Chapter Ten
“ M r. Chastain will be out in just a moment,” the chipper young front desk worker said. “You’re welcome to have a seat,” she gestured toward a bank of plush velvet seats clumped together next to a short hallway.
“Do you have a restroom?” Ivy asked.
“Just around the corner,” the woman replied with a smile.
Clay grasped her hand and reeled her in. “You okay?” he asked, keeping his voice low enough that the front desk worker wouldn’t hear. It didn’t matter that they were literally next door to the penthouse tower. She was his to protect.
“Fine,” she said with a smile. “Nerves. I just want to freshen up a bit.”
Clay nodded, and even though he was sure they were safe from Hamilton, he kept a wary eye. Dev was ghosting somewhere around the roulette wheels, also keeping the front desk in his sights.
A few moments later, just when Clay was starting to get worried about Ivy, an older man came from the office behind the desk and strode around the corner. He held out his hand. Clay accepted it, shook twice, then said, “Miss Foster will be here in just a second, sir.”
“Miss Foster? I have to admit I’m a bit puzzled. I don’t have anyone on my schedule right now. Can you tell me what this is regarding?”
Clay took about two seconds to process the man’s words and then bolted for the ladies room. He threw the door open, not caring if there was anyone inside and booted open each of the stall doors. They were empty.
His heart was in his throat, but everything else about him went icy calm. Dev shot through the door, alerted by Clay’s sudden movements. “What’s up?”
“He’s got Ivy.” Clay said succinctly. “I have no idea how he got past us.”
Dev swore and pushed up in the doors to see for himself that Ivy wasn’t crouched on top of the toilet seat. The window above the sinks was glass block that couldn’t be opened. There was only one way in and out. Somehow Ivy had been taken from under their noses.
It had to be Hamilton, and he had done it without causing a disturbance, which Clay knew Ivy would have made if she could have.
They strode angrily out of the women’s room and up to the front desk to a very confused-looking Chastain. “I’ll need to see the footage of the ladies room entrance,” Dev said. “You’ve got a kidnapping on your hands.”
Chastain paled. “Mr. Beck. I’m not sure how you’re involved, but of course we’ll do everything in our power to assist you. He turned to the receptionist. “Get Malone down here, now.”
While Dev engaged with the man Clay opened the tracker app on his phone and breathed a sigh of relief when it picked up her location. But she was moving away from the hotel, out toward the freeway.
He started moving toward the door and Dev joined him at a trot.
“I’ve got her on the tracker, but they’re moving fast,” he said, and Dev cursed.
"I'll handle everything here," he said, pushing Clay toward the door. "Go after her. We've all got access to the app, we'll meet up wherever they stop."
Clay ran toward the casino entrance, dodging the afternoon crowd as they poured into the air-conditioned building. And because he didn't have a second to lose, he flagged a cab idling at the curb. He climbed in and looked at his phone to give the driver the address. But the dot that represented Ivy was just... gone.
"Fuck," he shouted and beat at the back of the seat.
"Watch yourself," warned the cabbie, as he reached for the two-way on the dash.
Clay took a precious second to stem the absolute and utter despair that boiled through him. Then he looked at the driver. "Sorry. I won't need that ride after all."
He climbed out of the cab and ran back into the casino, where Dev still stood, as if waiting for Clay, and he realized that Dev knew, had seen the tracker go silent just as he had.
When his friend would have moved forward to comfort him, he waved it off. Any small kindness right now would make him shatter into a million pieces.
"He shut down the phone," Clay said, his voice tight.
"He did," Dev agreed. "But we know the direction they were headed in and can extrapolate from there.”
Chastain rejoined them, a man in an impeccable black suit at his side, his dark eyes assessing not only them, but the entire casino behind them. “This is Laurence Malone, my head of security.”
“Gentlemen,” Malone inclined his head. “If you’ll follow me.” He led them to a discreet bank of elevators identical to the set in the penthouse tower, which whisked them soundlessly up to an indeterminate floor. Dev briefed the man on what had occurred less than fifteen minutes ago, leaving Clay to nurse the rage beginning to build within.
Hamilton had touched Ivy. Had disabled her in some way. And for that, he would die.
Malone led them into a room filled with serious-looking men and women scanning a massive bank of high-definition monitors. He veered into a private office and sat at his own computer, hitting a series of keystrokes to bring it to life. A camera feed showed the bathroom doors and the entrance to the service corridor that connected the casino to the hotel next door, just like the one they’d used to travel between the two buildings.
“Fuck,” Clay said immediately. “We didn’t see him for a damned good reason. He took her back to the hotel, and probably right out the front door.” He’d seen the door during his recon, but it took a keycard to access, and he’d waved it off as secure. That had been a big fucking mistake. “Hamilton’s not an idiot. We’re either going to see him leading her off, or someone he paid.”
And then there it was, in crisp HD. It was Hamilton, now that they knew what to look for, in a snappy suit that could have been from the same tailor as Malone’s, with a casino lanyard around his neck, a discreet gold nameplate on his right breast. Identical to Malone’s. He’d disguised himself with a blond wig, a pair of wire-rimmed glasses and a make-up job that made him look both completely different and totally the same.
Malone grunted and called one of his people in. “Find out what keycard accessed the Southeastern service corridor seventeen minutes ago. Male suspect and female vic.”
