“Can’t we trace the company?” Lilah asked. “See who owns it?”
“It’s a shell company,” Rafe said.
Lilah frowned. “What does that mean?”
“It’s not real,” Storm said. “I mean, it’s real on paper, but there are no offices or anything, and in this case, the CEO listed on the paperwork is dead.”
Lilah’s frown deepened. “Dead?”
“It’s a tactic people use when they set up untraceable companies,” Storm said. “It’s technically illegal, but what’s going to happen if someone finds out? They’re going to prosecute a dead person?”
Lilah turned to Nolan. “It has to be him right?”
I wasn’t surprised she was asking Nolan. He spent a lot of time with her because of the medical shit, and I didn’t think it was my imagination that he’d taken a little too long to hit the water at the beach.
Maybe they’d just been talking, but from the way Lilah had avoided his eyes when we’d toweled off next to the car, my bet was on less conversation, more making out.
Lucky bastard.
“Hard to say for sure,” Nolan said. “But considering this was taken the night Lombardi and those other goons chased you through the woods, it’s a better-than-average chance.”
“Agreed,” I said. “Put it all together and it’s suspicious as fuck, so either there were two shady motherfuckers driving around the Dive that night, or this is our guy.”
Lilah sat back in her chair. “Shit.”
“Yeah,” Storm said. “I might be able to find something out about the company with more time, but…”
“It’s a long shot,” Lilah finished.
Storm sighed. “Yeah, sorry. When someone goes to this much trouble to stay undercover, they’re usually careful everywhere.”
We sat in silence for a minute, Rafe drumming his fingers on the stained tabletop.
“What’s the name of the company?” Lilah asked Storm. “The shell company?”
“Imperium Fratrum LLC,” Storm said. “Why?”
Lilah shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I was hoping it would ring a bell or something.”
“Does it?” Storm asked.
Lilah shook her head. “Not even a little.”
“Fuck,” Rafe said.
He would never admit it, but his frustration was more complicated than not being able to identify Mr. Suit. Not identifying Mr. Suit meant we couldn’t deal with him for Lilah, and that meant Lilah couldn’t move out.
And Rafe wanted her out, although not for the reasons he was telling himself.
“Sorry I couldn’t help,” Storm said.
“You did,” Nolan told her. “It’s more than we had yesterday.”
Storm looked at Lilah. “Can you remember anything about the guy in the suit? Any tattoos or scars that might make him easier to identify?”
Lilah chewed on her lower lip. “Not really. I never actually saw his face up close. He always came in late when the lightswere low, and he went straight to the back room with his bodyguards to talk to Vic.”
Storm teased one of her eyebrow piercings. “Damn.”