Page 103 of Volatile Vice

And beside me, Falcon is seething.

34

VINNIE

“Wait. Doyouknow?”

“You feel like making a deal, Austin?”

“Am I dealing with the grandson of Mario Bianchi? Or with the man who loves my daughter?”

“The two are one and the same,” I tell him. “We can have this talk if you like, but I need your guarantee that it doesn’t leave this room. That there’s no surveillance system recording us.”

He frowns. “I can’t guarantee that.”

I rise from my squatting position and head toward the office door. “Then I suppose we’re done here.”

“No. I don’t want to be done.” He rises. “Come with me.”

We leave his office, and together we walk out the front door.

“I need to check with my driver and my bodyguard,” I say.

“They’re in the car?”

“Yes. The air conditioning is on. They’re fine.”

“They’re not dogs, Vinnie. They’re people. They can wait in the house if you like.”

I shrug. “This is what they’re used to. Trust me that the car is comfortable. But thank you for the offer.”

He leads me to a small bench off the porch of the house. “We can speak freely here.” He pulls out his phone. “See? Not recording anything.”

“All right,” I say. I take a deep breath in before continuing. “Here’s the deal. I want to know who Brick Latham was. And why he’s no longer alive.”

He gazes out onto his land. “I didn’t find out about his connections until after Raven already met with him. When I found out that she had a date with him?—”

“And you found that out because you’re having her watched, correct?”

He snaps his head back at me, his eyes fiery. “I’m not going to keep defending myself for that. My wife doesn’t know about it, and I’d like to keep it that way. But after what went down eight years ago…”

“Right.” I’m still not sure I believe him about all of that. I think he had another reason for wanting Falcon in prison, but I’m just not sure what it is. “You don’t need to go through all of that again. I get it.”

“Right. So this Latham, he spent a lot of time with Raven that day here at the house. They worked on the setup for her nonprofit that she wants to start.”

“Right. I know all about that. A worthy endeavor.”

“Yeah, it is. A great idea for her. Because he spent so much time here, I looked into it.”

“Isn’t he with a firm that you do business with?”

“He is. Turns out he’s a bit…unethical, according to his partners. They’ve been trying to figure out a way to oust him for years.”

“Okay.” I press my lips together. “That doesn’t explain why you got involved.”

“No, it doesn’t. I did some research. Probably similar to the research you did when you found out about my infractions when I was a minor.”

Interesting. So Austin Bellamy is no stranger to the dark web. That’s not necessarily a bad thing.