Sinful Love (Sinful Nights #4)(28)

Michael took his time before he spoke, carefully weighing each word so that he could extract something from the detective. There was so much on his mind, so much he wanted to know—like why the Royal Sinners were so goddamn powerful, why they were stronger than any average street gang, and why they were smarter, nimbler, and had more firepower. But those were broader questions, and they wouldn’t necessarily get him any closer to the answers he needed. Like the depth of the connection between his mother and the head of the gang.

“The question we both want to know is why,” he said. “We know my mother’s lover is the head of the gang. We know the shooter was in the gang. We know the other accomplices are part of it, too. What I’d like to know is how my mother got involved with the Sinners, and did it somehow start at my father’s work? If she met Luke at a work party, was he a regular there? Luke operates undercover, and that makes me question everything about where he’s been and what he’s done. Were the other guys in the gang involved in these work parties? Did they know my dad?” Michael held out his hands. “Maybe I’m reaching. But what if there’s something to it?”

John met his stare straight on. “That’s what I want to know, too. I want to know if work is where they met, and if so, if it sheds new light on the accomplices. Luke played piano at a handful of these parties at your father’s company. What does that tell us?” he asked rhetorically. “Not enough on its own, but now that we’ve learned he’s part of the Sinners, we have reason to believe he has knowledge about a number of gang-ordered hits over the years. That’s why we want to know if your father’s murder had a deeper connection to the gang. Was this just your mother’s hit, or a part of something bigger? And did Luke know about it?”

“It seems likely that he knew. Doesn’t it?”

*

Yes, it would seem like Luke had to have known about the hit. It would seem, too, that Luke was deeply involved in the planning of the murder. It would sure as hell seem as if Luke f*cking Carlton had gotten away with several other murders over the years, based on the information John had obtained from his informants.

But evidence was evidence, and it needed to be hard.

John and his men were getting closer to Luke, but there were things he simply couldn’t share with Michael—details he couldn’t speculate on with a witness or family member. Things like how the shooter’s son, Lee Stefano, had started singing. They’d nabbed him a few months ago on grand theft of iPhones, of all things. The kid was trying to follow in his dad’s footsteps, living a life of crime. But several weeks in jail had softened him up, and Lee had started talking. He’d shared more about the two men who’d looked out for him after his daddy went to the big house—Kenny and T.J. Nelson, his father’s accomplices in the murder of Thomas Paige.

Turned out, Lee knew some details about T.J.’s whereabouts these days, and John was hoping to piece together enough information to find that slippery bastard and take him into custody, too. John clenched his fists, thinking of the rap sheet on T.J. Nelson, and the long trail of evidence linking him to other crimes over the years. Some of John’s colleagues had gathered insight into the gang as a whole, and the way the Royal Sinners had expanded in power, operating a lucrative drug ring throughout the city of Las Vegas and across the state.

Connecting the dots was proving more complicated than he’d expected. Did the hit have anything to do with the gang, or with things Thomas might have learned about the Sinners? Or was this simply what they’d thought all along, a crime designed so a woman could be with the man she loved?

Those questions kept John up at night, but he had witnesses to talk to and leads to chase down, which might bring him answers. As soon as he had the details, he’d get that f*cker.

“Listen, I appreciate you doing everything you can,” John said, dragging a hand through his dark blond hair, taking his time with each word. “You need to be careful, but I can’t tell you not to ask around. What I can tell you is I’ve heard that T.J. had words with Thomas Paige a few weeks before he died. That conversation took place at your father’s work.” That was why it mattered to the investigation that Dora had likely met Luke at West Limos. John needed to tie Luke to T.J., and if he could just pull those threads a little tighter together, he’d be able to do it. “I’d like to know why, and what was said.”

Michael nodded, an intense look in his eyes. “If you’d like to know, then I’d like to know, too.”





CHAPTER FOURTEEN


On the way to gym that evening, Michael tried to reach his father’s friend once again. Becky answered, but when he asked for Sanders, she said, “He’s busy for a few days, hon.”

“Busy with what?” Michael asked, trying to sound casual rather than suspicious, even though he was starting to feel that way.

“He got called out of town. He has things he needs to get done before he finishes work,” she said as he turned on the blinker of his black BMW to exit the highway.

“Hmm. Okay. But I’ve got to see him soon, Becky. Can you have him call me as soon as he can?”

“Of course, love.”

The line went dead.

As Michael hoisted a barbell a little later, he replayed the conversation with John, then the brief chat with Becky, trying to read between their words, to line them up like missing puzzle pieces alongside his conversation with Annalise earlier. As he pushed up the heavy weight in his bench press, he zeroed in on some ideas, but they were fuzzy, hazy around the edges, and he didn’t want to jump to conclusions. He lowered the bar, wondering if there was more to Becky’s odd behavior, to Sanders’s absence, and to the conversation T.J. had with his father.