Page 15 of Twisted Lies 3
His greedy informant was asking for quadruple the standard rate. I nodded in agreement.
“You got it,” Kevin told the informant. “Now get me the fucking info.” He paced back and forth with his cell pressed against his ear. “Like I give a shit what you’re in the middle of. Move it.”
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I waited while Kevin continued to gather intel.
Kevin’s face stilled. “Holy shit! Are you sure?” He frowned. “Okay. Yes.” He paused. “Yes, I got it. But I want you to keep working that angle.” He knitted his brows, his bewilderment evident, as he shoved his cell into his pocket.
I crossed my arms, looking at Kevin as he plopped down on the edge of the desk.
“So?”
Kevin raked a hand over his face. “In the eighties, Bigsby ran a prostitution ring out of his strip joint.”
I glared at him. “That’s it?”
Kevin held up his hand. “I’m not finished.”
“That’s a relief, because your intel is straight-up garbage,” Ram muttered.
Kevin shot him a nasty glare. “Anyway, this is where things get interesting. Bigsby started rolling with some powerful NYC players. I’m talking about politicians, judges, and Wall Street executives.”
“That doesn’t make sense.” Rocco interrupted. “There’s no way in hell a thug like Bigsby could get in good with rich guys.”
“He could if he was supplying them with girls for sex,” I rebutted.
As the son of a stripper, I’d learned fast about the underbelly of strip clubs. Bitterness filled my mouth as I thought about the nights when Mom would bring me into work because she was too broke to pay for a babysitter. My nose wrinkled with distaste as the faces of the women she’d worked with flashed through my head—young, reeking of alcohol, junkies with eyes glazed over. I’d caught them on their knees, giving blow jobs to customers in dark corners or hallways.
“That’s exactly what Bigsby was doing, and he was raking in tons of money. Then, for some unknown reason, he and his business partner went their separate ways.” Kevin regarded me smugly. “Guess who his partner was?”
“Sin’s father,” I snapped.
Ram arched a brow. “Which one?”
I sighed heavily.
Kevin’s previous investigation into Sin’s family background unearthed that she had two birth certificates, each one showing a different set of parents. The first birth certificate had her father listed as Ian Michaels and her mother as Grace Michaels. The second certificate had her father listed as Greer Lorne Cruickshank and her mother as Aubrey Cruickshank.
“Greer Lorne Cruickshank,” Kevin replied. “After Greer and Bigsby dissolved their business partnership, Greer was found dead in an apartment fire.”
I bunched my shoulders, but I kept my face expressionless. “Cruickshank?” I bit back the expletive hovering on my tongue.
What the hell?
Cruickshank was the person Bigsby had bragged about to Mom before killing her.
Ram’s brows drew together. “What are the circumstances of the fire?”
“Arson,” Kevin replied flatly. “Bigsby mysteriously disappeared after that.”
I stiffened my shoulders. “Now he’s back, and the fucker reinvented himself.”
Rocco scratched his chin. “I don’t get it. Why would Bigsby run for mayor and risk his past being dredged up? That’s political suicide.”
“What past?” Kevin’s brows furrowed. “Do you know how hard it was for me just to get this much information on him?” He shook his head. “It took a shitload of money and power to clean his record. Now, he looks like some fucking altar boy.”
“And he seems untouchable.” I tapped my fingers against the desk while contemplating the situation. “The ledger must be the only evidence linking him to his former life.”
Knowing what I knew so far about Bigsby, I knew he had come too far to let his new life disintegrate, which meant Sin’s safety was in serious jeopardy if she had the ledger.
