“Yes,” he acknowledged. “But . . . if it’s true, he’ll need to explain a few things.” He hesitated because Dani looked so hopeful that Wesley Masterson had infiltrated the poker game with good intentions, and Diesel wasn’t so sure.

Her brows lifted. “Like?”

“Like how the men who actually bought and sold Laurel both ended up dead, shot during home invasions.” Although if Masterson had learned their identities and killed them, Diesel could understand the cop’s rage.

She drew a breath. “Well, I can’t truthfully say that I’m sorry they’re dead. Who were they?”

“Richard lists the seller as Anatoly Markov and the buyer as Clinton Stern. I didn’t get a chance to look at the crime reports for the details, but both dying the same way seems too coincidental to me.”

Her shoulders sagged. “To me, too. That seems like revenge.”

Diesel shrugged. “Raguel, the vengeance dude.”

She sighed. “I guess I’d understand Wesley’s reasons if he did find and kill them, but that doesn’t give him the right to be judge, jury, and executioner.”

Diesel opened his mouth, then shut it again, suddenly unwilling to remind her that his hacking was much the same thing.

She narrowed her eyes. “I can tell that you’re thinking something I probably won’t like.”

He forced himself to say the words, hoping she’d respond the way he wanted her to. “I do the same thing. So do Marcus and Stone and the rest of the team at the Ledger. We take matters into our hands. We’re judge and jury, too.”

“But not executioner.” She stared at him, her gaze intense. “You don’t kill people, do you?”

Relief was like a smack to his chest. That was exactly what he’d hoped she’d say. “No.” He could answer with complete honesty. “Not anymore. I did in Iraq.”

“But that was war. That’s different. What you do at the Ledger saves lives, Diesel. Every time you force an abusive asshole away from his family, that’s one less beat-up wife I have to tend in the ER. One less child with a broken arm.” She swallowed hard. “One less rape kit I have to do on a child.”

He’d known that doctors did rape kits on child victims of sexual assault, but the thought of Dani having to do one made him physically ill. “Thank you.”

She smiled tremulously. “Same to you. Now, was that all Wesley will have to explain or is there more?”

There was more. “Blake Emerson put up a kilo of heroin to deal into Richard’s poker game. Richard attaches documentation of each player’s stake when they agree to play. He had the title to Brewer’s house, photos of Joshua, and a photo of Emerson holding a brick of heroin.”