“Romano’s crew has been taken care of, Bronze. This information isn’t useful anymore.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “When? Because I had a buddy track this guy’s credit cards, and he used one a few hours ago.”
I frowned. “Where?”
“Here. Sydney.” When I didn’t respond, he asked, “You found Romano yet?”
I shook my head.
He slid a piece of paper across the table. “We find this guy, he might lead us to him.”
I glanced down at the paper.
Fuck.
Brant.
“He’s in Sydney?”
“Yeah.”
“Fucking hell.”
We’d taken him off our radar after Romano was arrested.
And we’d bought into the story he’d fed us about why he’d shown up on our doorstep.
For Ivy.
I yanked my phone out as a thought slammed into my head. To Bronze, I said, “What else do you know about this guy?”
“Not much, but it seems he’s a loner with a taste for stalking women. He fixates on them until they become an obsession. Two of them took restraining orders out on him. One of them ended up dead three months later. I talked to the first one, and she gave me a rundown of his history with this. Turns out he’s done it a few times. Somehow he escaped a murder charge and later, changed his name.”
When Axe picked up, I said, “Pull Zane off tracking Romano. I need him to find Brant.”
“Why?”
I gripped the phone harder. “I think he has Ivy.” I paused. “And I think he’s a sick fuck who will do God knows what to her.”
With everything going on, we’d been distracted and taken our eyes off the motherfucking ball.
Ending the call, I said to Bronze, “You hear that Ryland’s off the case now?”
“Yeah.”
“Fuck, Bronze, you trust whoever’s giving you information? That their goal isn’t to draw you in so they can arrest you?”
“I’m taking precautions.”
I leant forward. “Why? Why would you risk everything to help us? Your debt to me was repaid a long fucking time ago.”
He stared at me for a long time. Silent. Like he was trying to figure that shit out, too. “For Hailee. You guys go down, she goes down, and I refuse to let that happen.”
I didn’t buy that for one moment.
Not fully.
Bronze had crossed a line somewhere along the way. A line in his soul. I’d watched it happen. He’d let stuff slide, had turned away when he’d seen me get my hands dirty. He may have given the impression he wasn’t on board with a lot of my shit, but not once had he truly challenged me.