24. Emerson
Emerson
Seeing as Thad had already joined me in release, I joined him in the shower. Much to my extreme disappointment, it was just a shower. There was no touching. No groping. No grinding. But there had been a few kisses.
There were a lot of things I’d thought I remembered about Thad. Things I’d sworn I’d never forget, but I’d been wrong. I had forgotten how good he kissed. How good his mouth felt on mine. But mostly I’d forgotten that when Thaddeus Bench kissed, he took you on a journey.
It was an epic experience full of slowly building peaks and valleys that kept you guessing when the climax would hit. It was fabulous. Better than I’d remembered. And that was saying a lot because I’d remembered every inch of him was otherworldly and that included his mouth.
Now we were walking down the stairs with my hand in his, and my fear and doubt had started to take root.
This was crazy.
This had heartbreak written all over it.
I wasn’t even sure I knew how to be in a relationship.
Hell, I didn’t even know who I was anymore.
I was sure, however, Thaddeus deserved better than me and one day he’d wake up and realize how stupid this had been.
Us holding onto the past, like lightning would strike twice and we could have what we once shared.
Further, I knew I was gonna take the chance even though I was scared to death because I needed this time. He did have one thing right; it would be worth the pain I’d feel after he left me.
That was, if I survived.
“Well, well, well, look what we have here.” Max’s comment had my head snapping in his direction. “Looks like someone owes me a bottle of Grey Goose?”
Thad stopped our progress when we hit the bottom of the stairs and stood still.
“You?” Declan asked with a shake of his head. “I think he owes me a couple of cigars and a bottle of scotch. Not to mention, Zane’s giving me a raise. And I want it on record, we’re not ever doing this shit again.”
“It’ll be better if we just wait them out,” Thad whispered.
“Wait for them to do what?”
“Dish out their shit. There are only four of them, it’ll be quick.”
“You mean five,” Tatiana spoke up. “I think I remember you saying it was amusing when Brooks and I were working through our issues.”
“Issues?” Declan chimed in. “Is that what we’re calling that clusterfuck now?”
I was kind of lost and wasn’t sure what any of them were talking about.
“No. I said, it was amusing watching Brooks chase his tail while the two of you were dancing around each other,” Thad told her.
“Yeah, and I remember you fuckin’ with me thinking it was funny cuddling up next to her on the couch,” Brooks added.
Say what? Thad had cuddled Tatiana?
“That was not cuddling, that was working. It wasn’t my fault you were jealous. And besides, I think I more than made up for it with the pint of blood I gave your wife. And I picked out her wedding ring.”
Thad gave Tatiana a pint of blood? What? I was so lost.
“Dude,” Max interjected. “I picked out her ring.”
“The hell you did. I’m the one who found it in the first place,” Kyle said.
“Jesus,” Declan mumbled. “I’m putting Zane’s name in the hat for sainthood. Serious as shit, the next one of you fuckers who thinks about finding a woman, I’m castrating you. Straight out, chopping your balls off.”
“Don’t look at me, that’s never gonna happen. I’m a one-man show.” Max put his hands in front of him, warding off imminent castration.
“Yeah, ya are. And you have the callouses to prove it.” Kyle laughed.
“Fuck off, at least I’ve had a woman. I’m on the fence about you being a virgin,” Max groused.
“Brother, you’ve got to be joking. Kyle is a dog.” Brooks laughed.
“Now that you all have successfully scared the shit outta my woman, do you think we can cut the shit?” Thad asked.
“Right. Better to start as you intend to go and she needs to know straightaway what she’s dealing with,” Max told him.
“Well, that was easy.” I looked up at Thad. “I thought they’d give you more shit.”
“Don’t encourage them, a gápi mou, they have more to dish out, trust me.”
“So while you lazy asses were all catching up on your beauty rest, Garrett called,” Declan said.
My eyes zeroed in on the cut at his throat and I winced.
He got so damn lucky. “Remember when we were investigating Al Issa and Tex found out Falcon Holding was really laundering money from the ancient artifacts?”
“Yeah. Falcon holds stock in bogus companies,” Tatiana answered.
