AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“What’s wrong?” Bryce asked.
“I was hoping it was someone else. But it’s Chris.”
“Ask him why he hasn’t responded to any of my texts.”
“You ask him.”
Bryce yanked the phone from his hand and started texting.
Rand cursed and said, “I meant from your own phone.”
“This works.”
“Be sure to tell him it’s you.”
“Whatever.”
After texting back and forth a few times, Bryce let out a laugh, then handed the phone back. Rand cringed when he saw the screen and added to the text conversation.
Rand
Sorry man. Bryce grabbed my phone.
Chris
I figured it was him when he started complaining the women left last night right after I did.
Served him right. He’s an ass. Have fun with him when I’m gone.
He’ll grow up eventually.
The server arrived with their beers, and Rand ordered sliders and fries. Bryce ogled the woman’s ass as she walked away, but from the way she was swinging it, Rand didn’t think she’d mind. He was young and not smart, but he was good-looking and powerfully built. The kid might as well enjoy himself as long as he was single and the women consented to the attention.
“How ’bout we place a bet on who gets her number.”
“I don’t play those kinds of dumbass games. She’s not a commodity, she’s a person.”
Bryce shrugged. “Yeah, I figured she’s more into me than you too.”
Rand rolled his eyes and sipped his beer, regretting now that he’d ordered food. He was stuck here for a little while at least.
Oh well. It wasn’t like Kira was going to text him. Might as well babysit the baby SEAL.
Chapter Fifty
It was early evening by the time Chris punched the code into the rental house’s security panel and the door unlocked with a soft click. He pushed it open and entered first, searching both floors before returning to the garage to give Diana the all clear.
The house was a rental in Dumfries, Virginia, arranged by Freya with the actual rental being handled by a Raptor shell corporation so it couldn’t be traced back to Chris or Diana.
Freya had managed to get the State Department to back off on their request to interview Diana again until the bombing could be investigated, which gave everyone some breathing room.
For now, any agreement on extradition had been placed on hold.
It was one thing to be hiding from the government—neither FMV nor Raptor could harbor fugitives—but quite another to protect a woman who’d been targeted in a terrorist bombing, and everyone was onboard with that.
It was hard to imagine either Dennis or Mason Gardner being behind the bombing when the only penalty the billionaire family faced was fines for customs violations. But nothing could be ruled out at this point. They still had the money motivation of Diana knowing the artifacts they wanted to replicate were looted goods.
Still, the focus remained on the other side of the equation: the artifact supply chain. The people who had taken Diana were funneling artifacts to the Gardner family and their Historie store, but they also likely had other US clients. With the Jordanian broker identified as the man who’d forced Diana to reveal the site location, they might be able to use the auction house data to figure out who else was buying from Taha and Rafiq.
