Chapter 22
Twenty-Two
JULIAN
“What in the actual FUCK happened?” I demand as I walk into my warehouse, Mateo, Carson, and Rome right behind me.
Jack’s already here. He was closer when the call came in.
I left my wife, asleep in our bed, so I could get here too fucking late.
“They took it all, boss,” Jack says. He’s pale and shaken, and my number two is never pale and shaken.
“There’s no way,” Mateo says, shaking his head, but I move to where three of my men are standing at attention, clearly shaken up.
The other three, including Draco, are fucking dead.
“Report.” I sound calm. I always sound fucking calm. When in reality, I’m ready to blow the whole world apart. The guys shuffle and look at each other, and I yell, “REPORT!”
“We were ambushed,” Tony says, shaking his head. “The product arrived, on schedule. We accounted for everything. It was routine, nothing out of the ordinary.”
“We had just finished inventory,” Shawn adds. “Moved everything to the containers you specified, and then suddenly, smoke bombs rolled in through the big doors and filled the room fast.”
I can still smell it in the air.
“About a dozen men, all in black and armed to the nines, ran inside,” Tony continues. “Shot Draco first, then the other two. They were out the door, with the shipment, in less than five minutes.”
Motherfucker.
“What did they look like?” I ask them.
“They were in gas masks,” Shawn says. “Black clothes, like special ops or some kind of professionals. These guys weren’t foot soldiers, boss.”
I glance over at Carson, and he’s already making calls. He has contacts with exactly the kind of professionals Shawn is describing.
“I need to get to my office so I can watch security cam footage.” I pace away and drag my hand down my face before I kneel next to Draco.
This man served under my father. He’d been with our organization for decades and dedicated his life to us. He had no wife or children and always said that the job was his life. He didn’t have room for anything else.
He was a good friend and someone I respected.
The motherfucker behind this is going to pay dearly.
“Clean this up,” I say to Jack. “Pay the other two’s families.”
“I’ll handle it,” Jack says with a nod, and I walk over to where my brothers stand talking.
“No one knew about this,” I tell them and feel exhaustion settle in.
“It’s just like LA,” Rome replies. “Someone knew, Julian.”
Shaking my head, I run it down for them. “Obviously the men in this room, along with the supplier. That’s it.”
“Then you have a mole,” Mateo says grimly.
“Fuck no, I don’t.” The mere thought of it makes me want to come out of my skin. “My men have been with me for years.”
“How careful are you about what you say in front of your pretty little wife?” Carson asks.
“That’s out of the question.”
“Why?” Rome counters. “Because she’s beautiful and young? Listen, I’ve been in your position. My brothers insinuating that my wife was a plant. But you don’t know her well, and although her father is a grade A piece of shit, he’s still her father. Is she funneling intel back to him?”
“Absolutely not.” I laugh at the absurdity of the idea. “She’s not a plant for her father. She hates his guts.”
“Or maybe her father planted a bug on her.” Mateo shrugs. “You have equipment that can scan electronics to see if they have tracking or listening devices.”
“Of course I do.”
“So use it,” Carson says. “Go through her things and make sure it’s not her.”
“It’s not my wife,” I grit out, so fucking frustrated that I want to stab them all in the neck. “For fuck’s sake. We don’t even know that there is an informant.”
“There has to be,” Jack says as he joins us. “This was locked down, Julian. Only this team knew about it. Forty million in gems are gone, three of our men are dead. There’s either a mole, or it’s an inside job.”
“Thanks for the recap,” I snap at him. “I’m going home, and I’ll degrade my wife by going through her things, just to prove to all of you that she’s not at fault for this.”
“Excellent,” Mateo says with a nod. “Then we can go hunting for the real mole. It’s a logical place to start, brother. Shit didn’t start to go down until you married her. I’m connecting the dots here.”
“Fuck all of you,” I growl as I stalk off to my Porsche and climb inside.
I’m fucking livid.
It’s a complete waste of time to go through Natasha’s things, but I’ll do it to appease the others so we can move forward and make whoever’s responsible for this pay. It’s not my sweet wife. She can’t stand her father. She’s afraid of him.
By the time I get home, dawn is breaking, and I’m surprised to find Natasha already up and in the kitchen. She’s holding a mug of coffee and smiles at me when I walk inside.
Immediately, my body calms down.
There’s no way that the woman who soothes me in every way, who lights me on fire, and makes me feel emotions that I never have before is double-crossing me.
It’s not fucking possible.
“Good morning,” she says as I walk to her. “I couldn’t sleep without you.”
“Have you been up since I left?” I ask as I pull her to me and bury my lips in her hair, breathing her in.
“I woke up about an hour ago and didn’t go back to sleep,” she says before placing a kiss over my heart. “God, you smell good. Is everything okay?”
