Chapter 21
Pip
I knew I had to get to Henny before tracking down whatever fucker had attacked my family. The way he sounded on the phone told me everything I needed to know.
He’d been worried.
About me.
We laid in bed for a while after I got him to calm from his anxious feelings. While I wanted to stay there with him all night, there was work to do. I’d told Rel I would mobilize some of the men and review security footage.
“You’ve gone tense on me, boy,” Henny said.
I chuckled. “Just thinking about what comes next.”
“Ahhh. You’re thinking of torturing people. That makes sense.”
“I’d say you’re wrong, but we’d both know it’s a lie. Most of my thoughts were about not wanting to leave bed.”
He hummed, dragging his hand across my chest as he rolled away. I grumbled at the loss of his warmth.
“Let me make it easy, then. Neither of us will be able to sleep if we stay in bed. We’re workaholics to our core. We won’t feel at peace until we track these assholes down.”
I sat up. “Yeah. Speaking of tracking them down, I need access to the security footage in the casino. It’ll be a crush of bodies, I know. Still want to try to find the guy with the knife.”
“There’s access to it on my tablet.”
“Of course there is.” Rolling my eyes, I climbed out of bed and reached for my clothes. “You could probably run the world from that tablet, couldn’t you, Daddy?”
He tilted his head, a curve to his lips that told me he was amused. “Sure can, baby. Don’t you worry about it though. I’ll show you how it works. No need to be jealous.”
I tugged my shirt down a bit harder than necessary. Not because he was right or anything. How could I be jealous of a piece of shit—er, I mean, technology.
His tablet couldn’t touch him. Couldn’t kiss him. The damn thing wasn’t fuckable. I had no doubt of my importance to my man.
“I wish JJ were here. He’d be great to have on hand with all this shit.”
Henny nodded as he slid his dress shoes on. “It would be great if Jean could be here. Maybe he knows a thing or two though. I won’t count him out considering he’s in deep enough to have access to a lot more intel than we originally planned."
It wasn’t the first time we spoke in code about JJ’s work. Henny knew more than I did about it all. Most of their plan was need to know, and all I had to understand was that things could get bad, and I might need to shoot.
Perfectly fine with me.
“You ready?” Henny’s voice pulled me from the thoughts.
I looked down at myself, checking that I had everything I needed. After gathering a couple of weapons and throwing on a jacket, I nodded.
“Good to go.”
His hand reached for mine. I practically skipped over to him. With our fingers laced, we left the suite. Things were still running at full speed when we reached the lobby.
A harried Dario was standing with a clipboard amongst several employees. They all looked to be talking at once. To his part, Dario didn’t outwardly show his anger. But it was still there. In the curl of shoulders and the white tips of his fingers.
“We should rescue him,” Henny announced.
“Who?”
“You know exactly who I mean. Dario covered for us so we could talk. Now we need to take things over again.”
I tugged on his arm. “We need to take over?”
His eyes met mine. “Of course I mean we. Who the hell else would I trust to stand at my side?”
Oh, fuck yes.
“If you insist,” I teased.
Dario ignored everyone around him once he spotted us. “You’ve returned.”
“We have.” I replied in an equally robotic tone.
He didn’t call me out for it. Henny did though, squeezing my hand tightly once before letting me go to take the clipboard from Dario.
I scowled at the change. His hand should always be in mine. Screw the paperwork.
“What all is left to be done?” Henny asked.
It was then the people who’d been surrounding Dario turned to us. They started speaking at once again, which was not going to work at all for me.
I gave a sharp whistle. The entire lobby area went still.
“You’ll speak one at a time. Yelling at him doesn’t make shit go faster. If it’s urgent, we’ll get it handled. If it can wait, then understand it will be handled when there is time.” I kept my voice firm, without crossing into wants to murder you territory.
See, Daddy. I could learn.
I tossed a look Henny’s way to make sure he’d seen and heard me. He smiled and shook his head.
The workers were better after that, taking their time to list out the issues in a way that was manageable. Dario stuck around to help while I worked through the footage on Henny’s tablet. I was never more than a few steps away from him at any moment. It didn’t feel right to leave his side.
As I scanned faces for the person intent on hurting Ricardo, my phone rang. I answered blindly.
“Talk to me.”
“Pip, it’s me. Ricardo’s fully awake. He’s still high on the pain meds, but he’s aware enough to know I’m here. Tell me you’ve got some kind of movement on who did this.”
I grunted. “Not yet. I’m close though. I can feel it.”
He didn’t ask me to expand on the words. Rel knew me. He knew that sometimes my internal feelings were the best guide to figure shit out.
“Keep me updated.”
With that, he hung up. I chuckled at the move. Anyone else and I’d have been pissed. Rel was family though. It was nothing when he did it.
As I moved to tuck my phone away, a particular face caught my eye. “Is that you?”
Tracking the man was simple once I locked on him. The way he kept his head on a swivel showed his nerves. But then he must have seen what he needed to because he froze for a second before tearing through the crowd like an angry bull.
Seconds later, he passed by Ricardo. The rest was stuff I already knew. I kept watching up until the point I saw myself getting involved.
To be sure, I replayed the video three more times. By the end, I knew beyond any doubt this was who we were looking for. Now I just needed to find out who the fuck he was.
Henny approached with a raised brow. “Someone looks happy.”
“Yep,” I replied, popping the ‘p’ for effect. “I found Mister McStabby. Now I just need to get him into some facial recognition software, and we’ll be good to go.”
“I trust you’ve got it handled. Are you going to head up to the room or my office? I’m sure you want to spread out.”
Shaking my head, I tucked the tablet against my chest and crossed my arms. “Are you trying to get rid of me?”
“Absolutely not. I’d glue you to my side right now if I thought I could get away with it.” He sighed. “But I also know this place has to be distracting you. I don’t want you hanging around because you think you have to.”
“It’s never a have to with you, Daddy.” I moved closer, making sure the words were just for us.
Heat flashed in his eyes as he wrapped his hand around the back of my neck. “I’ve already taken you once tonight. Don’t tell me you want more.”
“I always want more of you.” I pressed a quick kiss to his lips, then stepped away. “You might be on to something though. I do need to spread out. And I need a paper map to mark off search areas. If this guy was that efficient with his attack, then he’s probably not hiding in plain sight.”
Henny nodded. “You’re right. I’ll come find you when I’m done here.”
It took six days, four hours, and nine minutes to find the guy.
And once I did, it was over.
In a matter of hours, he’d be dead, the boss would be avenged, and hopefully we’d have answers about who the fuck was on our backs now.
Maybe then we’d get some peace.