Page 79 of Her Intense Protector

She leaned over and wretched, but very little but slime and stink came out. When she felt herself passing out, she tried to avoid the slime, but then fell on her bad arm. She cried out in pain as everything went black again.

* * *

“I had to go through two dummy corporations before I could get a name of someone that this fucking SUV belonged to.” Kane was pissed. So was Ezio—it was now nineteen hours since Samantha had left her office.

“I don’t recognize the name, but Leo, your brother, or that Vice cop might.”

“You call Martin, I’ll call Sy,” Ezio said to Leo.

Leo walked into the living room. Ezio got Sy’s voicemail. “Son of a bitch.” He left a voicemail then texted the man to get back to him.

Leo came back into the room five minutes later. “Bertram Anders is bigtime. He’s out of Richmond, but he has ties up and down the Eastern seaboard. He’s into smuggling, drugs, and gambling. Apparently, he doesn’t like prostitution.”

“Isn’t this too small-time for him to get his hands dirty on?” Asher asked.

“I asked Martin the same thing,” Leo answered. “Apparently, he got started twenty years ago as a small-time gambler and built his business from there. That side of the business is personal to him.”

“So, he might have owned the casino in the wig shop and the poker game?”

“That’s what Martin thinks.”

“Why target Samantha?” Ezio asked. But he knew the answer. He’d grown up in New York; this was a vendetta, pure and simple.

“Martin thinks they want to make some kind of example out of Sam for ruining that slice of his operation.”

Ezio shut his eyes, trying to block out the pain of that answer.

“Martin will be over here in twenty minutes. I couldn’t stop him.”

“Then we need to be gone,” Ezio said. “We don’t need the police hassling us with their rules. We’re going to do things our way to get Sam out of there alive.”

“Agreed.” Leo smiled grimly. “My brother isn’t going to be surprised; that’s why he told me in the first place, to give us a head start.”

“I like your brother,” Kane grinned.

“Kane, what can you do for us?” Asher asked.

“I can find out where good ole Bertie Boy lives in Richmond.”

“Do it. Also find out places where he might stash Samantha in the meantime.” Ezio said grimly.

Kane just gave him a side look, that told him he was already on it.

It took Night Storm’s computer genius less than ten minutes to come up with Bertram’s address and six different locations that were real possibilities to stash people.

Ezio and the others were extremely aware they weren’t allowed to operate as SEALs inside the United States. This was just a few friends doing a friendly little hunt for a missing girlfriend, nothing more than that.

The four of them were already committed and they didn’t want to bring in other members of their team in case things went south and their “friendly hunt” got them into trouble with Sy Morgan.

Kane’s truck was outside Ezio’s house. Leo would drive his truck so Kane could manage the comp in case he got more info. But first, everyone gathered around Kane’s truck.

“I’ve got the team’s comm system. Buckle up, boys.”

They all put their mics and receivers on and tested them. “I’ve amped them up. They should work throughout all of Richmond, but our cell phones are back-ups if we need them.”

They all nodded at Kane. He delivered the coordinates for the seven locations.

“I doubt that anything will be done at Bertram’s house. It’s in the ritziest part of Richmond. Yeah, it’s gated, but still there is a lot of traffic on the street where the gate is,” Kane said as he pointed things out on his computer.