We did, however, make it to Searcy’s and Aella’s houses so that they could take their own photos.
Tomorrow, Calliope would be getting Silver’s and Baker’s.
By the time we ended the day, I was so fucking happy I could scream.
Audric had given me this.
These ladies.
This life.
This freedom.
Twenty-One
I thought I was losing weight, but it turns out my sweatpants came untied.
—Creole to Audric
AUDRIC
My phone rang for a fourth time, and I stopped my mother’s therapist and said, “I need a minute.”
My mother’s therapist, a sour-faced woman that looked like she chewed on nails for breakfast, sneered. “We’re in the middle of something.”
“Yes, I know,” I said. “But my phone has rang four times, and it’s someone important. I need to call them back.”
“Five minutes,” Beatrice snarled.
I ignored her and walked out of the room, my gaze going to the retreating back of a man who looked vaguely familiar.
I dismissed him and called Apollo back.
“Fuck, man. I was about to patch into the damn intercom system there,” Apollo grumbled. “Your therapist isn’t a therapist.”
I frowned. “What?”
“She’s Dr. Stoker’s sister. She’s just there to get more information on you,” he said. “They got to your mom because the state said she needed to see someone to qualify for a state-funded program. Somehow that damn doctor finagled his way into your mom’s care. She’s pretending to be him.”
I sighed. “Great.”
“But that’s not really why I called. You’re not talking so I know that you don’t have anything he can really learn from this. What I called about was that I found that motherfucker, Jordie Goodwin.”
I paused. “Really?”
“Really,” he said. “And he’s in WITSEC. Got hooked up with a few Russian crime guys there in Dallas. Said he’d inform on, you’ll never guess who.”
I didn’t have to guess.
I knew who the Russian Pakhan was.
He was sort of family at this point.
“Does Shasha Semyonov know that he has someone informing on him?” I asked.
“Not yet. He’s my next call,” he said. “Dima was my first.”
Dima was the hitman of the Semyonov family, and married to Copper, Cutter and Chevy’s sister, Keely.