The Alpha Bodyguards Books #1-3

Chapter Twenty-Four

S awyer was silent until I pulled into a parking lot of a condo complex that had a view of the only road in and out of the Bal Harbour neighborhood.

“We need to call Luna.”

“We don’t need to do anything.” Looking over my shoulder, I backed into a spot. “Call him if you want a pickup.”

“You can’t do this alone.”

I threw the SUV in park, but kept the engine running. “What exactly do you think I’m doing?” I was sitting in the fucking Escalade. I didn’t need help to do that.

“You can’t take on Nathan Lewis on your own,” Sawyer warned.

I checked the review mirrors. “What makes you think I’m taking him on?” I was going after the bitch who’d had my kid and didn’t tell me about it.

“I’m not the enemy here, Collins.”

“I didn’t say you were, Sawyer .”

He looked out the window. “Do you even know anything about X?”

“No, and I don’t fucking care. Only assholes refer to themselves by an initial.”

“You should care. He knows everyone.”

“He doesn’t know me.”

Sawyer looked back at me, giving me a weighted stare. “You sure about that?”

What the fuck? “You got something to say, say it. ”

“How’d you meet her? What do you know about her? How’d she wind up with your kid and you not know about it?” He fired off a round of questions like a lawyer.

“Fuck you.” I wasn’t on trial.

“Those are legitimate questions you need to be asking yourself.” He went on like I hadn’t just told him to fuck off. “No one is friends with X. If you know him, he either uses you or plays you. He hunts out his targets, takes aim and executes like a pro. That’s what he does. He was a grifter for years, building a network of connections all over the city. Then he upped his game and partnered with the cartel.”

“How the fuck do you know him?” I couldn’t have been his target, not with how shit went down three years ago. No one knew I was coming home, least of all me.

“I don’t, but my dad did. He conned him out of millions.”

“Then why the fuck didn’t he prosecute him?” His dad could’ve done us all a favor.

“Because nothing touches the guy.”

“What’d he do?”

Sawyer was quiet a moment. “Long story.”

I settled back in my seat. I wasn’t leaving until I saw my truck. She had to come out of that house eventually. It wasn’t the ideal way to tail her, but it’s all I had. “I got time.” Not that I expected him to tell me shit. He never spoke about his family. Fuck, he didn’t talk about anything personal. So I was mildly shocked when he opened his mouth.

“There’s only two things my father cares about. Money and more money.”

I tipped my chin. “Real estate.” You weren’t a Floridian if you didn’t know his family name was big in real estate development and had been for generations.

He nodded. “And since there’s not much land left to develop in Miami, my father’s answer is to build up.”

“High-rises.” They were everywhere .

“Yeah. Well Lewis conned him on a piece of property he had the title on. Said he’d gotten the permits, and all he needed was capital to start building a luxury high-rise. He offered my dad an investment partnership knowing full well my father would try to just buy him out and develop the land himself. And that’s exactly what my father did. He offered him a premium price, and Lewis took the deal. Only problem? The permits to build were fake. Turned out the land is unstable for any kind of structure. Shifting tides, water table, and a host of other problems, it’d be cost prohibitive to build the property up just so you could put houses on it, let alone a high-rise.”

“Your father didn’t bother to check the legitimacy of the building permits from a known grifter?” What a fucking tool.

“Lewis wasn’t known then. And try telling my father anything.”

I shook my head. “Idiots come in all income brackets.”

“It gets better. When my father couldn’t unload the land, guess who bought it back for pennies on the dollar?”

I glanced at Sawyer. “You’ve got to be shitting me.”

Sawyer nodded. “Lewis. Gave a cool million back to my father for the title and turned around and pulled the same scheme on two more companies before the land was absorbed into the Port Authority tunnel project and he made money on that transaction as well.”

“Does no one in real estate talk to each other? How the fuck was this asshole scamming all these people?”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. You need Luna involved in this. What I just told you is only a fraction of what this guy is capable of.”

“So he swindled some real estate assholes.” Not my problem.

“Getting in bed with the cartel is a far cry from swindling someone on a real estate deal,” Sawyer pointed out.

“Like I said, I’m not going after him.” I was going after her. But the more shit Sawyer told me, the more my instinct was telling me something was fucking off with him and Brookelyn. Really fucking off .

But I didn’t have time to think about it.

I saw my truck pull up to the intersection leading out of Bal Harbour and get in the turn lane for the causeway that led off the barrier island. Brookelyn was behind the wheel.

“Here we go.” I pulled out of the parking lot.

“Don’t ride her close this time,” Sawyer warned. “Keep your distance.”

I refrained from telling him to fuck off and followed her. Keeping seven cars back, I tailed her as she drove through downtown. She skirted some of the major streets like she was avoiding traffic, then wound her way into a shit part of the city before stopping for gas.

I pulled into a chain pharmacy across the street and watched her.

Sawyer scanned the street then glanced back at her. “Something’s up. She’s not even looking for a tail.”

I noticed the same thing. “Agree.” Like she wanted to be found. “I can’t tell, but I don’t think the kid is in the car.”

“I don’t think so either,” Sawyer agreed. “She hasn’t looked in the back seat once since she’s been pumping gas, and she didn’t open the window when she cut the engine.”

I thought about approaching her at the gas station, but there were too many people and too many security cameras. I didn’t know how far-reaching that asshole Lewis’s resources were, but I wasn’t going to make shit easy on him by being stupid. “I want to see where she goes next.”

“Copy.” Sawyer settled back in his seat.

She finished pumping gas and got back in the truck. A few minutes later, I followed her as she pulled into a strip mall in a less-than-safe neighborhood and parked in front of a dry cleaners.

I pulled halfway around the side of the building, but kept the front of SUV nosed out enough to see what the fuck she was up to. When she opened her door and got out with a laundry bag, I unclicked my seat belt.

“I’m gonna talk to her. Get behind the wheel and keep your comm on.” I got out of the SUV. “Be ready to roll if she’s on the move.”

Sawyer nodded once, but didn’t comment.

I jogged across the parking lot and skirted the back of the truck to the passenger side. Keeping hidden from the front window of the dry cleaners, I tried the passenger door.

Unlocked.

I got in the back seat.