Murder on the High Seas - The Devereaux CaseFiles Book 3

Chapter 17

It wasn't until the next day that Raidon got both Mary and Justin to the apartments that he and his crew now called home. He had wanted to do some digging into their pasts first to make sure there wasn't anything he could use to his advantage, but they were both surprisingly, squeaky clean. Not even a parking ticket for Mary, though Justin had a minor DUI from when he was sixteen, but that didn't surprise Raidon. And it wasn't something he could use for their business. He was a little surprise though, at how well Amilo and Fred were getting on.

He liked Amilo but he had been apprehensive about his joining the crew after the way Joe had acted around Ayah at a time when she most needed someone to trust. He knew that being around a school full of teenage girls wasn't easy on anyone, and when he was supposed to tail Ayah everywhere, he could understand him getting an attachment to her. Gideon had done the same thing. But a boyfriend attachment and a best friend attachment were two separate matters. Raidon really didn't want to get Joe involved with anyone who he could get close to on a personal level. It didn't matter whether it was man or woman anymore, he couldn't trust him, that was that.

"Boss...they're ready for you." Gerry sighed, popping into the room to drop off the message before disappearing again. Ever since the DioGuardi fiasco he had been demoted to an errand boy and he wasn't liking it much. But there wasn't anything he could do about it other than hope to work his way back up to where he belonged. In the meantime, he was playing babysitter to the two idiots who had got themselves caught up in insider trading, making sure they were in the 'comfortable' interrogation room, so as not to suspect what was going to be thrown at them. He wasn't sure how that was going to be accomplished since they had been kidnapped from Justin's house while having a 'dinner date' there together. They were both so terrified that they were going to get killed, they'd confess to anything, whether it was true or not. But he went straight back to babysitting them like the good soldier he was, after announcing their arrival to Raidon, who took a good five minutes before appearing.

"If you wouldn't mind, Gerry, taking Miss Ciro to warm herself by the fire. And bring her a blanket as well, please." He asked, much to Gerry's surprise. But he did as he was told and took the woman, who was dressed in nothing more than a practically see-through dress, into the living room two rooms away, to sit by the fire, while he fetched the blanket Raidon had requested. It seemed he wanted to talk to Justin alone, and he knew it, complaining instantly.

"What are you going to do to Mary? I'll have you dealt with once I speak to my people." He threatened them, trying to sound macho but only succeeding in making a fool of himself. It was all ridiculous nonsense of course because as far as Justin knew, he wasn't getting out of that apartment block alive. But it made Raidon happy to know that even though he was terrified for his own safety he put up a good show about being worried about Mary.

"Calm down Mr Forbes, you're both perfectly safe...for the time being. I have questions for you that you are going to answer. If you do not answer them then I'm afraid we can't be friends anymore and I'll have no more use for you or the lovely Miss Ciro. Do you understand me?" Raidon asked, putting on his business hat and getting down to the work he was so good at. If Reed hadn't found him, he would have made a pretty good enforcer for some Mafia kingpin somewhere.

"Y-yes, I understand." Justin stammered, seeming to find the situation thoroughly terrifying. For the next few minutes, he was bombarded with questions. Why he was extorting money, who had hired him to do it, what his relationship was with Mary and how she was connected with the whole affair. Unfortunately, the fact that they already knew so much about it, didn't seem to make Justin want to spill his guts. He suddenly got brave.

"If you don't know that, then you're in for a big surprise. I'm not telling you squat. And Mary won't either." He laughed it off, thinking that if they had no idea what he was doing or why, or for whom, then they really had nothing on him. Nothing that was going to get him into any trouble anyway. The guy who hired him would make sure of that. But his change of attitude made Raidon curious, realizing that whoever had hired Justin and Mary to do his dirty work, was high up in the community, well financed and pretty much untouchable, at least in his and Justin's eyes. It made the whole thing that much more impossible to understand. Why would someone like that need to extort money?