Page 13 of Midnight Danger

“That’s not unusual,” I pointed out, leaning over to check the screen he was working on.

“Not in itself, but it’s on the same day every month, like a direct debit but in cash.”

My brow furrowed. “Like she doesn’t want to leave a digital trace to another account.”

“Exactly,” Ash confirmed. “She only has one source of income which goes into her general working account. She needs to pay all her bills and syphon money from that account for everything she needs.”

None of these were normal reactions for the average person. We understood them because we each had several personas that we could morph into at any time. Which led us back to the question as to why Cassandra needed them.

“No way to trace it?” I knew the answer before I asked the question but needed to hear it confirmed.

“Nope. She’s clever, lifting the money from different locations every month.”

“The same as she knew to confuse the CCTV in the tube and move back and forth across town until we lost her.” My fingers tapped a tribal beat on the desk while I considered all the options. “Identities are easier to interchange if you only change one detail. That way you don’t have to remember as much.”

“Mmmm.” Ash continued to scan and type. “This is interesting. Two years ago, she applied for her passport.”

“Why’s that interesting?”

“She applied for it twice in the same year. Once in March and again in October.” Ash pointed to the screen. “They’re done online these days, so if she doesn’t have any credit cards in her alias, it would make sense that she needed to use her bank card for both.”

“Can you track it?”

“Maybe… Jay is the one with all the back doors into places none of us want to know about.”

A green light flashed on the screen. “Her phone just came online,” I muttered.

We watched as Jordan’s programme tried to locate the cell towers closest to her location. The green light went out again before it could be fully traced.

“Two minutes twenty seconds,” Ash said. “Just enough time to check her messages and turn it off before it can be checked.”

“Shit!” I slumped back into my chair and covered my eyes with the palms of my hands. Cassandra was doing everything to avoid being detected by the textbook we wrote. She must really hate me if she was going to this amount of effort to avoid me.

“You doing okay?”

“Nope.” I felt like punching the wall. “She’s going to a lot of effort to make sure I know she doesn’t want to be with me.”

“Nah, she’s scared and running. If that’s all you know when that emotion appears, then you revert back into a learned pattern. I didn’t ask before, how were they killed?”

I lifted my head and stared at him. “Jay shot two of them at close range. He broke the neck of the third. I left the fourth unconscious for interrogation.”

“Gunshots are loud and the aftermath messy. If it’s triggered something she’s suppressed, then we both know she’s running scared and will end up tripping over a trap someone left for her. It’ll activate the moment she does or goes somewhere she shouldn’t.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” I replied, suddenly weary of my life and all the shit I had to deal with.

“Is she worth it?” Ash asked softly, his voice low.

“Yeah, she is. Uncle Lucas was right all those months ago. When men like us find the woman meant for us, we just know. I will kill anyone who goes anywhere near her.”

“That’s all I need to know. By the way, you know you’ll have to do the same for me one day.”

I quirked an eyebrow. “Uncle Lucas will roast your balls if you go anywhere near Lucrezia.”

“It would be fucking worth it,” he muttered.

Ash seemed to have developed an obsession with my cousin. Every time we visited my uncle, he spent his time staring at her when she wasn’t looking. The funny thing was that she did the same. Both of them were head-over-heels about each other but neither would make the first move. If I got Cassandra back, we’d all take a road trip to meet my extended family and I’d nudge my cousin and oldest friend together.

The first thing I was going to do was handcuff Cassandra to my bed. There’d be no more staying in her apartment. Her bed wasn’t more comfortable than mine as she claimed. Which brought me to wondering why she preferred to stay there.

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