PROLOGUE
KYLIE
An internal message from the front desk popped up on my screen.
Reception: Agent Stands. There is a Charlotte Peterson here asking to speak with the agent in charge of Tinley Peterson’s case. Agent Stanley asked if you could speak with her.
Agent Kylie Stands: What does she want?
Reception: She says she had evidence that her sister is being held against her will.
It was like my own thoughts had been validated. It made me feel less crazy.
It was strange? A hotel mogul having that kind of access to an FBI task force. Their head of security listened in on strategy sessions, being invited into briefings. It all seemed a little too convenient. They avoided detection because they had the inside track. And now they were selecting targets.
I might have just found my in.
Agent Kylie Stands: I’ll be right down.
CHAPTER 1
KYLIE
Ispotted him first.
Patrick Carmichael. Head of security for Grant Enterprises. I had formally met him once, and been in countless meetings with him when I worked for the FBI. He was the guy looming in the corner or logging intoZoomcalls. Never spoke, but always listened.
He passed through the entrance to the Irish pub; a restaurant tucked into a corner of the casino in the hotel called Quad II. Scanning for anything out of the ordinary. He’d yet to spot me. In my notes, I referred to him as the blond one. Dressed more casually than I’d ever seen him, in a tight black t-shirt and dark jeans. He was a big man, but not imposing and not intimidating. He blended into the background. However, the few times I had heard him speak, he commanded attention. It was a weird mix, but made him good at his job.
From my own research, Patrick met Kyler and Josh in high school. They attended a year at NYU together before Patrick went his own way. Military service followed by a stint incorporate security before showing back up at Grant Enterprises in a top position.
The other brothers, Chandler, Randall, and Tyler, together ran this billion-dollar business. They were all the targets of an off- the -books operation authorized by no one but me.
My mission: infiltrate Grant Enterprises, expose their criminal operation, and free the women in their clutches. I had long suspected why Kyler Grant and his hotels often showed up in analysis reports and after-action briefings in the sex trafficking task force I was appointed to.
Being an FBI analyst was not my dream job. They recruited me out of college and had all but told them no. I wasn’t interested in a life in law enforcement. Then my life changed. My sister, Becca, on a trip to Colombia, went missing. Vanished off the face of the earth. The local police were no help. The U.S. embassy had no ideas, and the State Department didn’t seem to care. I had exhausted every outside lead, even spent a month in Colombia looking for her myself with no luck. The FBI, with its unlimited access and connections with every other international law enforcement group in the world, was my best bet to find my sister and help other women along the way.
That was five years ago.
A month ago, an FBI raid had rescued Tinley Peterson from a trafficking ring out of Hungary. They had brought her and several other girls to Paris to servicemen from all over the world in a Quadrangle Hotel. We were told it was a situationof the right place and the right time; Josh just so happened to be staying at the Paris hotel at the time of Tinley’s escape and the subsequent raid. After debriefing with her in New York, she accompanied Josh and the rest of the Grant group back to Las Vegas.
Patrick remained.
He and Agent Stanley spent a few daysstrategizing.I wasn’t privy to these meetings. I had long suspected Stanley was involved somehow, too. His targets never ended up captured; they were either killed off or left to continue business under the guise of seeking a bigger fish to fry. I suspect that’s what Grant and his crew did to maintain their life and freedom. They pursued their own interests while providing the FBI with sufficient information to eliminate their competition.
Approaching him would have set off all sorts of red flags. No, I took a sneakier approach. Infiltrate in plain sight. Get close with the ones I was determined to protect.
I handed in my resignation with the FBI and waited a month to put my plan into motion.
After hanging out at the hotel for a week, I befriended the staff, who were easily engaged but tight-lipped. Everyone I met loved their job. If the rumors were true, Quadrangle Hotel employees were thoroughly background checked and paid for their discretion.
It wasn’t until I found myself having dinner after a frustrating day of unsuccessful surveillance that I spotted them. Apparently, Patrick was the front person because three minutes later, Rayna and Tinley arrived. Five obvious guards, maybe more in the shadows, created a close perimeter around the girls. It was overkill. Every casino in Vegas was saturated with surveillance; Grant’s own turf would be a fortress. And if anyone attempted to get to Kyler and his minions on his own turf, they must have a death wish. I did not. I just wanted answers.
Rayna wore a black jumper tied with a white bow around her waist. She wore white knee-high socks decorated with black stripes and finished her look with a pair of black Doc Martins. She skipped through the entrance, dragging Tinley along. Tinley wore a simple blue dress with white ruffles at the hem and sleeves. She wore tennis shoes but still struggled to keep upwith her exuberant friend. They both spoke animatedly, Rayna pointing and whispering as they made their way towards me. The destination? A spot at the bar across from me. After a week, I was finally in the same vicinity as them. Besides the security team standing watch near the entrance, they were alone.
The counter had two wings that protruded from the restaurant facade in a V shape. A polished mahogany top and antique brass fixtures added to the old-world pub feel. The big, flat screens mounted overhead showed an old soccer game. Rayna scrambled onto a stool in the middle and helped her friend onto the seat beside her. The staff knew them already, pouring their drinks from the tap into clear plastic cups fitted with black lids and a little spout—adult sippy cups.
“Yummy!” Tinley smiled broadly.
