“I’m not talking about the money. I want you to look into it, but you’re right. I need a computer expert to figure out who stole that money from the accounts. That isn’t your gift.”
She hadn’t expected him to acknowledge that he needed someone else. He sounded grim but resigned. She braced herself for what was coming. She had a very bad feeling.
“I’m talking about you needing a man to take care of you. And I want to make it very clear that the only man you’re going to have in your life is me.”
Her heart jumped and then went crazy. She was in so much trouble. She pressed her lips together to keep from blurting out the hell no that pounded through her brain.
“I thought we agreed that would be a bad idea. I’m not looking to lose this job anytime soon.” She forced her eyes to meet his. “Do you have someone else you want to do the books? Have I let you down and you didn’t say anything?”
Swift impatience crossed his face. “No one else is going to touch the books. That’s been your job for the last seven years, and it will always be yours. I think you get that you can’t just walk away after working with me all these years. You know more about what I do than anyone else. It wouldn’t be safe for you to decide to leave.”
There it was—a clear threat. She didn’t pretend to misunderstand. Her chin went up and she glared at him. “I don’t appreciate the threat, Alan. I’ve always been loyal, and I don’t understand where all this is coming from. Why after all this time you suddenly feel the need to threaten me. I’ve gotten you out of trouble more than once. I found the people who were supposed to be loyal to you, skimming money off the top, and reported it to you.” Mostly, she’d done that just in case he was testing her. That would be like him. She didn’t like that those people had disappeared. She felt the weight of responsibility for them, although he could have simply fired them. She hadn’t heard in the news about bodies appearing. “Why the sudden problem with me?”
He was silent for so long that she didn’t think he would answer. He just stared at her, and she didn’t like the way he was doing it. Again, he had that speculation and a little too much lust, as if he suddenly saw her differently. She wanted to pull her sweatshirt around her and check to make certain her body wasn’t on display. She sat quietly, keeping her fingers twisted tightly in her lap, her mind on the stapler and going through the steps she would take if she had to use it.
“I don’t have a problem with your work, Azelie, but let’s be real. You’ve grown up, and you look…well…the way you look. I’m surprised that some man hasn’t tried snatching you. It will happen though. We both need to face the fact that you’re not going to spend your life alone.”
She frowned. “The way I look? I’ve always looked this way. Men aren’t falling at my feet, Alan. Nor do I want them to. I’m going to school and working. I babysit a couple of children when their parents are in a jam. I write because it’s important to me.”
He didn’t ask what she meant by writing or what she wrote. He fixated on one thing only. “I don’t like that you watch kids for Bradley Tudor. He’s single and he definitely wants to fuck you.”
Her heart accelerated again. He knew about Bradley, even his last name. He’d been watching her—or he’d hired someone to do it for him. That wasn’t good. That was putting Bradley in jeopardy. The twins had already lost their mother. They didn’t need to lose their father, and the threat was there. She feared for Andrii now. Had it been reported that she was seeing him? She’d gone out with him. Did Billows know, and that was what this was all about? Her breath caught in her lungs and refused to move. It took her a moment to calm herself so she could sound natural.
“You’re very much mistaken, Alan. I think Bradley is dating someone. We have no interest in one another. If he feels differently, he wouldn’t get anywhere, because I don’t look at him that way. You know what happened with my sister and her husband.”
Deliberately, she pressed her hand to the one scar close to her heart from the bullet that had nearly ended her life. “I have no wish to be with anyone right now. I like my life just the way it is.” That wasn’t just a half-truth, it was a lie. A blatant lie. Since meeting Andrii, she desperately wanted to take a chance with him. To see if she could possibly have a real relationship. Now she knew, in order to protect him, she didn’t dare continue to see him. She just didn’t know how to tell him.
“I’m just letting you know, there had better be no dating. When you’re ready, you’ll be with me.”
She rolled her eyes and turned back to the computer.
