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Lainey nodded and took the bouquet. She took a deep breath, taking in the glorious scent.
“Darn it, I can’t find my pen,” the woman said.
“Come on in and I’ll use one of mine.”
Lainey turned around. She felt something press against the side of her neck, and then she was catapulted into a world of agony.
She tried to scream but couldn’t, not even when she heard the vase shatter when it hit her hardwood floor. She couldn’t even scream when the glass dug into her arms, shoulders, neck, and chest as she fell into a trembling heap.
“Quick!”
Woof!
Woof!
“Fuck. A dog. Get it!” It was a man’s voice.
Woooooofffff!
Another jolt of excruciating pain coursed through her as she heard her baby cry, then everything went black.
25
“We’ve got a problem,” Gideon said on the second meeting six days after Mateo got home from Charleston. Every man in the room was on edge. It had now been four weeks since the bombing of Gideon’s house. The Lainey lead had turned into nothing. The one lead they had regarding Ely Roberts had turned into nothing, especially after Christina Higgins’ body was found washed up on the shore of the Elizabeth River.
That left Ephram Brady, Hick’s little brother Lloyd who they still didn’t have a handle on, Amanda Melton that Brax was pretty sure he had pinpointed, and Ivan Sykes who Linc still had to update everyone on.
“What’s the problem?” Jase’s voice boomed loudly in Kostya’s living room. God, Gideon really needed to get his house rebuilt soon. Kostya’s place was nice, but just too small to contain so many big men.
“Linc is going to tell you. I’ll put him on speaker.”
“What’s the problem?” Jase practically yelled again. Out of all of them, everybody knew Jase was having the hardest time being separated from his family.
“I tracked down one of the nurses who took care of Ivan after Decker International put him on disability. This is before Ivan fired them all. She actually stuck around off the books. She admitted to having a relationship with him until he became too dependent on the opioids he was taking for the pain. She tried to get him help, but he refused. That was when she bailed.” Brax continued. “She’s kept in touch with him through an email address, and I gave it to Gideon.”
Everybody turned to look at Gideon. “I was able to hack that email account, but he’s only ever used it to communicate with her.”
“So, it’s a dead end,” Mateo said bitterly.
“Not really,” Linc continued. “I asked the nurse to send him an email asking to meet for old time's sake, basically promising sex. I figured that would get him to respond, and it did. Gideon was able to figure out his IP address and find where he was emailing from.”
“Well, don’t keep us in suspense,” Jase roared.
“It was a Starbucks in Annapolis.”
“Motherfucker.” Mateo jumped up from the ottoman he’d been sitting on.
“Calm down. We don’t know that anything is wrong,” Kostya said. “As a matter of fact, this might just mean he’s scheduling a meeting with his contact at Lionel Security and Trust Bank. If you’re right, Mateo, and Lainey isn’t their contact, we’ll know soon enough.”
“God dammit, how often do I have to tell all of you, Lainey is innocent? If Frank Sykes’ psycho son is in Annapolis, then Lainey’s life is in danger!”
“Hold up, you need to hear about Amanda. Brax is going to report on her, too,” Kostya ordered. “Now sit back down.”
Mateo stayed standing. “What?”
Kostya turned to Mateo’s friend. “Braxton?”
“Amanda entered the US five weeks ago. She flew into LAX, from France. She then took a plane to DFW.”
