“I’ll take care of everyone,” Luc promised. “I would have done it sooner if Cousin Deke had called me…”

  Kimber’s husband scowled like food was the last thing on his mind, so the colonel filled the dead air. “Thank you for feeding us.”

  Trees wondered how much would actually get eaten by this highly stressed crowd.

  “You’re welcome. We’ll be back to see how else we can help after we drop Dulce off and have a fun-filled meeting with the Joint Chiefs. The work of a military contractor is never done,” Xander bantered. “The offer of a plane stands, by the way. We’re more than happy to lend our jet to the cause if you need it.”

  With that, Trees realized exactly who these two were.

  Caleb nodded the brothers’ way. “We might need to take you up on that.”

  Did that mean he’d be bugging out to find Laila shortly? Trees hoped so, but the colonel didn’t elaborate.

  After the brothers waved and headed out the door, Caleb turned to him. “That was Javier and Xander—”

  “Santiago. S.I. Industries, right?”

  “Yes.”

  Trees knew of the military contractors. Nearly everyone in this line of work did. After some recent bumps in their corporate road, they had rectified their problems and were now on their way to being the best out there. And they were wealthy as fuck. “How do you know them?”

  “Logan and Xander have been friends forever.”

  That explained how his bosses had gotten their hands on some awesome toys security companies usually couldn’t. It helped to have friends in high places. But that wasn’t Trees’s first concern. “Am I taking a trip on their jet to find Laila?”

  “Possibly. Follow me.”

  Trees trailed the colonel down a hallway before ducking into the lone office filled with an old iron desk and a fuck-ton of surveillance equipment. In the room’s only chair, Joaquin sat, furiously scanning a screen. Whatever he’d been watching ended. The guy sighed and plucked out a pair of earbuds, sat back, then gave the two of them his attention.

  “If none of us know, why would he?” Muñoz pointed a thumb in his direction.

  “He’s talked to Laila more than anyone else. Maybe she told him something…”

  Joaquin shrugged and stood. “Unlikely, but worth a shot. That’s why you brought him here?”

  “Yeah. Set up the clip again,” Caleb insisted of his stepson, then turned to him. “Sit.”

  As Trees settled in the office chair and fixed his gaze on the blank computer screen, the door to the office burst open. A guy he’d seen around EM’s office, One-Mile Walker’s buddy Matt Montgomery, burst in. “There’s a new development to all this. A couple of them, actually. If you want to come see…”

  Joaquin dashed out immediately. The colonel looked torn, then finally sighed. “We just got our hands on this footage. It happened less than two hours ago. Barring whatever new developments Matt has, this is all we know. Maybe you can fill in some blanks, mostly why.”

  Whatever it was didn’t sound good. Apprehension gripped Trees. Had something happened to Laila? The colonel was gone before he could ask, and Trees figured it was better this way. Whatever was on this video—which must have something to do with the woman he loved—he wanted to see it alone.

  As if the earbuds were a snake, he reached for them carefully, blowing out a breath and bracing himself. It was possible she was being harmed. Tortured or raped. Frowning, he shoved the buds in his ears, started the video, and gripped the computer, every muscle in his body taut.

  Montilla’s classic fifty-million-dollar Ferrari, parked in a garage, immediately filled the screen. If Laila had something to do with this vehicle, did that mean the drug lord had taken her? Though Trees had known that was possible, it still filled him with a whole pile of oh, fuck. But he refused to lose his shit—or his hope. No matter what it took, he would save Laila. Because in the last twenty-four hours he’d come to one conclusion: she might have walked out of his house without a fight, but that didn’t mean she had actually been willing. If she had been, why had she taken a pair of his guns? She would do anything for her family, and almost everyone knew it.

  Ten more seconds of footage later, the garage door opened to reveal night. The light inside the garage flashed on. A pair of armed men walked in, one a scruffy punk with dirty blond hair and a chin-pube beard, the other a beefy black dude in a wifebeater. He scowled. Who the hell were they?

