Page 47 of The Fortunate Ones
I frowned. “Do you know Mr. Verlice’s first name?”
“Yes. It’s David. David Michael Verlice. Date of birth, June 6, 1976. I saw his license once.” He then rattled off his license number. Damn, his memory really was something.
I keyed in the information. David Michael Verlice, born in Hartford, Connecticut, into a family of well-off bankers. Lived the privileged life of an upper middle-class/lower upper-class child. Best schools, several activities, private college. Got into some trouble in the early nineties. His parents got him out of it, but it also seemed like they cut ties with him shortly after. From 1996 to 2006, there was no trace of David Verlice. I couldn’t find an address, a place of employment, nothing. There was no criminal record, so it didn’t look like he’d spent that decade in jail either. He just disappeared. In 2006, he popped up again as CEO of a technology start-up that exploded overnight.
For the next twenty years, David Verlice managed to ride that cusp between extremely successful businessman and not so famous the whole world knew about him. His company brought in millions of dollars, supposedly, but always managed to stay under the radar. He had no outward connection to any of the people on our list or any criminal organizations I typically monitored. There was no indication that David Verlice was anything more than one of the thousands of businessmen out there. I turned my monitor toward Everett to get visual confirmation that this was the same man who had held and tormented him.
It took half a second, only a glimpse at the headshot of a smiling man in a suit for Everett to break down. He snapped his head away with such force, I was surprised he didn’t hurt his neck. Shaking, he all but launched himself into Matty’s lap, whoaccepted the man easily, wrapping his arms around him and glaring at me like it was my fault.
“Y-yes,” Everett finally managed to choke out. “Th-that’s him. That’s Mr. Verlice.”
With my teeth digging into my bottom lip, I started to enter his name into all my databases, deepening the search, looking for any connections I could find to him and, well, anything.
“Mr. Ramirez said you had been held by him for quite some time,” Wes interjected gently when there was a bout of awkward silence. “Do you know where you were?”
Everett nodded and then rattled off an address. I quickly added that to my search. “I wasn’t allowed to leave. I had my bedroom and office and that was it. If I was good, I could go outside on the patio for fifteen minutes a week. That was my favorite time. Especially if Mr. Gio was my guard. He’d sometimes let me walk around the property, as long as Mr. Verlice wasn’t home. He even taught me how to play card games and would let me watch videos on his phone. But then Mr. Verlice found out, and Mr. Gio was gone, and my new guard, Miss Veronica, was very strict.”
He shrugged at the end and went back to picking at his cuticle. I glanced across the table at Luca and Wes, unsure where they wanted to go with this.
“Besides the guards and Mr. Verlice, was there anyone else you saw? Any other names you can remember?”
Everett shrugged. “Well, Aunt Cassie and Uncle John were around a lot, especially in the beginning. Only Mr. Verlice ever came into my office. He spoke to someone on the phone a lot, but he only ever called him sir, so I don’t know his name. I never saw him.”
Hmm. “What about in your work?” Maverick asked. “Did any names, locations, anything like that come up that could help us pinpoint who these people are?”
“S-sure. Where do you want me to start? When I start listing things off, people tend to get overwhelmed. I sometimes don’t know what information is relevant. It used to make Mr. Verlice and my uncle very angry.” He flinched at the memory.
“No one is going to be angry at you for that,” Luca told him, barely constrained rage in every syllable. “But maybe we can help you narrow it down some, so it’s not as overwhelming.”
Everett seemed surprised anyone would be willing to do that for him. “Yes, please. That might help.”
Luca looked over to me. “Can you start giving him names or showing the pictures? Start with the big players we suspect are involved in Crimson Rose and work your way down.”
We didn’t have anything concrete, but when Crimson Rose was mentioned the other day I started to compile a list of potential members. It was largely based on status and connections, and being suspected in involvement of criminal activity that never was proved. It was a good place to start. I knew Luca wanted me to start there rather than with the people who took Matty or managed to slip through the raid last year to help ease Matty in and keep him from panicking. Which, duh, I wasn’t a novice. I could be blunt, but I wasn’t cruel.
I pulled up the list and started from the top.
Everett knew . . . a lot. He could list financials, last known addresses, dates of births, even social security numbers. Sometimes, he didn’t know suspects by the name we had for them but would recognize their pictures. David Verlice might have kept him isolated from everyone else, but he hadn’t done as good of a job limiting Everett’s access to information as he thought he had. Several of the names, Everett easily rattled off bank account numbers for, and he even had information on their stock market portfolios.
It was fascinating . . . and overwhelming. I was pretty fucking smart and had a good memory, but it was pitiful in comparisonto Everett’s. No wonder he had a hard time deciphering the importance of what he had stored up there. After the third time he started to tell me pet names and favorite colors, I had to cut him off. It would take me days to go through everything Everett was giving us. To figure out what was useful and what wasn’t. What we should keep to ourselves and what should be given to the authorities. No wonder several federal agents had gone rogue to keep this kid quiet.
And then it was time. Before I did anything, I looked at Matty. “We have a few other people I need to ask him about. If you want to leave, now might be good.”
I didn’t say anything else. Matty knew where I was going with it. His jaw tensed and eyes hardened a whole fucking lot like Luca’s, even though they weren’t blood related. He shook his head. “I’m good. I want to know. And I need to be here for Ev. Ask him, D.”
I looked over at Wes, needing the go ahead from my Daddy. He was the most protective out of all of us, and if he thought Matty and Everett needed a break, he would tell me. Wes’s intense gaze fell on the two youngest men in the group, and he analyzed them for a good, long minute. Eventually, he turned to me. At some point, Wes had moved from his place next to Luca and had dragged his chair next to mine. I would’ve never asked him for it, but I was secretly glad. Wes always seemed to know exactly what I needed, even when I didn’t.
“Go ahead, angel.”
I swallowed and gave him a sharp nod. I started with the least sensitive of the bunch. Nancy Williams, aka Slash. Matty had had no direct contact with her. We’d only made the connection between her and his bio father when she’d been involved in the kidnapping of Bailey last year. She shouldn’t trigger Matty the way the others might.
Everett blinked as he looked over the information. We had more on her than some of the others since we’d been actively searching for her. “I don’t know her. I’m sorry. Mr. Verlice mentioned a raid to one of the guards and a missing shipment, but that was also around the time Aunt Cassie was talking to the FBI and I was pulled out of the house. So I never did any work regarding it. Sorry.”
Matty squeezed his hand. “You have nothing to apologize for,” Wes told him sincerely. “You’ve already given us so much.”
Everett swallowed, looking a little wrecked, but he turned back to me. “Okay, who else?”
I glanced at the others.Maybe we should stop?
