone.”
“How the fuck did we not see this?”
Axe shakes his head.
“Why would we? We can’t see what we don’t know,”
Jimmy states.
“I still don’t fucking like it,”
Axe snipes.
I never quite understood Axe and Michael’s friendship. Axe was like his right-hand man, a former US marine, who rarely talks about his time in service and has been running the Blue Bar for around ten years, leads a simple quiet life and never talks about anything personal. He’s a closed book. For someone I’ve known for so long, I barely know anything about him. Then again, we know fuck all about each other aside from this.
Flipping the album back to the inside of the cover, I feel my fingers begin to trace along the paper, I freeze for a moment when I feel a ridge. My eyes narrow and I begin to move my finger along the groove. Reaching for the knife, I slice into the paper and peel back the cover. My eyes fall onto two pictures, and I instantly know who it is. Pulling out the photo, my hands run across my mouth and I turn it towards both men and their eyes widen.
“That’s Monica and Luca,”
Jimmy says flatly, a disappointment flashing through his eyes.
The slightly dated photo shows both Monica and Luca stepping away from a luxury hotel in the city, he has his arm around her shoulder and both smile towards each other under the cloak of darkness.
“It’s years old too. Look how young they both look, early twenties maybe?”
Jimmy nods his head to the photo.
“What’s that?”
Axe points to a slip of paper.
Pulling it open, I glance over the typed words. Spotting both Summer and Michael’s names, I feel my heart sink immediately.
“It’s a DNA test.”
I swallow hard, my eyes still roaming over each line. “Summer isn’t his daughter.”
I feel the goosebumps rise on my arms and the room falls silent. Both men stare back at me open mouthed, as though I should have an answer.
“Does she know? Axe asks quizzically.
“I don’t think so.”
I shake my head, turning to Jimmy. “Did you?”
Shaking his head at me, his face remains stoic and disappointed. “Not a clue.”
He chews on his lip slightly. “When was it taken?”
I look back to the paper, searching for a date. “Six months ago.”
“Just after he saw Summer last then?”
“Yeah, about then.” I nod.
“Someone clearly wanted to plant that seed of doubt, they must have sent him the photo to taunt him.”
“Well clearly it fucking worked, he got the truth.”
“Who the fuck is her real dad then?”
Raising an eyebrow, I lift the photo to Axe. Both men pale slightly and their eyes dart to mine and I let out a low breath. I feel waves of nausea wash over me, the look of devastation on her face when she finds out, the questions she’ll ask and why Michael needed to know.
“What the fuck was Monica playing at? She was married to Michael then.”
Jimmy crosses his arms over his chest, unable to pull his eyes away from the photo.
“Money, power? Who the fuck knows, either way Luca may have found out and that’s why he tried taking her,” Axe says.
“Think he’d hurt her?”
“His father killed his own brother and left the body for his children to find, I wouldn’t put anything past these sick cunts.”
I feel my jaw tense. “Her whole world’s about to fucking implode, she thinks Harry’s dead …Michael isn’t her dad, how much else can she fucking take?”
“She’s stronger than you think, Bhodi, you need to give her that much.”
I look to Axe, his words appear to have a hidden meaning. For a moment he holds my gaze a little too long, a knowing look lingering across his face before he looks away. The silence between us all becomes stifling, tense and awkward. It feels like we’re being hit from all angles, with no guidance, no one we can trust and no fucking idea what’s going on. Nothing makes sense, it didn’t before but now it’s even more confusing. Closing my eyes for a moment, I take a deep breath, trying to stop my swirling mind and endless questions that keep swarming me.
“Have you still got the plans for Michael’s place?”
Axe cuts the silence.
“No, I threw them out. Why?”
Jimmy turns to him, confused.
“Shit,”
Axe mutters, before reaching for a scrap document and a pen, flipping it over to the blank side and beginning to sketch out lines.
“What is it?”
I ask, leaning in closer and watching him drawing an outline.
“Give me a second.”
I look to Jimmy, who’s also leaning over the workbench watching Axe intently. I feel the anticipation in the room building, like there’s a possibility we may somehow get some answers. Eventually Axe stops the drawing and looks to the picture before turning it towards us.
“That’s how they knew when to break in.”
He points the pen towards the paper.
I lean in, squinting slightly and studying the sketch. Spotting the bird’s eye view layout of Michael’s apartment, my eyes move towards the pen and Axe’s raised eyebrow. I turn to Jimmy who’s slowly nodding. I look back to the paper, looking to the arrows Axe has drawn.
I feel my body instantly pulled back into the hallway of the apartment, the sun beaming through every window. The burnt debris, nowhere to be seen, the chaos over the last few days gone and it’s back to how it originally looked. I step through the hallway, observing the kitchen, living room and Summer’s room. Allowing myself to inhale deeply as I enter the room, the white and grey muted tones, countered with soft pink and blush accessories, adding a delicate softness to the space. But I only allow myself that moment before I feel my body being pulled back towards the hallway.
Stepping into Michael’s bedroom, I glance around the vast space. How I imagined it all played out, Summer finding the photos, spreading them across the floor before she spots the photo that panics her, and she flies from the room. My head immediately turns one hundred and eighty degrees to the window on the far side of the room, a window which has a perfect view of the apartments across the road.
Shit.
I’m pulled back into the present, blinking a couple times. I look to the team that surrounds me, I’m met with their concerned and determined looks.
“That’s the only way someone could have known what Summer found,”
I mumble. “Someone’s been watching the apartment from across the road.”
Jimmy stiffens. “Are you sure, couldn’t it be a neighbour?”
“No, apart from Harry there was no sign of anyone near the apartment. Trust me, I fucking watched for hours,” I mutter.
I feel Jimmy’s brow raise in my direction, but I choose to ignore it.
“Within five minutes of those photos being found, two men appear almost out of nowhere. They likely took the stairs; they can access the parking lot from the street and head up the service stairs from there,”
Axe points out.
“I don’t see why Luca would wait for that moment though,”
Jimmy says, shrugging, something not sitting well with him and not making sense.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“Summer was here for days, he could have taken her any time she stepped out onto the street.”
He looks back to the hand-drawn picture. “I don’t think it was him, someone else was watching the apartment.”
A strange shudder runs over my skin, an uneasiness. Unable to pull my eyes away from the paper, it finally clicks…everything that didn’t make sense before, finally does. The glimmer of light at the end of that tunnel begins to shine.
“It was someone else who didn’t want those photos found.”
“Like?” Axe asks.
“Whoever has a lot to lose if the truth came out,”
I say coldly.
“Why frame you though?”
Jimmy looks between us.
“Because they saw me come and go. We have no idea how much they saw, someone probably believed I was getting close to finding out the truth.”
“We need to speak to Summer, she’s the only one that can confirm what she saw.”
“We should head back to the hotel then, we can’t go back to either of our places in case someone’s watching.”
Shoving the pictures into my pocket, we close the lid back on the box, I hold the photo album in my hands, my heart and gut both dropping as the idea of telling Summer the truth cuts deep.