  A moment later, Laila entered the garage behind them. No, she swayed, swinging her hips in those goddamn short denim shorts that somehow looked even shorter. Her tank covered less skin than he remembered, and she wasn’t wearing a goddamn bra. What she was doing? Flirting her ass off.

  What the actual fuck?

  “Que carro más lindo,” she said, all but feeling up her tits to draw attention to them.

  The dirty blond guy certainly stared there—and seemed to get lost. “Huh?”

  “What a beautiful car,” she translated as she sashayed closer to him. “The more I look at it, the more I become”—she licked her lips, then bit the bottom one provocatively—“wet. Who will help me with that?”

  She was inviting them to touch her? To fuck her? Why?

  But he knew the answer. She was manipulating them. It was the same reason she’d awakened him once upon a time with her mouth around his dick. Because her life was in danger? Because she’d been threatened? Or was there something else going on here?

  “I will.” The slouchy delinquent was embarrassingly eager.

  The bigger man elbowed him. “Don’t you have a girlfriend? Besides, she’s too much woman for you. I got her.”

  Laila laid her fingers on the guy’s wifebeater and flashed him an inviting smile. Then she did the same to the blond man. “I am feeling…adventurous. There is enough of me to go around.”

  She couldn’t be fucking serious. She was dangling her body in front of them and blinding them with lust for a reason, right?

  The exact reason she did the same to you?

  The punk’s eyes bugged out. “You think you can take us both?”

  “I want to try.” She ran her graceful fingers along the side of Montilla’s car, caressing it like a lover. Then she bent over the hood and stuck her ass in the air, wriggling suggestively. “I think I would like it.”

  “Hmm, baby.” The big one sidled up behind her, gripped her hips, and began dry-humping her backside.

  Then Trees saw it. Laila grimaced before she blanked her expression.

  “Not here, dude.” The blond guy bobbed his pale head up to the corner of the garage.

  Her stare followed the gesture, and she blanched when she caught sight of the cameras. Yeah, she was worried. No, afraid. What the hell was going on?

  The guy in the wifebeater stepped back and seized her arm. “He’s right. Damn it.”

  Laila turned to nuzzle her face in the man’s neck. Then she repeated the gesture with the puny putz. Ruse or not, she was laying it on thick, and it was goddamn hard to watch.

  “Let us go to the guard shack, then,” she murmured. “I am impatient.”

  To get tag-teamed by these two losers? They seemed to think so, but Trees wasn’t buying it. Or maybe he didn’t want to. But he’d seen her face in passion. This was all bullshit.

  For what cause?

  “Good call. Follow me.” The big one dragged Laila out of the garage.

  When the two of them disappeared, the scrawny one tried to grow a brain. “Wait! We’re not supposed to leave the garage open. Anyone could come in and steal the car.”

  “Who do you think is around to do that?” the other guy asked off camera.

  After some arguing back and forth, the blond guy finally caved and stomped after them, leaving the garage door open.

  Thirty seconds later, the light in the garage clicked off. Must be on a motion sensor, he thought vaguely. But what really worried the hell out of him was Laila. What was she doing during this timeframe, fucking frick and frack in the guard shack?

  Why?

  Not ten seconds later, another man sneaked into the garage. The light flashed on again, and he tried skulking in the shadows, but he was wearing the same clothes, right down to the ski mask, as the asshole who had taken Laila.

  Trees’s heart rate surged as he watched the man slink around the garage, find the keys to the car hanging on a hook at the back, then slide into the classic automobile. The engine turned over with a purr, and since someone had clearly backed the car in, the stranger in the ski mask merely had to ease it out.

  The timing was too coincidental for Laila’s “seduction” not to be premeditated. She had cooperated with the man who’d taken her from his house to steal Montilla’s coveted car. For money? For revenge? Nothing made sense.

  Suddenly, the man ripped off his ski mask. From the back, Trees saw only the man’s shoulders and his dark head. Who the fuck was this guy? Why had he taken Laila and coerced her into this mess?

  Just as the driver was exiting the garage, he stopped abruptly and stroked the dashboard. “Get in. Montilla is going to miss the hell out of this car. Too bad for that fucking bastard.”

