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“Copy that.” London took a sip of his coffee. “You know we’ll be good. The team is tight.”
They made sure nothing would go wrong. Between Berlin’s planning and the skill each of them brought, they hadn’t failed yet. They studied afterward and fixed their mistakes. They’d started out good. Now they were great.
Berlin still pushed them.
Good.They didn’t need to get cocky, even if Phoenix built his brand on that. They couldn’t assume nothing would go wrong. The minute they did that, they were done either way.
Dead, or in jail.
London wasn’t gonna let that happen.
Something crashed then shattered in the living room. Berlin headed there first. London jogged behind him to where Rio had pulled Phoenix out of the hot tub and now had him shoved against the wall with an arm to his throat.
Berlin roared, “What’s going on?”
London headed for the hot tub. The back patio doors had been slid all the way open so they were now folded. Pushed against the wall so the patio and inside living room were one big room now. He held out his hand to Shara.
She whimpered but grabbed his hand.
As he hauled her out of the hot tub, he said, “Go get dressed,” his voice low.
She scurried through the room, dripping water as she went.
“She was mine last night!” Rio yelled the words in Phoenix’s face. “But you can’t stand to lose, can you?”
“It’s how I play the game, dude.” Phoenix’s bright blue eyes flashed.
“Back off of Shara.” Rio glared.
“Both of you back off.” Berlin held up his hands. “Focus up, everyone. We have a meeting in twenty, so get cleaned up.”
London winced. Berlin’s “meetings” usually meant at least one of them wound up bloody. It made them all better at what they did, so no one complained during.
Just after.
He headed for the pool table, where Miami lay stretched out, still asleep despite all the noise, and shook his shoulder. “Get up, bro. Meeting in twenty.”
TWO
“Someone in your predicament shouldn’t be so cocky.” Clare Juarez, owner and CEO of Vanguard Investigations, stood over the woman in the chair.
Selena struggled against the zip ties holding her hands together and her elbows to the chair. Her feet weren’t tied. Clare was an exacting taskmaster, but she wasn’t mean.
Clare studied the bound woman, watching for intention in her movement. The bite of her lower lip. The flicker of a frown on her forehead.
Selena tipped the chair backward.
“Don’t fall back if your hands are tied behind your back. You can break your fingers or wrists. Or even dislocate a shoulder.” Clare should know since her trigger finger still clicked sometimes. “Nearly got it?”
“I’m not gonna dislocate my thumb just to get out.”
“And I’m not gonna assume you might have a blade hidden on you somewhere. You could get searched.”
Selena grunted. “Kidnappers feeling me up. Sounds great.” She sucked in a breath. “I almost got it.” The frown on her forehead deepened.
Clare resisted the urge to circle the chair and see if Selena was right. Instead, she glanced over at the grunting from the room’s far end. Two of her employees were sparring in the raised boxing ring with no pads and no gloves. Mostly they seemed to be content trash-talking each other and then using elbows and knees.
The whole place smelled like sweat. Usually music pumped loudly through the expensive stereo system she’d had installed, but not this morning. The early crowd favored earbuds, using the wall of windows to assess their form as they lifted free weights.