“Well, Garrett picked up that thread and started digging into some of those companies. Harry Landry owns about a half-dozen of those companies. And remember how we found that Falcon owns a shit-ton of Militrix stock? Well, Garcia’s properties are owned by Militrix.”
“That would make sense, Garcia was a part of Omni,” Thad stated.
“Which means, Garrett found a list of Garcia’s properties.” Max crossed his arms over his chest. “Now, how do we narrow them down and find Paul?”
“Garrett’s working on narrowing that down now. He’s checking the property in Manaus, Brazil, now,” Declan told him.
I thought about the property in Manaus—it was a million-dollar villa with a private marina on the Rio Negra.
“If Paul is trying to sell Jefferson’s dogs he won’t go to Manaus,” I told the group, then followed with a question, “How many pit bulls were at the training camp?”
“Five,” Kyle answered.
“No puppies?” I queried.
“No.”
“Huh.” I stopped to think a second and no one rushed me when I tried to figure out why the puppies were gone. “I don’t know the breeding schedule and it’s been months since I’d been there. No pups means they were already sold and his bitches could be pregnant now, waiting for another litter. ”
“Okay, what does that have to do with Manaus?” Max asked.
“Nothing, I was curious. I could never understand why Jefferson seemed to keep everything divided. The training camp is big enough he could’ve kept his bitches and studs both there, but he didn’t.
The females and pups were kept there, the pups were trained then sold.
His studs are kept somewhere else. It just never made sense to split everything up. ”
“Babe, Manaus?” Thad prompted.
“The house in Manaus is a retreat, a huge, six-bedroom villa. It’s extravagant.
The garden is full of banana, papaya, passion fruit, and pineapple plants.
The lawn is pristine. It has a wine cellar, a library, and a movie room.
But his favorite part was the pool with teak decking and outdoor shower that opened to the master bedroom.
Imported bathroom and kitchen faucets, and Italian tile throughout.
An animal has never stepped foot into that house or onto that property.
So, if Paul is specifically going to locations where Jefferson’s dogs are to sell them, Manaus wouldn’t be on his list.”
I’d left out a few amenities like the tennis courts—yes, plural—the fitness center, and the ballroom.
If the home hadn’t belonged to Jefferson, and I hadn’t known how he’d acquired the two-million dollars to purchase the house, I would’ve loved it.
All-in-all, the villa was spectacular. But I did know, so I’d hated everything about it.
Declan was picking up his phone off the table and dialing when he asked, “Where do you think Paul would go?”
“Yo.” A tired voice came over the line.
“Hey, Garrett, Emerson was telling us about Garcia’s property in Manaus. You can scratch that one off your list,” Declan said.
“Already did. The place is a fuckin’ mansion but in the heart of an upscale neighborhood. No way Garcia would dirty up the joint with his illegal activities. Does she have any ideas to help narrow?”
“She’s right here thinking about it,” Declan told him.
“Yo, Emerson. I’m Garrett, whatcha got for me?” the friendly man asked.
“Um, hi. Jefferson has a farm south of Manaus in Manicore, is that on your list?” I asked.
“Sure is. Three hundred acres. What do you know about the location?”
“Not much. I’ve never been there but I did hear him talking about going there once.
He was pissed some of the stud pit bulls had to be put down due to infection.
I figure the way he kept the animals separated, if the training camp held the females for breeding, Manicore would house the males.
And I do know the males are worth more than females for breeding, but he said his female fighters were better than males. ”
“I’m looking at the satellite images now,” Garrett said.
“Two small houses offset from the road about a mile into a wooded area. Three outbuildings and what could be dog runs, but I can’t verify until I get better footage.
And, damn, if I didn’t know any better I’d say there’s a large chicken coop but maybe it’s a dog kennel—”
“It is a coop. I forgot his roosters are there. He has like fifty I think, but there is one he called Daddy Mack, his prized fighter. He’d laugh about putting the rooster in the ring with a puppy and how the rooster would shred the pup.”
“Fucking dick,” Kyle muttered.
“Then that explains the grain bins,” Garrett said.
“Looks like he has a few egress routes, one water, one through the heavily wooded area. Going north there’s a hut of some sort at the end of that road, probably a garage.
And a trail around the back end heading south toward the small town, that road leads to the back end of a row of stores. ”
“Egress?” I asked.
