Page 48 of His Forced Irish Mafia Bride
I paused. That name meant nothing to me.
“And Ian Rush.”
That one landed differently, even without context. I knew the Ian Rush who played for Liverpool, but he was definitely not this guy. “Who are they?”
“They don’t fit into clean categories.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know who they are yet.”
“But they’re connected?”
“Not directly. But they keep being mentioned with the same reference point.”
“Peter Earl.”
“Yes.”
I looked down at the papers again. Peter Earl didn’t feel like just a name anymore. “How is he the link?”
“I don’t know if heisthe link.”
“Then why mention him?”
“Because everything else keeps pointing…not at him, but near him.”
“That’s not a solid answer.”
“It’s the only one I have right now.”
I frowned down at the papers. “Justice and Rush never appear in the same confirmed record.”
“But their activity windows overlap in Earl’s proximity zone.”
“Proximity zone?”
“Think of it like this: Earl appears in the middle of movement systems, but the systems around him behave like something else is influencing the timing.”
“Influencing how?”
“Delays. Accelerations. Handovers that don’t line up properly in the records.”
“Like someone is adjusting flow in the records while leaving out something important.”
“And that’s not possible in a system that hasn’t been tampered with.”
I didn’t reply immediately. Peter Earl stayed in my head, but now he wasn’t alone.
There were gaps around him I hadn’t seen before.
“Are you still there?”
“Yes.”
“I found something else.”
“What?”
