Chapter 3 #3
He slipped through the yard, feeling the pressure of time ticking by. The service door opened with the same code—predictable, lazy security—and he entered the silent house, Isabella having assured him the staff was off for the night with the family away.
He moved quickly through corridors he’d memorized from a floor plan.
The study door stood open. He closed it behind him and got to work.
Rifling through the obvious first—desk drawers, trays, ledger stacks—and found the folder Dev had flagged.
Shell-company invoices, art purchases routed through accounts they’d traced.
He used his phone to snap photos and moved on.
“Motion on the east drive,” Leland warned in his ear. “Mrs. Benedetti’s car is coming up the lane.”
Time narrowed. He crouched and lifted the false flooring shielding the bank-style safe recessed into the floor.
Benedetti was loaded, and he’d invested a good chunk of change into his home safes.
Despite the electronic lock, pry-resistant hinges, and the manufacturer’s claims it was impenetrable, old Marco didn’t know that a rare-earth magnet, ordered from for sixty bucks, could crack it in a matter of seconds.
“I’m in,” he uttered as the lock disengaged.
A quick search of the contents revealed stacks of cash, securities, and jewelry.
If he was a thief, he’d hit the jackpot, but none of that was what he’d been after.
At the bottom, he found a manilla envelope.
Inside was a stack of photoprints showing crates stamped with serial numbers and a courier address; someone had been fencing goods, not running people.
“Damn waste of time,” he muttered in frustration.
“Problems?” Leland asked.
“Yes. Another dead end.”
“You’re sure? We were so sure it was Marco.”
“I’m sure we’re no closer than we were three fucking months ago,” Alec said, barely containing his rage.
For this, he’d walked away from Emily tonight.
He could combust later; right now, he needed to move.
Carefully, he replaced everything in the same order, closing the safe and replacing the false floor.
“Get out of there. She’s at the gate,” Leland advised.
Alec was already on the move, erasing any sign he’d been in the study and leaving the door exactly as he’d found it.
His phone buzzed in his hand—Isabella’s name lit the screen. Where are you?
He typed without slowing. Emergency. Rain check?
Isabella: It’s ten o’clock! What kind of an emergency does an art dealer have at this time of night?
He could hear the shrillness of her tone through the text. Something it did whenever she didn’t get what she wanted.
Gunnar: My gallery is on fire.
Clearly not expecting that, she gave a genuinely shocked surprise.
Isabella: Dios mio!
Gunnar: This comes as no surprise. I have the devil’s own luck. I’ll call when I have things settled.
Evasive, not promising anything.
Not waiting for her response, he slipped through the conservatory exit Leland had marked and ran in a crouch, keeping to the shadows, avoiding the floodlights.
Gravel crunched beneath his shoes as he exited the narrow service gate.
It clicked shut a heartbeat before headlights swept across the drive. He didn’t look back.
He drove away, only then allowing the ache of seeing Emily to resurface. He wasn’t heading to the office anymore. He needed to see her—needed to know if she’d vanished again, or if, this time, she’d let him catch up.
Alec steered toward the Miami Convention Center. The parking lot was nearly empty when he arrived, the catering vans long gone. He slammed his fist against the steering wheel.
“Fucking hell!”
Even his favorite curse didn’t vent the frustration coiling inside him. He’d promised Ethan he’d keep her safe. Eight years later, she was still out there, on her own, and the weight of that promise pressed hard against his ribs.
Alec pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes closed as a migraine built behind them. They’d plagued him for months, ever since he got pistol whipped and lost his protectee.
That it was Cari, Dev’s fiancée, made it worse
The Denali crime boss had sent his best after her. Her own uncle had ordered her tied to a chair and tased repeatedly by an interrogation specialist to make her talk. She’d hadn’t broken. If she had, and the mob brutes got the information they were seeking, she’d have been dead.
The warehouse they pulled her from was a horror show—cages, blood, DNA traces from at least a dozen missing college girls. They’d stumbled onto a trafficking ring. For Dev, it was personal. For Alec, it was guilt. Cari had been his responsibility.
He woke up at County Hospital with a splitting headache and twelve stitches. But nothing hurt more than knowing she’d suffered on his watch.
In his career, ten years with the Miami PD and three as a PI with Denali & Associates, he’d handled dozens of protection cases without incident.
But that week, he’d been chasing a new lead on Emily.
She’d cut him out of her life. He told himself it was none of his business, but sometimes, a memory or a familiar name was enough to drag the questions back to the surface.
Where she was. How she was getting by. And the haunting promise he’d made to Ethan.
He’d expected Dev to fire him. Instead, Dev gave him a second chance—with a warning: screw up again, and he was out. Clients paid for protection, not incompetence.
The dashboard clock read after midnight. Dev would be waiting. Alec pulled onto I-95N and hit the hands-free button.
“Call Devil.”
He picked up on the second ring. “What did you find?”
Dev never wasted time with chitchat, a trait among many he admired in the man.
“Nothing. The house was clean.”
“You found the safe?”
“Yeah, with nothing to link Marco to the missing girls,” he replied. “He’s dirty, but not in the way we thought.”
“Shit.” Dev’s tersely uttered expletive mirrored his own frustration. “I thought for sure…”
“So did I.”
“And the wife?”
“A vacuous narcissist who couldn’t mastermind a bake sale, let alone a trafficking ring.”
There was a beat of silence before Dev replied, “It sounds as though you’ve had enough of her.”
“Twelve weeks of her yammering about fake nails and whether she should get the Moroccan Mauve or Paris Lights. As if I give a fuck. I’m also done mooning over her Botoxed face and pretending to drool over her surgically augmented tits. This is a dead end, Dev. I say we move on.”
Another pause. “If you’re sure it’s not just frustration talking.”
“It’s not. No evidence. No gut twinge. Marco Benedetti isn’t our guy.”
“You know how much stock I put in gut instinct,” Dev replied, this time without hesitancy. “Call it. Then go home and get some sleep.”
“I’ll try, but I hear her nasally twang when I close my eyes.” Alec couldn’t help but gripe. “First thing in the morning, I’m calling my doctor. I swear my ears are bleeding. I’ve never heard anyone talk so much without breathing.”
Dev’s low chuckle rumbled through the phone. “After your appointment, swing by the office. Ten a.m. We need to take a look at what we have—or rather, what we don’t—and regroup.”
“I’ll be there.”
Dev hesitated. Then, quieter: “You didn’t go straight home. Want to tell me why you looped back to the convention center?”
Alec’s grip tightened on the wheel. “Emily was there.”
“That explains it. You’re as fixated on that girl as I was on Cari.”
“I didn’t screw up. I got what I needed and got out clean.”
“I know. But I also know what it is to let the one slip through your fingers. It messes with your head. You need to get resolution. How can I help?”
Alec exhaled. “She was working one of the events. There were a dozen caterers there tonight. I don’t even know where to start.”
“I’ll put Greta on it first thing tomorrow.”
“Thanks,” Alec said, the tension in his chest easing just a little. “I owe you.”
“You don’t owe me a thing except a debriefing at 10 a.m. Get some rest.”