Page 184 of Her Defiant Warrior

“Shut the fuck up and dial her number.”

Braxton put it on speaker and even over the rumble of his old Dodge truck, Mateo could hear Lainey’s honeyed accent as she told the caller to leave a message. He yanked the phone out of Brax’s hand.

“Lainey, this is important. Yeah, I need to grovel again. Yeah, I need you to believe I love you. But this is a matter of life and death. Call me, mí amor. Call me.”

He handed the phone back to Brax. “Text her, will you? I don’t want you saying the I love you part. That has to come from me. But the life and death part. Text her that part.”

“Gotcha.”

They were silent for the next two hours, until Mateo had to stop for gas. The truck was not really known for having good gas mileage.

“I’m going to go grab some water and whatever. Is there anything specific you want?” Brax asked as he jumped out of the passenger seat.

Mateo shook his head and willed the gasoline to flow faster.

When they got back on the highway again, Braxton’s phone rang.

“It’s Gideon,” he said as he picked up. “I’ve got you on speaker,” Brax told Gideon. “We’re about ninety minutes outside of Annapolis, right?” Braxton glanced at Mateo.

“Seventy,” he muttered as he pressed harder on the gas pedal.

“We’re seventy minutes outside of Annapolis unless we get pulled over or crash. What do you have?”

“Mateo’s idea paid off, faster than we thought,” Gideon said. “We were able to nail down another e-mail address that Ivan was using. Amanda’s been banging on Ivan to track down a missing payment. Apparently, they finally tracked down that the client deposited their payment into Lionel who then converted it to cryptocurrency,” Gideon explained.

“After that, Ivan found that half of the currency was correctly dispersed into smaller amounts and deposited into the accounts of other Kraken members throughout the world, as planned. The final problem was that the remaining half never made it into the Grand Cayman Island account. Amanda’s account. Ivan’s been in charge of figuring out why not.”

“Gideon, if you now fucking think that my woman is stealing from the Kraken, I’m going to make it so you and Jada will never be able to have sex again. Am I making myself clear?” Mateo practically yelled.

He heard both Gideon and Jada laughing.

“He doesn’t think that, Mateo. I promise.” Jada said. “We’re really thinking that there was some kind of glitch with the transaction, or somebody in the Grand Cayman bank is trying to pull a fast one. Lainey’s in the clear as far as we’re concerned.”

“And?” Mateo prompted.

“And we’ve got to find out where she is as soon as possible,” Gideon said. “I’ve checked with the bank. She hasn’t been in all week. She apparently has the flu.”

“I know that,” Mateo said. “Since I was stuck on base, I called Mr. and Mrs. Morrison across the hall and asked them to report on her status. She’s been out walking Xena every day. But hell, I left a message for them yesterday, and they haven’t gotten back to me. I know Saturday is their bridge night.”

“Bridge?” Jada asked.

“It’s a card game,” Gideon explained.

“I’ll call right now, but they might be at church,” Mateo said.

“By the way, Kostya and Jase left fifteen minutes after you did. So, hold your horses before rushing into anything.”

Mateo sat up straighter in his driver’s seat. “They did?”

“Mateo, yeah, we always like the black and white truth, but we always have our brothers’ backs. You should know that.”

Braxton chuckled. “What are they driving?”

“Jase’s Mustang. I’d say they’re going to be passing you pretty soon.”

“They don’t even know which way we took to get to Annapolis,” Mateo scoffed.

Jada laughed. “If you don’t think Gideon has a tracking device on everyone’s vehicle, you’re deranged.”