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“He seemed pretty wrecked by whatever happened to her,” I offer. I don’t know what happened, but I’m sure that Nikki’s story will come out over the next few days.
“Nothing good if Dominic was involved,” Geno grumbles, setting his gun back beside its twin with a thud. “Didn’t even know that asshole had a girlfriend, and he’s one of my best friends.”
“I’m sure keeping it to himself was just to hurt your feelings,” I joke, trying to lighten the mood.
He cracks a half smile, shaking his head. “Fuck you, man.”
I swivel back to face the monitors. “So, what exactly happened here?” I ask, gesturing toward the bloody towel, needing to get the conversation back on track. We have work to do.
“No idea. No fucking idea,” loathing colors his voice. “I went to my apartment to make a sandwich. Just a few minutes, and when I got back Donny was on the floor, unconscious. Bleeding all over the fucking place, as you can see. I called for an ambulance. He came around just as they were loading him up. He said it was Dominic, so I called you. Then the cameras upstairs went down on a couple of floors… and I tried to figure out what the fuck happened. When I realized it was nothing I could fix I called Travis and X.” That explains the time that passed between his call to me and Travis’.
He’s interrupted by the ringing of my phone. “What the fuck else can go wrong tonight?” I mutter. I lift it to my ear with barely a glance at the screen, already knowing who it is.
“Need you to lock the building down NOW!” There is panic in Travis’ voice unlike anything I have ever heard from him before. “Dominic is in the penthouse with the girls!”
He hangs up without another word.
And that’s what I get for saying it out loud. I knew better. It’s going to be a long ass night.
Lockdown is fast. We know approximately where Dominic is, so we don’t have to disturb the guests on the main level and the first few floors still have working video. I position men at all the exits and assign a team to do walk throughs, making sure that he doesn’t somehow slip out through the crowd and escape again. Between the guys that Geno called and ours I don’t see any way for Dominic to get out of the building.
Geno is upstairs standing guard over the penthouse so we can continue the search without worrying about the women. Relief that Ellie is safe at home floods through me again. If she was here, there is no doubt in my mind that I would have left her with Faye and Ana without a second thought to her safety… and she would have ended up in danger. The four of them would never have fit in the small safe room.
Shaking off what could have been, I pick up my phone and dial Weaver’s number. She needs to be notified about Dominic.
“I’m already up to my ass in the mess you made over here,” she snaps in lieu of a greeting. “So, this had better be fucking good.”
I don’t know how I ended up being the one that has to deal with her sassy ass!
“Dominic’s in Luminoso. Somehow got into Xavier’s penthouse and scared the hell out of the women there.”
“Everyone’s okay? No one harmed?” she asks, her voice a little less angry, but still rife with annoyance.
“As far as I know,” I tell her. “I’ve been a little busy making sure that the slippery bastard doesn’t sneak past us again.”
“He’s not going to this time, is he?” Her tone implies that’s exactly what she thinks. I’m gonna prove her wrong.
The monitors flicker as I continue tapping the keys on my keyboard, only half listening to her insults. I smirk, “No, he’s not.” I tell her, clicking again., “Better hurry up Agent. I found him.” I disconnect, sliding a finger across the screen, cutting off whatever she was about to say, and dialing Travis.
“Got him on fifteen.” I say when he answers.
“Where exactly?”
“Unsure. Only just got video working in the stairwells. Five more seconds and I would have missed him. Caught him there going onto fifteen. You’re gonna have to flush him out.”
“Keep trying. Intel would be nice.”
“Working on it.” He’s not trying to be a dick. Intel would be nice and I’m going to do what I can to get it for him. But first I have to figure out what the hell he used to fuck up the system. I still haven’t made any real progress with the cameras when Travis, X, Grayson, and the guys Geno sent up congregate in the stairwell a short while later. There isn’t any sound, but Xavier’s agitation is apparent in the bunched muscles of his shoulders and the way his hand keeps drifting to his holstered weapon. He’s ready to fuck Dominic’s world up.
Travis stands at his shoulder. He’s a little less wound up but battle ready just the same. I’m familiar with the focused look on his face. I’ve seen it more than a time or two over the years. Sometimes I wish that I wasn’t the only one manning our tech. I’d love the chance to do some of the heavy lifting again. I left a message for our buddy Lucas when we decided to stay in Vegas. I’d like to have him here to help me with some of this, but other than a few texts, he’s been off the grid since he returned from his last deployment. He’ll turn up when he’s ready.
The beep of a text commands my attention. Weaver.
Where are we going?
I fire off a quick reply. East stairwell. 15th floor.
Copy. Her answer is accompanied by her walking past a camera and entering the east stairs. She lifts her hand in a wave at the camera, three stoic looking agents following in her wake.
