She raises a brow. “Are you insulting my intelligence now?”
“Is that a yes?”
She scowls. “That’s a yes. I’ve been tracking her all morning. She’s at Billingsgate Market. My hunch is Griffin is there too.”
I nod at her. “Then we go and find him.”
“We?” Says Viola stepping into the room. “You mean the both of us, right?”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” I say.
Ten minutes later, we’re on the road. Viola won’t stop fiddling with the radio. It’s distracting but she is in her very nature distracting. I shouldn’t question what I’m doing, moving our relationship forward to the level it’s at. What’s done is done. But I have to consider my timing. It’s made my life difficult in a very short space of time. School boys aside.
“Talk to me, V,” I say, because I know there’s something on her mind. “What is it you want to tell me?” Viola only has ADHD when she can’t quite express how she feels. Trying to get her to sit still will be impossible, unless I drag it out of her.
She glances at me and scowls. “How do you do that?”
“Do what?” I ask her.
“Get inside my head.”
I shrug. “Training, now what is it? You’ve been skittish since you got here.”
After a few seconds, she sighs. “When we were at Adrien’s estate, I found a file on you in his office.”
She’s watching me in the darkened interior of the car, waiting to see how I’ll react. Adrien having files on me isn’t new. And I’ve seen what’s inside a few because he’s shown me them. Adrien likes to have knowledge over people as power. It’s how he works. Whereas I just want the money.
I wait Viola out because there’s more than she’s letting on.
“Did you know your mother was Adrien’s childhood sweetheart, but she ran away from him on their wedding day?”
“I didn’t know that,” I say carefully.
“When you were just a toddler, Adrien tracked her down. He killed her and her lover and then took you for his own. There was a birth certificate in the file and newspaper clippings.”
“Where’s this file?”
“I took a picture of it with Dino’s phone, but the actual file is back at the estate.”
I nod, taking in her words as much as I can right now.
After a minute of silence, V speaks up. “I was waiting for the right moment to tell you,” she says.
“Now probably wasn’t the right time,” I say. “We need to concentrate on what’s happening now.” I shoot a glance over to her as she rolls her eyes.
“Fine,” she says.
“You need to make a deal with Griffin. Offer him part of Adrien’s empire,” I say.
“Fuck no,” she snorts.
I glance at her and shake my head. “Someone ratted us out when we were at Kristian’s place. My hunch is Kato did. I found the guy who they killed when we were at the casino, or the remains of him. It was your father’s mark. The one he sent you to kill that night before you got distracted.”
She frowns as she takes this in. “So, it wasn’t one of my father’s men?”
“No, which means we’re an ally short. You need Griffin.”
“I don’t need anyone. Let them all rot in hell,” she retorts.