“It is,” Hunter defends. “But we haven’t been playing on the same field the past couple of months.Everyoneis being scrutinized. Even Regan had her medical records anonymously pulled the other day.” He looks like he wants to say more, but after a stare I don’t know how to decipher, he mutters, “I’ll bring anything I find directly to you.” He rolls his chair in close to a bank of computer monitors before pushing an addressed business card to my side of his desk. “But until then, you have somewhere you need to be.”
When a wrinkle in the middle of my forehead exposes my confusion, Hunter’s lips quirk at one side. “Before Hugo could pull out of Tatiana’s driveway, he noticed a tail. Now he’s stuck there waiting for you to…” his smile switches to a breathy chuckle, “…finish.” My glare shuts down his laughter, but he’s still foolish enough to grin like a fool while instructing, “You’ll need to take theback entrance.” He’s almost in a fit of laughter now. “But don’t worry. You’ll slide in nice and easy. I made sure everything is well lubed for your arrival.”
“For crying out loud,” I mutter under my breath while snatching up Tatiana’s business card with enough aggression to warn I’ve reached my limit for his antics today. Once I’m confident he understands my frustration, I say, “Have security officers guard the elevators overnight.” When he attempts to interrupt me, I talk faster, “I know what I saw, Hunter, and I don’t care about your claims that they could be a resident. My objectives remain the same. Someone was where they shouldn’t have been. That alone justifies further investigation.”
Incapable of arguing against my valid point, Hunter clears away his grin, bobs his chin, then gets back to work. While he seeks the shadow lurking in the dark, I make my way to Tatiana’s apartment building. My steps are minus the spring they had while walking Isabelle out of the elevator with her legs wrapped around my waist and her deliciously aromatic pussy heating my cock.
Just the memory of my name tearing from her throat when she came has my cock standing to attention when I slip into the town car Roger is helming.
His tired eyes drift to mine in the rearview mirror before he folds his newspaper in half. “Home?”
A curious gleam darts through his hooded gaze when I shake my head. “We have one stop to make first, then you will be free for the rest of the day.” When he tries to argue with me, I cut him off with a stern glare. “It is three in the morning, so your services will not be required for the rest of the day.”
He waits a beat before dipping his chin in defeat. “Very well. Where are we off to?”
I hand him the business card with Tatiana’s address scribbled on the back before sinking low into my seat. I’m as frustrated by the thickness in my pants as much as I appreciate it. I wasn’t lying when I said I saw women as vessels to get me off, and although this will make me sound like a chauvinist pig, Cormack also wasn’t deceitful when he said no one I’ve bedded has maintained my interest outside the bedroom. The chase is thrilling, but it has nothing on the euphoria that pumps through me when Isabelle screams my name during ecstasy. I could resist the urge to come for years if it guaranteed I’d get to hear Isabelle’s moan once more. They’re the focus of every thought in my head when I masturbate, and they will be the cause of my undoing this evening.
I just need to take care of one matter first. I’d laugh at the irony I’m planning to leave a prostitute’s house on edge if it weren’t so damn frustrating.
Fortunately, not every storm is purely for destruction.
Sometimes, they help clear the path you’re meant to take.
“I should have realized you were more involved than you let on.” As I stuff my hand into the pocket of my trousers, I spin away from Tatiana before I continue reprimanding Henry Gottle, Sr. “How long have you had operatives planted in Ravenshoe?”
I can’t see Tatiana, but I hear her sigh when I glance down at a folder I was never meant to see. She knew I was arriving, but since tardiness isn’t my strong point, I arrived quicker than she could clear away the information on a massive pinboard stretched from one side of her living room wall to the next.
It shows she isn’t just watching Col from afar. She’s investigating him.
“Tatiana isn’t an operative,” Henry replies, his voice a mix between humored and frustrated. I learned a lot from him over the past six years. He rules with dignity, strength, and admiration I often admire when I’m not struggling through a lagging sleep schedule. “We have common interests that saw her spending the last six months in Ravenshoe.”
“Col?”
He garbles out an agreeing hum. “The last person her sister was seen with was him.” I shift on my feet to face Tatiana when Henry discloses, “She was barely a day over sixteen when she was found dead in a shallow grave three miles from Hopeton.”
Tatiana’s face whitens when I mutter, “The Petrettis don’t leave bodies.” To this day, I still don’t know where Ophelia is buried. I doubt Col would have had a funeral for her if it weren’t for media scrutiny. He plays the devoted father act well when it benefits him. “So are you sure it was him?”
“Tatiana—”
“Isn’t the best person to determine neither a motive nor a suspect list.”
I listen intently when Henry rebuts, “I disagree. The game is different when none of the players have been tainted by our world.” I almost correct him when he says ‘our’—despite my federal file, I am not a part of the mafia—but what he says next stops me. “She can look at both sides of the coin. If she couldn’t, Col would have been dead months ago.”
His reply makes sense when you take in the extensive surveillance timeline on Tatiana’s living room wall. She’s been following Col for months.
The recognition has me switching lanes mid-interrogation. “The morning Col returned from Las Vegas a secondary private jet landed shortly after him. Are you aware of that traveler’s identity?”
Tatiana answers me before Henry, “No.” She moves for a stack of papers brimming out the only drawer in her coffee table. “But I forwarded my findings onto Henry’s team. They said he wasn’t a threat.”
“How can they determine that if they’re unable to identify him?”
Henry’s silence is extremely telling.
“Henry—”
Since he is the only man I respect as much as my father, my teeth only partially grind when he interrupts, “No, Isaac. You can’t win a war if you take out more than the competition. Your visitor isn’t a threat to you or your empire. If anything, he may assist in its growth.” The ding of a bell chirping sounds out of my cell phone. “But since I have more pressing matters to deal with right now, you’ll need to trust the word of a man who’s forged more than his fair share of battles.”
My mouth falls open when he disconnects our call without another word being spoken between us. I’m shocked but more from what Tatiana says than Henry’s abrupt dismissal.