  “Go!” That was Laila. She sounded panicked. “I will meet you by the rental truck in five minutes.”

  The man merely nodded, offering no argument at all. What the fuck? Was she his captive…or his partner in crime?

  As the sounds of frantic footfalls faded away, the guy behind the wheel turned to watch her go. Trees glimpsed the bastard’s profile. His blood went cold.

  Victor fucking Ramos.

  That changed everything.

  The bastard disappeared from his view and the clip ended.

  Trees ripped the buds from his ears. Since her family was safe, the asswipe must be holding something over Laila’s head.

  Trees stood, determined to get to her. Laila had been in Florida a couple of hours ago. That was a place to start. With or without his bosses’ consent, he was going.

  Halfway down the hall, Matt met him, adjusting the cowboy hat he always wore. “You done watching the video?”

  “Yeah.” He tried to sidestep the guy and reach the colonel.

  Matt stepped in his path again. “They’re busy working other angles of Kimber’s whereabouts, so you and I will be following the lead from that video. What are you thinking?”

  “That we need to get the fuck to Florida, and that every second I waste explaining myself is another second this bastard has to use Laila before he hurts her—”

  “Why would he do that when she helped him? She’s obviously in on it.”

  “Laila would never voluntarily help that asshole.”

  “You know who he is?” That clearly surprised Matt.

  “Victor Ramos.”

  “We figured out that he was an ‘associate’ of Emilo Montilla, like we guessed he and Laila had met in her brother-in-law’s compound. What we couldn’t figure out was why they would steal Geraldo Montilla’s car.”

  Valid question, but not the one Trees wanted answered most.

  “I need to get on the fucking road now. If you want to hear what I think, follow me while I walk, but I’m not standing around jawing about this when Laila is in danger.” He stalked down the hall.

  “Don’t you get it?” Matt asked in small words, as if he thought Trees was too slow to grasp the situation. “Laila was an accomplice to that theft and—”

  “Don’t you get it?” Trees whirled and growled. “Ramos was Laila’s rapist for six years. So no. If she ‘helped’ the asshole, it’s because he forced her. I need to figure out how and save her.”

  “I’m coming with you.”

  “Fuck off.”

  Matt’s face hardened. “That’s not going to fly with the Edgingtons.”

  Trees pushed down his volcanic rage. First his bosses thought he was the mole, and now they thought he needed a babysitter? Yep, and since they were sending Matt, who had been brought on expressly to find Kimber, then saving Laila was further down their priority list. “This is bullshit.”

  He didn’t wait to see if Matt replied, just stomped into the war room. Most everyone had grabbed a plate and was now sitting in front of their computers, eating while downing fresh coffee. Luc stood in the corner, quietly on the phone. They all looked up when he walked in.

  “Well?” the colonel prompted.

  “I won’t know anything until I get to Laila.”

  The older man nodded. “Matt will fill you in on the newest developments.”

  “Take him with you, and remember that your first priority is to figure out where my sister is,” Logan reminded. “If you get any chance to bring her back safely—”

  “He knows,” Hunter interrupted.

  “Yep,” Trees assured because Kimber was the glue that held the Edgingtons’ lives together. But he needed Laila back to stop his heart from shattering. “Laila is your client. Shouldn’t retrieving her be pretty fucking important, too?”

  The Edgington brothers glanced at one another, then Hunter sighed. “Yes, and Valeria is beside herself with worry. If you can bring Laila back, do it. But if Montilla is pursuing her, and she can lead us to him…”

  He should use Laila as bait. That’s what Hunter was suggesting. No one else in the room was refuting him.

  Son of a bitch.

  Trees gave them a terse nod because if he said anything, he’d speak his mind and be out of a job. The way shit had gone lately, that might not be so bad…except this was his best opportunity to find Laila. This crew knew more about her whereabouts, so he couldn’t afford to balk.

  “Got it.” When he stomped toward the door, Hunter blocked his path. “One more thing before you go. Zy pointed out recently that, as bosses, Logan, Joaquin, and I have been complete assholes.”

