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Chapter Seven
Alonzo was furious.Standing in the center of the room he’d been using as a home office, he surveyed the damage he’d done during his latest rampage. Fucking hell. His father would be enraged, and for the first time in his life, Alonzo wouldn’t be able to discount the old man’s anger. Turning to the men who’d been forced to leave the woman with a group of men no one knew, he waved his hand in a circle and snarled.
“Get a crew up here to fix this before my old man sees it.” Clenching his fists at his sides to keep from throwing the only remaining glass figure against the wall, Alonzo snarled, “I don’t care what it costs. Fix it.” Nodding, the younger man punched in two numbers before putting his phone to his ear. Knowing his righthand man kept a clean-up crew on speed dial was damned humbling. Alonzo needed to get his temper under control—and he would. It wouldn’t happen today, but soon… maybe.
“The two guys you sent to the pier called in. Nobody knows who was running an op on the pier. Our tech team called. Somebody tapped every street cam in a two-mile radius.”
“Who?” When the man shook his head, Alonzo growled, “Fucking find out.” Pacing the length of the room, kicking broken furniture out of his path, Alonzo’s mind was spinning as he tried to figure out how to salvage the operation. “We need to clear out of here. Get the merchandise loaded. We’ll keep them in the warehouse until the plane arrives. Find out how quickly we can get a jet in here.” It wasn’t the best solution, but the woman who’d escaped would be singing like a damned canary by now. They needed to move before law enforcement could secure a search warrant. The locals would be reluctant to move against Victor Cruz, but they could only stall for a few hours before it raised questions.
“I’ve already called in extra help. They’ll be here with a moving truck in a few minutes, and the boat is being moved to a small dock at the storage facility. We’ll have to wait to load from the warehouse, or we’ll draw unwanted attention.”
Alonzo appreciated the man’s quick planning. Truthfully, his staff kept his ass out of the fire so often, he should be more appreciative, but humble wasn’t a word anyone would use to describe him.
“What’s our cover story? Seems like a moving truck will draw attention.” Picking apart a plan he had put no effort into seemed petty, but he didn’t care.
“There’s a false wall in the truck. Any official who opens the back will see boxes—maybe a few pieces of furniture, but nothing else.” It was a damned good plan for no longer than he’d had to pull things together.
“Umm.” Sighing to himself, Alonzo nodded. “Thank you.” The other man looked temporarily taken aback, and Alonzo suddenly understood what his father had been preaching for years. A little appreciation goes a long way.
“Anyone watching the house will follow the truck. You and I will take the Mercedes to an exclusive diner at the other end of the island. The eatery is small enough to ensure the staff and patrons alike are more likely to remember you were there. Being generous will guarantee they remember you and give anyone asking questions a glowing description of how personable you were.”
“How long will it take to get a plane in here?” He needed to get the people off the island as quickly as possible.
“Tomorrow night, but then we’ll be dealing with a storm, so the bigger issue is how long until it can take off.”
Before he could ask about the weather change, Alonzo felt the vibration of a truck entering the underground garage.
“I’ll meet you in the garage in fifteen minutes.” Opening the hidden door to his private quarters, Alonzo wasn’t going to waste any more time. If he was going to come out of this unscathed, he needed to stay on track. He refocused his attention on figuring out who the hell rescued the woman who escaped. He also needed to get the hell off this damned island before the cops secured a warrant. Once again, his sexual appetite and ego had gotten him in a mess—a mess that would spell disaster for his father if it became public.
*
“I fucking hatewaiting.” Cam Barnes watched the monitor as a moving van left the Cruz beach house. He’d elected to stay in his Houston office to monitor the house the young woman identified. Despite her ordeal, Saraya Reynolds’s prediction the occupants would move quickly had been dead on. When they’d shown Miami pictures of the men who’d chased Saraya, she’d confirmed they were both on the boat registered to Victor Cruz. The elder Cruz might be the owner of record, but it was widely understood his son used the yacht.
“I know it’s taking longer than normal to get warrants, but we’re going around the locals. It’s a safe bet Cruz has contacts inside the island’s small local law enforcement community.” Kyle’s comment did little to alleviate Cam’s annoyance.
Looking around the room, Cam smiled to himself. Working from his office at Dark Desires in Houston was always filled with great memories. The space reminded him of a time in his life when very little mattered but the pursuit of pleasure. He still owned the club, even though he was no longer involved in the day-to-day operations.
As part of the compromise to keep his wife safely at home, Kent and Kyle West agreed to host a large group of Tobi’s friends for a pool party. The wild women she’d invited usually meant any member of the West’s special operations teams not currently on a mission found themselves assigned to the group known as trouble magnets. Sitting next to Cam, Kyle glanced at his phone and smiled.
“We tossed a coin to see who had to stay and help host the party. Kent keeps sending me thinly veiled threats, but I’m not taking the bait. We’re planning a little trip for our upcoming anniversary, and the grumpy bastard is threatening to leave me at home to run the club.”
Cam laughed because he knew the brothers well enough to be assured Kent wasn’t making idle threats. Cam shook his head, letting his gaze move over the bank of monitors. The Wests always had each other’s back, but that didn’t mean there weren’t moments of conflict and competition.
“I know a random traffic stop will be a waste of time. This is a typical vehicle for trafficking. I’ll bet anything there is a false back in that truck. The bastards have stashed everyone in a space so small, they’ll be sitting atop one another.” Tracking the truck’s progress via street cams was frustrating, but the cars they’d assigned to follow it needed to work in a relay and stay far enough behind to avoid drawing attention.
“We’ve stationed state officers on the street leading to the airport’s entrance. They’ll find some reason to stop the truck if it looks like they are headed to the private terminals.” Kent’s tone indicated he was as frustrated as every other member of the team.
Cam knew they could argue there was reasonable cause to believe there were endangered people inside the house and now the truck. He also understood it would be a hard sell in court. Without the help of the local police, they didn’t have enough people in place to ensure the safety of everyone involved, so they’d been forced to wait.
“They’re turning into a warehouse area. There’s a small dock nearby… but, I’m not sure it’s large enough for them to load directly onto a yacht without anyone noticing. It’s possible they are just moving people around to keep us from tracking them.” Kyle knew as well as Cam that moving made getting a warrant more difficult since they had to list a specific address and outline exactly what they were looking for before any judge would sign off. When judges learned they were authorizing searches of prominent politicians’ properties—even those from other countries—they tended to be particularly paranoid.
Shaking his head, Cam snarled several choice profanities before typing furiously. He needed to light a fire under the state officials charged with securing the paperwork. They needed to restart the entire process. Snarling at the keyboard, he pressed the keys with more force than necessary.
“Fucking hell, I miss the freedom of working for the Agency. No other country in the world is as anal retentive about warrants as this one. Cruz isn’t even a U.S. citizen. The way the judge is kissing his ass, you’d think he was the king of the Western Hemisphere.”
“I never figured you for a whiner, Cam.” Kyle laughed and shook his head. “Don’t worry, they aren’t going anywhere. We’ll play by the rules until we don’t.” The other man shrugged as if the nonsense he’d just spouted made sense.
“I’m not even going to try to figure out what that means. Sometimes, I think Tobi is contagious. Her convoluted way of expressing herself has rubbed off on the two of you.” Kyle and Kent’s wife was a wildcard by anyone’s definition, but the petite blonde also had a heart the size of Texas. She was as hardworking as anyone Cam had ever met, and he was convinced the petite blonde had never met a stranger.
