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He looks apprehensive, but he doesn’t say anything. He comes behind her and cuts the ropes with his knife. This takes a few moments because Rocco never does anything halfway. When he’s done, he stays right behind her. I sincerely doubt she will make a run for it, especially since she wouldn’t get very far.
“Thank you,” she whispers when she flexes her wrists and rubs them for a second. “What do you think I could possibly know that I haven’t already told you? If I knew something, I would say! I’m not a woman who has a death wish. I like my life.”
“But you are very good at keeping hidden,” Enzo reiterates. “This took a while.”
“Your man must be good,” she says. “I had no idea my IP address would be tracked, or he’d get through my firewall.” She fades off like she’s going to have to rectify that situation immediately.
“Then again, you had no reason to believe anybody would be trying to locate you,” I point out.
Sloane looks me in the eye. Even though I can see she is still scared, she steels her shoulders. “I’m not a bad person,” she says, surprising me. “I don’t want…I don’t want you to think I’d knowingly be involved in people smuggling. That’s not what I signed up for.”
“I understand that,” I reply. “But the fact is, you’re too valuable to let loose. If we found you, then there’s no telling who else could be looking for you. Trust me when I say if you knew the real monsters that are out there, you would be thankful it was us who found you.” I shake my head.
She blinks up at me, smart yet completely vulnerable. “What are you going to do with me?” she asks bravely.
I glance at Enzo, then Rocco. I think we’re all on the same page with this.
I look back at her. “I know somewhere you can lay low until we figure this out.” Namely our new hotel above the casino. We can have security on her door, it’s perfect.
I don’t want Petrovs men getting to her.
“Lay low?” she murmurs.
Obviously, knowing more people could be after you doesn’t exactly evoke much confidence, but there’s no point bullshitting the girl. She played with the big guns, and these are the unfortunate consequences.
“We need to figure out where we go from here, right now…” I pause and glance back at her. “Is there anything … anything at all you remember that can help, names, clues, anything? You have to think, Sloane.”
“We barely spoke on the phone, only a few times. It was all over encrypted email and phone calls.”
She pushes up her glasses and takes a deep breath. I’m aware it can’t be easy having us three breathing down her neck. Fuck knows, what Angelo will make of this when he finds out. “Is there any guarantee of my safety?” she asks out of the blue.
I glance down at her. “What?”
“How do I know you’re really going to let me go? I’m associated whether I like it or not.”
“Hey, we’re the ones asking the questions here!” Rocco adds his dimes’ worth.
I ignore his jibes as scaring her isn’t going to get us anywhere. “Sloane, while there are no guarantees in life, we aren’t in the habit of …”
“Ohmygod!” she suddenly cries out, slapping a hand over her mouth. “That’s what they said on the phone the last time…”
“What is?” I say, trying to keep the urgency out of my voice. I need answers, now.
“When you said about there being no guarantees…”
That piques all of our interests simultaneously.
Her eyes dart to the side as she recalls it. “When I suspected I was in too deep … I put a bug on the main contact’s phone. I was suspicious about what I was becoming involved in, and I wanted to try and safeguard myself, pull the pin if things got too hairy.”
“A bug?” I question.
“Yes, I created a unique bugging system, so when the caller hangs up on their last conversation, you can tap into the next incoming call and listen.”
“You tapped your contact’s phone call?” Rocco asks quizzically.
“It’s a one-time thing, yes, and often it’s mostly static due to the weak signal. I got ten seconds before it cut out. It was the last conversation I had with them and the only one I overheard.”
I stare at her. I never knew this was even a thing. “And?” I prompt.
