Page 90 of Mistaken Identity

We did, however, make it to Searcy’s and Aella’s houses so that they could take their own photos.

Tomorrow, Calliope would be getting Silver’s and Baker’s.

By the time we ended the day, I was so fucking happy I could scream.

Audric had given me this.

These ladies.

This life.

This freedom.

Twenty-One

I thought I was losing weight, but it turns out my sweatpants came untied.

—Creole to Audric

AUDRIC

My phone rang for a fourth time, and I stopped my mother’s therapist and said, “I need a minute.”

My mother’s therapist, a sour-faced woman that looked like she chewed on nails for breakfast, sneered. “We’re in the middle of something.”

“Yes, I know,” I said. “But my phone has rang four times, and it’s someone important. I need to call them back.”

“Five minutes,” Beatrice snarled.

I ignored her and walked out of the room, my gaze going to the retreating back of a man who looked vaguely familiar.

I dismissed him and called Apollo back.

“Fuck, man. I was about to patch into the damn intercom system there,” Apollo grumbled. “Your therapist isn’t a therapist.”

I frowned. “What?”

“She’s Dr. Stoker’s sister. She’s just there to get more information on you,” he said. “They got to your mom because the state said she needed to see someone to qualify for a state-funded program. Somehow that damn doctor finagled his way into your mom’s care. She’s pretending to be him.”

I sighed. “Great.”

“But that’s not really why I called. You’re not talking so I know that you don’t have anything he can really learn from this. What I called about was that I found that motherfucker, Jordie Goodwin.”

I paused. “Really?”

“Really,” he said. “And he’s in WITSEC. Got hooked up with a few Russian crime guys there in Dallas. Said he’d inform on, you’ll never guess who.”

I didn’t have to guess.

I knew who the Russian Pakhan was.

He was sort of family at this point.

“Does Shasha Semyonov know that he has someone informing on him?” I asked.

“Not yet. He’s my next call,” he said. “Dima was my first.”

Dima was the hitman of the Semyonov family, and married to Copper, Cutter and Chevy’s sister, Keely.