  Trees wasn’t about to pull his punches. “You have.”

  Hunter’s tight smile was a silent mea culpa. “We’ve apologized to Zy for keeping him and Tessa apart. We’re trying to do better. We owe you an apology, too, for assuming you were our mole.”

  “Your assumption was logical, but it sucked. Maybe next time, investigate more and assume less before you start throwing accusations around?”

  “Yeah. The fact you stayed with us and did a damn great job when we suspected the worst of you…” Hunter stuck out his hand. “Thanks. It won’t happen again.”

  “It fucking better not.”

  Hunter paused like he was choosing his next words carefully. “Zy says you have feelings for Laila.”

  “I’m in love with her, and before you give me the speech about not falling for a client—”

  “You can’t help who you fall for. To be honest, it’s fucking inconvenient. Valeria is pissed, and it’s not good for our reputation if word gets out that you seduced a client—”

  “Fuck you. It’s not like I wanted to have feelings for her—”

  “But”—Hunter held up his hands to stop his tirade—“it happens. We understand you’re worried about Laila. You’re motivated to find her and get her to safety.”

  “Yep. And I want it on record that I think you using her as bait is both wrong and reckless. But I know you’re worried about your sister.”

  “It’s been ten days. We’re desperate.” Hunter sounded choked up.

  “I’ll do my best to find her.”

  “Thanks.” Logan approached and stuck out his hand. “We’re sorry for everything.”

  Trees shook it and nodded.

  Joaquin repeated the gesture, then bobbed his head toward the door. “Go ahead. I know you’re anxious to get on Laila’s trail. I’ll text you the location of the Santiagos’ private jet. How soon can you get a bag and get out of here?”

  “I have one in my Hummer.”

  “Of course the prepper is prepped.” He smiled wryly. “You and Matt will fly to Florida with one of Oracle’s operators, Trevor Forsythe. He’s former FBI and a great investigator. You’ll also be joined by a friend of Jack Cole’s. He goes by the handle Ghost. I don’t know much about him.”

  “You don’t need to,” Jack piped up from across the room. “Except you shouldn’t fuck with him. That’s my advice.”

  Trees didn’t want to dick around with any of these guys. “Roger that.”

  “Report in often, stay safe, and do your best.”

  Trees didn’t want more babysitters. He liked to work alone, particularly since he was usually hacking his way into other people’s tech, but he wanted to waste time arguing about his company-sponsored daddies even less. “Any parameters?”

  The trio of bosses looked at one another, then shook their head. “Just do what needs to be done.”

  Chapter Three

  “If we want to hit the ground running, we should game plan before we land,” Matt suggested in the seat beside him, cowboy hat perched on his knee.

  Trees didn’t disagree, but it was fucking hard to plan when they had no idea what they’d find once they hit the ground. “I’m going straight to the racetrack to talk to the two”—horny assholes—“security guards who last saw Laila.”

  Matt nodded. “We don’t know what she might have said to them once they walked off camera. I’ll go with you. The other two can grab a car and start trailing the truck Victor Ramos rented in his late brother’s name.”

  If the cowboy stayed out of his way… “Works for me.”

  Trevor seemed like a stand-up guy. Coincidentally enough, he and One-Mile Walker had gone to high school together. Neither had been a big fan of the other. Trevor had nicknamed Walker Serial Killer, which proved that Forsythe had decent instincts. Jack Cole’s friend Ghost, on the other hand? Trees was more than cool keeping distance between them. If someone had put a gun to his head and forced him to describe the guy in one line, tatted-up, antisocial badass motherfucker would be about right. Apparently, his name was Grayson. Trees didn’t know if that was first or last, and he didn’t feel like asking since he was pretty sure Ghost would look through him with those dead, silvery eyes—before he tried gouging out his heart with a screwdriver.

  Montgomery’s phone dinged. “I just got an update from Stone in the war room. Looks like the U-Haul is still traveling north, on approach to Tallahassee.”