She takes another deep breath, and it makes me smile.
“I need to ask you some questions.”
With a frown, Natasha turns that gorgeous face up to me, and I tuck her messy blond strands behind her ear.
“You can ask me anything.”
Good girl.
“Some shit went down early this morning that’s pretty fucking bad, Angel. I need to know if you know anything about that.”
Her eyebrows climb in surprise, and I can see it written all over her face that she has no idea what I’m talking about.
“I—no. I don’t.”
I nod and then let out a breath. “I need to look through your electronics.”
She pulls out of my arms and backs away from me, scowling. “What exactly are you accusing me of, Julian?”
“I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m trying to rule it out. I don’t think that you’ve done anything at all, but you’re the newest member in my circle. I think I have a mole, Natasha.”
Realization dawns in her eyes and she nods slowly. “And you think I’m the mole. For my father.”
“No, I’m proving that you’re not the one doing this so I can move on to hunting who is.”
Without a word, she turns and walks out of the kitchen, to where her new laptop—the one I bought for her after she informed us that hers was taken away—is sitting in the living room. She opens it, types in her password, and passes it to me.
“Here. I’ll go get my phone.”
“Natasha—”
“I’ll be right back. If you need to watch me to make sure I don’t delete anything, I understand.”
Without a word, I follow her, and she unplugs her phone, which was sitting next to her side of the bed, and passes it to me.
“Do you need my Kindle too?”
“No.”
She presses her lips together and crosses her arms over her chest, and I want to pull her against me and kiss her until we’re both calmed the hell down. Reassure her that this is just a formality.
“Do what you have to do,” she says, nodding to the electronics in my hands.
“Follow me.” Grimly, I walk down to my office, and Natasha walks next to me. First, I quickly scan her incoming and outgoing emails and texts, but there’s not much here, and nothing that catches my eye as suspicious.
Next, I open a drawer in my desk and pull out the device that scans for tracking and listening bugs.
Powering it on, I run it over both the laptop and the phone, but the red light stays lit. If there was anything here, it would change to green. I have it programmed not to make any noise, in case I have to search in front of an audience that I don’t want to be privy to the results of a scan.
Standing, I approach Natasha.
“Run it over me,” she says, putting her arms out wide. “I don’t have anything to hide from you.”
Grimly, I do just that. If her father implanted something subdermal, this would pick up on it. I start at the back of her body and scan over her skin, and when I circle to the front, I work my way up from her feet.
Nothing.
Until I get up to her chest and move the device over the pendant hanging around her neck.
Green.
I do it again, just to be sure, and keep my face impassive as I run it over her head and then set the device aside on the desk.
“See?” she says. “Nothing.”
Either she doesn’t know, or she’s a very good liar.
Shoving my hands in my pockets, I will my heart to calm down and keep my face neutral. She’s watching me closely.
Are you double-crossing me, Angel?
“Thank you,” I tell her softly. “And I’m sorry—”
“You don’t need to be sorry,” she replies and pushes her hands into mine, linking our fingers as she boosts up on her toes, offering her plump lips to me for a kiss.
I oblige her, but my mind is whirling.
“Now you can focus on finding the person trying to hurt you,” she says and pats me on the chest. “Is that what you’ll be doing today?”
“It seems so.” She’s never asked me about my plans before.
Is this who I am now? Questioning every word my wife says? Every question? Every smile?
Someone is listening to us through that pendant. She doesn’t wear it every single day, and she doesn’t wear it at night, but most days she has it on her.
She says it’s because it’s sentimental to her, but now I’m not so sure that’s true.
“I’ll be at warehouse six today,” I tell her, even though she has no idea what that means. “I have a smaller shipment coming in at around nine, and I want to be there for it personally.”
There’s no shipment. I’m testing out this pendant of hers.
“Please be careful.” She leans her forehead to my chest. “I’m going to meet with Scarlett and Lulu for breakfast. I guess it’s at a diner in Carson’s building. The one with the casino?”
“You’ll like it there,” I tell her and brush my hand down her hair. Christ, I’ve been falling in love with this woman, and all the while, has she been fucking spying on me? “You’ll take your detail.”
“Of course.” She smiles again, and then her face falls as she watches me. “You’re not okay, Julian.”
No, Angel, I’m not in the same vicinity as okay.
“I’ll be fine.”
“If you want me to skip breakfast with them, I can, and—”
“No, you should go. Enjoy yourself. I’m glad that the three of you are becoming close.”
But if you do something to hurt them, I’ll make your life a living hell.
Christ, I’m all fucked up. I need to set this plan of mine into place to test my theory.
And pray that I’m wrong because if I’m not, my wife is my goddamn mole. And I don’t think my heart can take that.