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I watched as Abby exited the room, and I clenched my hands into fists. I wanted to chase after her, but I kept my feet in place. I wanted to tell her just what I thought of her attitude, of her experience—that she could stick it so far up her ass that she couldn’t walk straight. But I also wanted to prove her wrong; I wanted to try to work through this with her. I still wanted her, despite the attitude and her issues with feelings.
What did that say about me that I desperately wanted someone who didn’t want me?
“What a clusterfuck,” Wells said. The quiet tension suddenly eased, as if the words had poked a tiny hole in a balloon full of unease.
“Hey, I was about ready to pop some popcorn. Those frigid words had me over here sweating. It was like the opening scene to hate-fuck porn. Where is the intro music?” Yates joked. I nearly reached out to snap his neck. The way he took a step back from me showed that he knew he was in serious danger of losing another appendage.
I changed gears, determined not to let this set the group back. We operated just fine without Abby before. We can still spitball ideas just fine. “Can we focus on something else? Let’s focus on your research,” I suggested to Guy.
“If that’s what you want…” he said as he opened his laptop.
“It is.” I wanted to focus on work so that I didn’t focus on Abby and trying to find her. She had me so heated that my body had it confused for something else. I needed to think about something that wouldn’t give me a semi. Finding the Reapers certainly wouldn’t do that.
“You don’t want to chase after her?” Jones asked. He seemed a little shocked.
“No,” I said sharply.
There was one moment of awkward silence before Guy cut in. “Okay, so the ownership group that owns the resorts is just a shell obviously, but the shell corporation is owned by another, which is owned by another, and that’s where this gets interesting.”
“How interesting?” Garcia asked.
“Would you consider confirmation that this Ricketts guy owns it interesting?” Guy asked.
“I’d say so,” Mendez said at the same time Yates said, “Fuck yeah.”
“So these resorts are another one of his investments?” Christine asked.
“Yes, in multiple ways. He can collect the profits from the place, but as the owner he’s probably primed this place to be easy access for the Reapers. Any reports of their involvement, he could bury and it would never see the light of day. He could have any number of Reapers in this resort at one time, and no one would be the wiser,” Guy said.
“That makes sense. We should have anticipated this,” Jones said.
“Yeah, but you know what jumping to conclusions does,” Wells said.
“There could have been some other player involved for all we knew,” Yates commented. “Better to get the confirmation than just build a plan off an assumption.”
“So, now we know it’s not just some conspiracy. The resorts themselves are a big part of this trafficking ring. This place was likely bought for that very reason, like hunting fish in a small, over-priced barrel,” Mendez said.
“No wonder he has three resorts, to make that barrel just a little bigger. They can spread the kidnappings out between the three resorts and other parts of the island, and with enough time between them, no one is the wiser. And if they do learn of it, then the Reapers buy their silence,” I said. I didn’t want to think of the alternative: death. Jeremiah was almost one of those statistics.
“The problem I’m having is that there is likely a number of Reapers and they likely live here. Even if we cut off the head of the snake with the arrest of Ricketts, or one of the other Reapers, the body will just grow a new head,” Yates said. There would be a new leader to take out.
“Not unless we find the other heads and chop them off along the way,” Guy said. That was asking a lot. Who knew how many Reapers there were? Without a full confession with someone at the top and them sharing the identities of the others, it was going to be difficult to end the operation entirely. We didn’t come here to put one fuckhead away; we wanted to put the whole operation to bed.
“And one of those heads belongs to the managers Abby wants to set up. We need to lob those off before we continue. They can’t remain loose ends, ready to kidnap from the resort while we are here. We wouldn’t forgive ourselves for something like that.” The room was silent, considering Christine’s point. “Jeremiah said that the Reapers often contract out. The managers could be the contractors and not actual Reapers. Either way, if we catch them, it might save another woman or two while we figure out our next steps.”
“It’s not fair to interfere with Abby’s plan. She laid out what she wanted to do, and it wasn’t a terrible idea. We can’t just stop her and take over because you don’t like her being in danger,” Jones said, and then he looked at me. “We all had to work though the idea of our women being in danger and trust each other enough to keep them safe.”
I didn’t want to hit my brother, but he was pushing me. “Pots and kettles, motherfucker,” I retorted.
“Hey, no one said you have to like it, Strong. God knows we hated every second of it, but we knew when to cut our losses and just did what we could to protect them. Trusted each other.”
“If you ask me, you should have cut them a little sooner,” Christine snapped back as she rolled her eyes. “Strong, I know it’s no surprise, but I’m with Abby on this one. You saw how she fought those men. Two of them dead and one unconscious before you had time to get there. Then you saw how her quick thinking helped save Jeremiah’s life. She knows what the hell she’s doing. She’s not a damsel in distress. If you like her, which you obviously do, repeating Jake and Jones’ mistakes is going to push her away. She’s not soft around the edges; she’s not like Jasmine and me. She’s got a short fuse, sure—but she’s strong enough to take this on. She may not need or want to work with us if you respond the way you just did.”
“I just…I don’t want anything bad to happen to her. This isn’t New York and we aren’t the FBI. There are other ways to go about this that don’t involve her making herself bait. I can’t guarantee we find her in time, like we found Mary,” I murmured.
“You’re right, it isn’t Vegas, and we aren’t the FBI, but she is. We are even better, and we don’t have to follow their rules, and that will be our advantage. Now we could argue over this, or you could be satisfied that we all heard your objections, and we move on to bringing this bastard down. Think of how many people could be saved in the time that doing this Abby’s way might save. How many women do you think we can return to their families because we caught them before transport?”
Christine was right. I felt a pang of guilt when I thought of those who were suffering right now. Abby’s plan would speed up their release if we were successful. Instead of trying to stop her, I just needed to have her back, to make sure she stayed safe while she did her thing. She wanted to release those from the same suffering she experienced, the best way she knew how.
