The two men tossed the empty bottles into the trash receptacle next to the cooler before leaving the veranda.
Ike gazed at Rocco. “You checked me out yesterday, so why are you really sticking around?”
“To follow through on a promise I made you,” Rocco said.
Ike frowned as a spike of adrenaline flooded through him. Rocco could only be referencing his request to get a message to Yana Brazhensky. “Did Yana know what her brother’s goons did to me in Miami? Was she behind it?”
“She was not behind it and was livid that it happened,” Rocco said. “She was pretty broken up about your disappearance.”
“Interesting. And the payment of my debt? What does she think about that?”
“The Brazhenskys think your sister, Serena, paid it to stop them from sabotaging Hullabaloo Coffee to get what was owed to them,” Rocco explained. “They’re convinced the King Family hired the mystery woman as an intermediary to settle the matter. Yana was disinterested in the woman and couldn’t provide any information about her identity.”
Ike wasn’t sure if he was pleased or disappointed that the Brazhenskys knew nothing about Ava. If the Brazhenskys had no information on who she was, it made it even less likely that Ike could figure out more than her first name. Harder for him to find her and contact her. Ike would be forced to wait until she was ready to visit him again. It had already been too fucking long for his taste.
“Well, I’m a thousand percent certain that Serena had nothing to do with paying off my debt. Figuring out who did and why is going to be harder than I thought,” Ike said. He’d kepthis interactions with Ava a tightly held secret from everyone. None of them knew about her rescuing him from the balcony of the Miami high-rise, holding him hostage until she could pay off his debt, then orchestrating his return to St. Felipe. Her actions bewildered him—her motives unclear. But he knew deep down that she wasn’t done with him. Not by a long shot.
“There’s one last tidbit I thought you’d find interesting,” Rocco said. “Yana was frustrated and repulsed that Alexei has been going rogue and getting into activities that neither she nor her father approve of—‘dirty work’ in Africa.”
“Africa?” Ike raised an eyebrow. “He’s hiring out Brazhensky bodyguards as mercenaries in Africa?”
“That’s what she said,” Rocco said. “Not sure who the clients are. The location could be a coincidence?—”
Ike cut him off, “Or it could tie them even closer to my parents’ disappearance.”
Chapter 22
“How are you holding up?” Sebastian asked, falling into step next to Lachlan. They walked down the corridor toward the conference room, where Dr. Fallon Abrams waited to give her assessment.
It had been three days since Lachlan had seen Britt, days when he felt like she’d died all over again and was lost to him. But he kept reminding himself that giving Fallon time to evaluate Britt was what Britt needed. He wanted to do everything he could to help her regain her memories, even if that meant staying away from her … temporarily.
“I’m not,” Lachlan admitted, glancing at his friend. “Did you see her?”
“Yeah. I was here when Rocco brought Fallon in and got a chance to introduce myself. Talked to her a bit,” Sebastian said, staring straight ahead without making eye contact. “She’s Britt for damn sure, even if she doesn’t remember yet. But this is a delicate situation. We have two responsibilities: help her get her memory back and?—”
“Stop Alejandro Cerundolo from killing her,” Lachlan said. “Both are important, but pull us in two different directions.”
“And we need to be moving in one direction, Lachlan,” Sebastian said, an urgency in his tone. “There was a time when Alejandro loved Britt as much as you do, but those days are over. He’s gotten the prize—he’s the new leader of Quattro. His efforts to manipulate Britt’s memories didn’t work. She’s a loose end he needs to tie up. If she resurfaces and tells what happened to her, every gangbanger in Quattro will come to the same conclusion we did. He won’t be in charge of the cartel anymore. He’ll be dead.”
Lachlan gripped the back of his neck, massaging the knots away. “You’re right. No matter how much I want her to remember her life with me, none of that matters if we fuck around and let Alejandro kill her.”
“I know I’m right. To save Britt, we have to take down the leader of one of the most powerful crime organizations. A mission fucking impossible,” Sebastian said as they reached the door to the conference room. “I need you to focus only on that. We’ll deal with the memory shit later.”
He wasn’t sure he could commit to what Sebastian asked, even though he knew his friend was right. Keeping Britt alive, even if she never remembered him, was most important. He could live with that pain because it hurt a shit ton less than believing she was dead.
“Alright,” Lachlan said, then paused. “Who’s inside with Fallon?”
“Just Everett. Didn’t think you wanted a big audience for this.”
“I don’t.” He’d been of no use to anyone over the past three days, thinking about Britt while he went through the motions of his normal routine—dropping Paloma off at Goat Scout Camp, shuttling Serena King and the rest of the Hullabaloo Coffee executives across the islands for meetings and events, then returning in time to pick Paloma up, having dinner and playinggames with her before tucking her in at night. The routine that had been a source of immense pleasure now felt like it was missing something. Missing someone. Britt.
He’d almost broken down too many times and told his daughter that her mother was alive. But his better judgment had prevailed, and he’d held back. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could. It felt wrong to let Paloma continue to believe her mother was in heaven, even if Britt couldn’t remember her. There had to be a way to make her understand this. When he figured it out, he wasn’t lying to his daughter anymore.
Lachlan asked, “What are the other guys doing?”
“Bobby is working to get us a sympathetic contact within Quattro who might help us get close to Alejandro,” Sebastian said. “Kane is in Little Turkey trying to locate the underground compound where Britt was held. If he can find it, he’ll get in and out with no problem. There could be something inside that could prove useful.”
“Any leads so far?”
