I’m glad I denied Hunter’s numerous requests to wire up Isabelle’s private space when Regan shouts down the line. “Children, Isaac!Fucking children. What am I meant to do with two dozen children? This wasn’t what I signed up for years ago. Business developments. Boring, but yes. I can handle them. Smelly warehouses. Okay, if that’s your jam. But children! I never agreed to comb through an acquisition for the purchase of twenty-seven minors.”
She stops to suck in a much-needed breath before starting again, “What am I supposed to do with them once their sale is approved? Ship them to you? Hugo said your private abode was impressive, but even Tic-Tac Tate wouldn’t strive to hide his lack of appendage with a twenty-eight-room mega-mansion, and from what I’m hearing, you don’t need help convincing people your wiener isn’t on the tiny side.”
Although I am unappreciative of her tone, excluding her nephew, Regan doesn’t have a maternal bone in her body, so it is understandable she’s daunted by the prospect of being surrounded by the children who formed a majority of Nikolai’s release agreement.
As much as this irks me to admit, Nikolai was unaware about the new trade the Popovs are commencing under Vladimir’s watchful eye, but since he had access to the database responsible for the transfer of assets, he was able to use it to his advantage.
With a price high enough not to raise suspicion, I purchased the twenty-seven unsold assets on the register last night. Once their documentation goes through the appropriate channels, the children will be delivered to Ravenshoe, where they will become wards of the state.
“Only until Ryan can match their credentials with missing person reports,” I declare when Regan opposes my plan with a deep, rustling sigh. “The Popovs are meticulous with paperwork. Nikolai assures me a date, time, and location of each kidnapping will be within the paperwork he’s forwarding to us.”
“So all we need to do is match the location and date to corresponding child abduction cases?”
“Yes…” I pause, swallow, then start again. I’m not choking over my words. I’m struggling not to swallow my tongue when Isabelle enters the frame looking scrumptious in a fitted skirt and a shirt with an extremely teasing neckline. “Unless they’re a foreign asset. They will take more leg work, but that isn’t anything my team can’t handle.”
“And the funds? You can’t exactly pay for an illegal trade with your AMEX card. And really, should you be footing the bill for this? Surely, there are stipulations about purchases you’re making on behalf of Ravenshoe PD.”
“Ravenshoe PD doesn’t have the capital to fund this.”
Anger pumps through me as freely as the recently brewed coffee Isabelle pours into a mug when Regan murmurs, “The Bureau may.”
“They may, but I’d rather they not be involved. They complicate things.”
A second after entering the living room, Isabelle abandons her mug of coffee in favor of soothing the headache that’s been plaguing me the past twenty-four hours. She dumps her mug onto the coffee table along with her phone before she slips under my arm so her thighs can cuddle my hips.
“So as much as they may simplify the process, that is not a direction I plan to take anytime soon. Furthermore, the tender was only approved because I agreed to the terms stated.”
“Nikolai doesn’t want the Feds on this anymore than you.”
“Exactly,” I reply as Isabelle playfully grazes my earlobe with her teeth before whispering in my ear, “Good morning.”
I return her greeting with actions instead of words. I squeeze her ass, hissing when my playfulness is rewarded with her grinding her pussy against my rapidly hardening cock. Her tease alters my temperament in an instant and has me once again placing Isabelle above anything.
“I’ll call you back,” I tell Regan before disconnecting our call and tossing my cell phone onto the coffee table with Isabelle’s. I can’t talk about the sale of children while my zipper is biting my cock. It makes me ill wondering what those children have been subjected to while under Vladimir’s care. The only reason I’m keeping my cool is because Nikolai assured me they’ll be the last children the Popovs will sell.
I want to believe him, but trust is a slow commodity to earn and an even faster privilege to lose.
My eyes stray from peering at a speckle of dust behind Isabelle to her when she asks, “Are you okay?”
I take a moment to consider what her response would be if I hit her with nothing but brutal honesty. When my answer doubles the tightness of the knot in my stomach, I take the easy route. I nod.
Isabelle sees straight through the shield I lowered specifically to protect her. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
Conscious her libido will always outrank both her head and her heart, I answer her question with a salacious smirk. It relays my every intention without a word needing to spill from my lips. I need to feel the heat of her skin under my hands and the squeezes of her pussy as she shudders through a climax because the image of her face in ecstasy is more cleansing than any bathing routine.
“Oh, no.” Dark strands of hair fall into her eyes when she shakes her head. “I remember what happened the last time I arrived late to work. That isnothappening again.”
When she slips off my lap, I snatch up her wrist before slowly dragging my eyes up her body. She has such a seductive frame—petite in the right areas but curvaceous in each region that gets a man’s blood pumping.
My nostrils flare to suck in the seductive scent my stare instigates. I can smell how aroused she is. It’s seeping out of her pores, so despite her rejection, I know she is as desperate as me to suffocate the unease ridding the air of oxygen.
I can’t blame her. At times, it seems as if we have the world against us, but when her skin is flushed with untamed lust, victory seems nowhere near as unachievable.
After a suggestive tug on her wrist, Isabelle re-straddles my lap then murmurs against my lips. “You’ll get me fired.”
I chuckle to hide my hope because with the direction my empire is about to take, I may need an accountant with a flair for hiding assets that should have never been procured to start with.
57
