Page 54 of The Verdict

“I don’t think she’s a criminal,” Daria chimed in, unafraid to share her opinion.

“Well, maybe you’re just as blind as me,” I snapped, earning myself a protective growl from Harm as he started to move toward me until Daria put her hand on his arm.

“Or maybe I’ve spent enough of my life in hiding to recognize when someone else is doing the same,” she challenged me, ready to fight her own battle.

“She’s hiding from the law because she’s wanted for murder. Of course, she let you see that.” I had to assume none of it was true—even her supposed innocence.

“Forget Merritt for a minute,” Ty broke in, realizing that the argument wasn’t going to help us get anywhere. “What about the man she was fighting?”

“Most likely a client of Wheaton’s—or someone a client sent to destroy the drive,” I mutteredas the door opened behindme, Ace and Rorik moving into the room. I sent Rorik a look that saidnot now.I didn’t give a shit about the steady pulse in my head, it was nothing compared to the betrayal gnawing at my gut.

“Did he know Merritt?”

“No—” I hissed, pain shooting through my skull.

“Rhys—”

“Wait,” I ordered Rorik, raising my other hand to stop him from coming over to me as I pinched the bridge of my nose. The memory was foggy with pain—blinding, even. But I refused to back down until tiny blips of details began to shade in my memory. I’d been so focused on her—her fighting, her injury, her escape—that I’d glossed over the rest, including what I’d heard him say to her.

“He did know her.” Pain roughened my voice as I pulled at the shards of information, not caring how they cut me as long as they helped me see the truth. “They knew each other. He called her Venus.”

“Venus?” Ty confirmed.

“Like the goddess?” Ace wondered.

“I don’t?—”

“No!” Daria gasped, and all of us looked at her. “No,not the goddess. Like the planet.”Daria rushed through the room to Ty, clearly knowing something the rest of us didn’t.“Look up the Cosmos Gang,” Daria instructed him, and then looked at me. “They were a group of European jewelry thieves. A real Ocean’s Eleven operation, except there were only like five or six of them. They robbed high-value targets. Precise. Efficient. Always avoided the authorities. Masks, of course, but they called each other by planet names.”

I stared at the screen, unwilling to look anywhere else, as the information made my skin stand on end.

“Cosmos Gang. Wanted in Paris, Madrid, and Barcelona by Europol for jewel heists,” Ty read off. “Last active two years ago in Barcelona when they stole an eighteen-million-dollar diamond?—”

“Merritt Manning appeared back in the States not long after that heist,” Dare added in like I hadn’t already connected the timeline, but right now I was more concerned about whatever the hell was making Ty frantically search through his computer.

“One member of the gang was killed by police in the heist. Juan…fuck.”

“What is it?” I growled.

“Juan Morte.” He put up the photo from the police file on the large screen in the room. “He was also a known associate of Alvaro Lorenz. Childhood friends. A few run-ins with the police, but unlike Lorenz, Morte had no record until he was shot and killed during the heist.”

Like dominoes, facts started to tip over into a pattern, revealing a truth I had no choice but to acknowledge.

“The man who attacked Merritt at the hotel was friends with a member of the Cosmos Gang,” I repeated slowly.

“And if the guy at the beach house called her Venus, then he must’ve been part of the gang?—”

“And so was she.”

Venus.

A goddess. A thief. My liar.

“Here are the other associates of Lorenz that police had on file.”Seconds later, five images appeared on the screen, but only one of them mattered.

“Him.” I jabbed my finger to the photo in the corner. The dark hair. The careless sneer.It was the man I’d just shot.“He was the man at the house this morning.”

“Sergio Morte.” My attention snapped to Ty. “Juan’s older brother.”

---