“Escape routes. All of the properties I’ve examined all have multiple ways in and out,” he explained.
“I’ll dig in further, see if I can maneuver a drone to fly over and if I can’t, God knows Tex will find a way.
One day, I’m gonna lock his ass in a room and not let him out until he teaches me his Jedi Master ways. ”
“Good luck with that, friend. One leg or not, Tex can still kick your ass.” Declan chuckled.
“You’re probably right,” Garrett grumbled.
“No ‘probably’ about it. Listen, we appreciate all your hard work on this,” Declan told him.
“Anytime. Out.”
“When you went through the hotel room in Venezuela, did you find Jefferson’s laptop or tablet?” I asked.
“Negative,” Max answered.
“What did you find?”
“His suitcase was packed with his clothes, a matchbook in one of the pockets, cufflinks—”
“Cufflinks?” I cut Thaddeus off.
“Yeah.”
“Did they have a falcon on them?”
“Damn,” Thad murmured. “They do have a bird on them.”
“They were a gift from a man named Emilio Ruiz. He’s—”
“Fuck,” Declan cut me off. “We know who he is. His daughter was almost kidnapped while on vacation.”
“Jefferson hated him. Hated he had more money than him. Hated that that money garnered Emilio more respect. He’d droned on and on about how Emilio had to be taken down a peg.
We went to a birthday party—well, it was more like the largest celebration I’d ever been to, think Presidential inauguration.
Anyway, the party was at Emilio’s home in Guadalajara.
The entire night Jefferson was pissed and most of that night was spent with Jefferson staring at the daughter, Antonia.
I was actually worried Jefferson was getting ready to kick me to the curb so he could try and seduce his rival’s daughter.
Which I could totally picture Jefferson doing. ”
“Garcia wasn’t planning seduction, he was plotting the poor girl’s demise,” Tatiana said. “Seems there is no honor among the Omni.”
“What’s Omni? You keep talking about it but I don’t know what that is.”
“It’s an international group of the power elite,” Declan started.
“The government has known about them for a long time but the issue has always been their membership is a closely guarded secret. A while back, Tex Keegan was able to get us intel on them after they’d taken down Marine One and had kidnapped the president, Tex’s intel was confirmed that Omni members held positions of power in our government. ”
“The president was kidnapped? I didn’t hear about that.”
I might’ve been out of the U.S. as I spent a lot of time traveling the world, but something like that would’ve made international headlines.
“You wouldn’t’ve. Let’s just say, President Anderson is one of the smartest men I know, and he’d planned for the kidnapping and had left strict instructions on who was to be brought in on the rescue mission.
As far as the media knew, there was a training accident.
Though he did publicly out several top members of his cabinet as traitors. ”
“Holy hell. And Jefferson was a member of this group? You’re sure?”
Jefferson had money. He considered himself the “power elite” but that was because he’d been a pompous prick. I had no idea he’d had the clout to be involved in an organization that would have the resources to kidnap the President of the United States .
“He was. And the trademark peacock feather tattoo confirmed it.”
“So, I take it you’re looking for this Omni group?” I concluded.
“One scumbag at a time,” Declan confirmed. “We need to dismantle the organization.”
“Wow.”
For some reason, Thad’s role in this disassembly hit me.
I knew he’d been a SEAL, I’d known the dangers that followed.
I’d seen him dressed in head-to-toe black armed to the teeth four times now so I knew his current job was still dangerous.
He’d killed a seriously bad guy in front of me, rescued a group of young girls from a shack before they could be transported.
Killed more men who guarded a bad man and his seriously fucked-up income source, and attempted to free more women.
Declan’s throat had been cut and no one seemed to make a big deal of that—it was just another day at the office.
I knew Thaddeus and the guys worked for a man named Zane Lewis, but I had no idea who that was.
And to top all of that off, the guys were going after a group of people that wouldn’t want their empires dismantled.
Thad’s job wasn’t dangerous, it was fucking insanely dangerous.
He was also one of the good guys.
To say that I’d already known I didn’t deserve a man as good as Thaddeus would’ve been an understatement. But now I really knew he was far too good for who I’d become and he’d figure it out.
Shit.