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“I’m going in,” he said in a teasing tone that didn’t fool me. He was nervous and exhausted. If he could do this one thing, I was planning on taking him back to the suite and fucking him into a coma.
As I watched Kev make his way across the lobby toward the Hawaiian shirt, what happened next seemed to unfold in slow motion.
Buck’s face lit up in recognition as he spotted someone coming from Kev’s right. My eyes tracked what he was looking at and saw Vince Parler striding purposefully toward Buck.
What the fuck?
I lurched forward to try and prevent Vince from spotting Kev while I scrambled to determine whether or not Vince knew Kev and would recognize him as part of the Champion Security family. Vince wasn’t an idiot. He was also smart enough to recognize a tracker drop if he saw one.
Before I could reach Kev and stop him, Vince noticed him and definitely recognized him.
“Kevin Rogers,” Vince said, studying Kev as if trying to decide whether he was friend or foe, which was exactly how I was feeling about Buck Nutter right about then.
Was Buck working with Vince? And if so, since when?
What did that mean for the data we’d taken off his Horn after Venezuela?
Was Champion Security some kind of pawn in a game we didn’t even understand?
Kev stopped his progress so quickly he nearly tripped over his own feet. His lack of forward motion helped me catch up to him quicker, and I stepped up next to him with a hand on his back. I felt the tension in his muscles release a little.
“Vince,” I said in a hard voice. “Fancy meeting you here. Taken anyone hostage recently? And you.” I turned back to Buck. “What rock did you crawl out from?”
Instead of answering, Buck lifted an eyebrow at Vince. It was Vince who answered.
“Not here, Huxley. We need to go somewhere private.” His voice was low and serious. Vince no longer seemed like Champ’s smarmy ex-boyfriend or the villain he’d been the last time I’d seen him at Bunny’s house.
“We’re not going anywhere private with you,” I seethed, saying the exact opposite of what I’d just finished saying to Champ on the phone. Only two minutes had passed, and I now felt like I was holding a bag of venomous snakes.
The tension came back in Kev’s body a split second before an attractive blonde woman stepped up and put her arm around Vince. “I agree with Vince,” she said with a sultry smile. But her eyes were all business.
Camila Dacosta, drama mom and truly terrible spell-caster, was dressed like she was heading out to a nice dinner on the Strip. My bag held more snakes than I’d anticipated.
“Cam?” Kev asked, obviously confused as hell. That made two of us.
She lowered her voice as she leaned closer. “My name is Laurel Whatley, Special Agent with the FBI’s Criminal Investigation Division. And we need to talk before you fuck this up any more than you already have.” She leaned back and smiled again, the elegant darling in a group of half-angry, half-confused men. “Shall we head up to your suite for a nightcap?”
My eyes shot to Vince to see his reaction to her revelation. Had he known her as an agent or as a member of the cartel’s infrastructure? He was hard to read, too distracted by scoping out the people around us as if being caught with any of us would be his downfall.
And, if Laurel was who she claimed to be, he might very well be right.
Strangely enough, it was Vince’s hesitation that made me decide to comply.
We followed her like four of the seven dwarves trailing after a very cranky Snow White. Buck Nutter was clearly Dopey while I had a lock on Grumpy. Oddly, Vince seemed Happy as we got out of the crowded lobby and into a more private elevator nook. Kev, of course, was Doc.
“How did you know where we were staying?” I demanded. Camila—Laurel—simply rolled her eyes.
“You’re really asking how the FBI found you when you’re staying in a HOG Corporate suite without attempting to use a fake name?”
FBI. Right.
When we entered the suite, she helped herself to the room phone to order an obscene amount of food and coffee. I narrowed my eyes at her. “Help yourself,” I muttered.
“I haven’t eaten since this morning,” she said with a shrug.
Kev had reached for my hand in the elevator and hadn’t released it since. He continued to side-eye the agent as if trying to determine if she was part of an elaborate ruse.
“One of you needs to start talking,” I demanded, trying to sound more commanding than I felt at the moment. “And show me some ID that I can verify. What the fuck is going on?”
Laurel’s casual grin dropped, and I got another flash of the special agent underneath as she took out her badge and threw it on the table in the center of the room. “What’s going on is a certain cartoon duo—” She glared at Kev and then at me. “—turning an operation I’ve spent months planning into a fucking circus. So sit down and be quiet, sunshine. This isn’t a Duchess of Moonflower quest, and you’re not in charge now.”
