We spend hours backtracking Jory’s movements, peeling back digital shadows like old wallpaper. It’s tedious and obsessive work, the kind that makes your eyes sandpaper and your thoughts razor-thin, but none of us stop. We can’t.
Ronan and I sift through dockside footage frame by frame, hunting for anything that resembles Jory’s jittery posture. Rowan pulls different transaction logs, sorting through bank activity and buried transfers with the patience of a sniper waiting for his shot.
Hours pass.
Then a pattern forms.
We catch Jory on a shaky camera outside the docks, dropping something into a rusted metal bin. He moves fast, nervous, glancing over his shoulder like every second is on borrowed time. From there, we track him through a series of worn-out cameras across the city. He cuts through a narrow alley where a broken fire escape hangs crooked above a dumpster. He stops under a flickering streetlamp to tie his shoe—no, not tie it—he uses the gesture to look back without being obvious. He ducks into a pawn shop, leaving only minutes later with the same empty hands he entered with.
He keeps moving. Bus to bus. Street to street. Like a man who has lived his life running.
This guy is not only seasoned, but he’s also terrified, and that makes him dangerous.
Eventually the trail leads us to a residential block, courtesy of the real heroes of suburbia—ring cameras and bored homeowners. It’s a modest, middle-income neighborhood with mismatched mailboxes and overgrown hedges. The kind of place where neighbors wave in passing and gossip travels faster than lawnmowers. Kids’ toys are scattered in yards. A dog barks in the background. A sprinkler sputters weakly on someone’s lawn.
Normal. So painfully normal it sets my teeth on edge.
Rowan freezes the frame. Jory steps up onto the creaking porch of a small, single-story home with chipped blue siding and a sagging porch rail. He unlocks the front door as he’s done a thousand times.
“Wait,” I breathe. “This is his home?”
The twins close in behind me, leaning over my shoulders.
Emerson pulls up his background with a few quick strokes of the keyboard.
Jory Kellan.
Thirty-three.
Local.
Inherited this house five years ago from an uncle who died without children.
Spotty jobs. No criminal record. Quiet. Forgettable.
Exactly the type of person men like Bryce and Dean would use.
“Pull his financials,” I say.
Rowan is already digging. A grid of bank statements fills the screen. At first glance, they look like every struggling thirty-something’s account: small balances, inconsistent deposits, auto-withdrawals for overdue bills.
Then we see the anomalies.
A cluster of large deposits.
No salary. No loans. Nothing legitimate.
Sudden infusions of cash.
My heart kicks hard against my ribs.
“When did they start?” I ask quietly.
Rowan scrolls back. “About four years ago.”
Four years ago.
Around the same time Dean and Bryce tightened their hold, and the guys began pushing back against their fathers from the shadows.