“Do you hear me?”
“I hear you. We can take this up again at a future time. Just not now.”
He seemed to take her at her word and walked out, allowing her to breathe.
NINE
It hadn’t been difficult to attach the device Mechanic had engineered onto Azelie’s hoodie. It wasn’t detectable with normal equipment, which was what made the tiny camera so perfect. Even when Azelie went through the security screens, that hidden camera would never set off the alarms.
She went through a side entrance and then stopped at the desk of a guard. “This is why we can’t find the offices,” Maestro said to the other members of Torpedo Ink watching the situation unfold as Azelie made her way into the lion’s den. “The door is hidden in the wall panel. I’ve been there several times. I have an affinity with wood, and I didn’t find it.”
“You weren’t exactly running your hands over the wall,” Keys pointed out. “We didn’t have time, and we were ensuring no one could see us.”
Wood spoke to him in ways he didn’t understand. It always had. He touched it for any length of time and memories crowded in. Emotions long lost after others had touched the wood or worked with it. He saw and felt things others had no possibility of seeing. It was a strange gift to have, and one he was thankful for. Trees could be extremely old. Patient. Serene. Strong. They stood against vicious storms and sometimes endured fire, drought or flooding and survived.
Over the years, Maestro had learned a lot from wood he’d come into contact with. But there was always a downside with any gift. Sometimes it was seeing all the ugliness the trees had witnessed or the pain of the saws cutting through them. Sometimes the drawback was extremely simple, such as having to have his hands bare when he touched the surface. That meant fingerprints. DNA. His cells left behind.
When Torpedo Ink was on a mission that would likely include blood, violence and death, they always wore thin gloves. The gloves were really just a thin coating of barrier cream covering skin, impossible to detect. The fingerprints were not their own.
“She didn’t unlock the outer door with a key. She used that same keypad we used to break in,” Preacher pointed out.
“The fact that Billows has a guard sitting right in the hall entrance speaks volumes,” Czar said. “You were in the right place.”
The club members were gathered in the Airbnb they’d rented in preparation for raiding the nightclub to find the victims sent to Billows for training. They were certain the women would be held there if Billows had any victims at the time, but they had no blueprints to show them the underground offices. That was unusual. As a rule, Code was unstoppable with his computer. He was patient and meticulous and persevered until he got results. He hadn’t found the blueprints of the underground offices. They knew there were rooms below the two floors housing the Pleasure Train and the Adventure Club, but they had been unable to get inside them.
Code had managed to find Billows’ illegal accounts, powering through the layers of companies and diversions to find what they needed. He’d drained those accounts, making Torpedo Ink much wealthier. It was standard when they went after criminals to take their money. That enabled them to divert attention, so they had more of a cover when they physically went after their targets. It also ensured they had whatever funds they needed in their fight to stop human trafficking and pedophiles.
“Look at that guard,” Ice pointed out. “He can’t read her at all. She’s all smiles and politeness, but that’s the last place she wants to be.”
Maestro agreed. “She’s guarding what she says.”
The audio was astonishingly good. Azelie spoke in a low tone, but they could hear her clearly. They heard the guard warning her that her boss was in a lousy mood.
“Notice how carefully she chooses her words when she answers him. She doesn’t trust that man,” Lana said.
“Her brother-in-law got her involved when she was sixteen,” Maestro added.
“Once in, she isn’t getting out unless they kill her,” Master said. “Not with what she knows.”
“It’s clear she’s very aware she’s walking a tightrope,” Alena added. “She must be living under so much stress every single day.”
“He’s got eyes on her,” Storm reported. “Not all the time, but one of his men sits outside her apartment and follows her to the park occasionally.”
“Man by the name of Andrew McGrady,” Code chimed in. “He’s a real peach. Domestic violence charges with nearly every girlfriend. Bar fights. Breaking and entering. He’s got a rap sheet the size of Texas.”