The woman disappeared without a word.
“If he’d worn a uniform she would have seen right through him,” Dev mused. “But in the suit, with just enough of his face altered, and having a badge…”
Malone turned up the volume.
“Miss Foster? I was asked to get you to safety. Your companion and the police have detained Hamilton.”
She looked back over her shoulder, as if to confirm, and he reached out, clasped her elbow lightly. “Please, ma’am. I’m just following orders. Mr. Chastain has his hands full right now and wouldn’t be able to make your appointment anyway.”
His knowledge of her situation seemed to cement her decision. She nodded and they moved quickly to the end of the hallway, badging through the door.
Malone switched camera views. Clay watched as Hamilton unobtrusively took a small syringe from the inside of his suit pocket, then jabbed it into Ivy’s arm before enveloping her in a bear hug.
They were out of sight and hearing of the casino floor, so it didn’t matter that Ivy went wild in his grasp, kicking and screaming, clawing at his face, getting enough blows in that Hamilton’s face began to mottle with anger. But then the fight seemed to just run out of her, and Clay knew the drug was taking effect.
As she started to go limp in his arms, Hamilton looked directly at the camera and lifted his middle finger. They didn’t need the audio to hear his “fuck you.”
Dev laid a hand on Clay’s shoulder. “Steady, man. We’ll find her.”
Clay whirled, everything he’d been denying in his head spilling from his mouth. “How, exactly, Dev? He ditched us, and we haven’t seen hide nor hair of him since.”
Dev conceded his words with a small nod. “True, but he doesn’t want Ivy, he wants Katie.”
“Who we also can’t locate,” Clay ground out, raw emotion seeping through his words. He knew he needed to tamp it down, to go cold again, because Ivy needed him. But the wave of rage threatened to overwhelm him.
“We’ll find them both,” Dev promised, then turned to Malone.
“Andrews was right,” Malone said, gesturing toward the monitor. Hamilton was helping a drunk-appearing Ivy into a yellow cab identical to the one Clay had just sat in. “One of my people is calling the cab company now, but odds are he’s already ditched it. If he was smart enough to lift one of my staffers’ badges, he won’t stick with the same transportation.”
Dev’s phone pinged. He looked at the display. “Took long enough,” he mumbled, then looked at Clay. “Warren’s with McAlister.”
His words didn’t register for a long moment. “What? How?”
“After her call to you last night I pinged her cell. Took a bit to crack her cell provider and pinpoint the Wi-Fi server she was using her burner on, but I got it right before we came here. Sent Warren there to sit surveillance to see if she’d use the same internet café again. She did. They’re enroute to HQ right now.”
Relief washed through Clay. Finally, they had an advantage. And now they had leverage.
~
Katie McAlister looked just like her photograph. Well, almost. Because right now she was spitting mad, and every bit of that anger was directed at Warren.
They’d rallied at HQ and were sitting around the big conference table, the bank of monitors blank. They needed to bring Katie up to speed and figure out how to get Ivy back and take out Hamilton once and for all. Because the moment he’d harmed Ivy had been the moment Clay stopped caring about the man living or dying.
Warren hadn’t told Katie anything, only that he’d been sent by Ivy. Clay could guarantee that Dev was about to shatter her anger.
“Hamilton has Ivy, but he wants you,” Dev said baldly, because there was no way to sugarcoat this. “He’s going to call and want to trade her for you. Which of course is bullshit and is never going to happen.”
Katie, as predicted, had gone sheet white. “He’s got Ivy?” she asked, her voice small, just a bit brittle.
Clay inserted himself. “He does. Fucker outsmarted me and took her right from under my nose.” He didn’t even try to make himself sound calm and collected. Now that the team was there, that was what they were for. To ground him. To bring their collective experience and wisdom to the table.
“He took her from beneath our noses,” Dev clarified. “But beating ourselves up about it doesn’t get her back, or put Hamilton behind bars, where he belongs.” He shot Clay a reproving glance. “We need to be ready when he calls.”
Katie took a deep breath, then turned her attention to Warren. “And you couldn’t have told me this when you outed me?”
Warren shook his head, his usual charm gone. “No. We all needed to be together, with the latest intel. I was already freaking you out, I didn’t need to add bad information to the mix.”
“I was not freaking out,” she said coldly, then turned her attention back to Clay and Dev. “But I am now. What do you need me to do?”
Clay’s estimation of her went up a few notches. While he’d understood that she may be less than enthusiastic about Ivy’s interference, now that she knew what was on the table, she’d come out swinging.
“Cali will be going into the swap as you.”
Katie looked at the other woman doubtfully. “You don’t look anything like me.”
“I don’t need to, at least not close up,” Cali said. “I’ll be wearing a wig matching your hair and have a friend coming over to do some makeup contouring so from far away it won’t be obvious. We just need time to get the rest of the team in place.”
“So in the meantime we wait?” Katie asked, looking around the table.
Dev nodded. “We wait. But while we do, we prepare.”
~
Dev fired up the wall of screens and went to work monitoring whatever it was that he monitored. Cali and Jordan were off in one corner with Cali’s friend, who was working her makeup magic.
Warren and Tate were setting up the team’s gear. Everything from slimline earpieces that were all but invisible to night vision goggles. First aid kits. Trauma kits. It was like they were all active duty again.
Katie sat with them for awhile, then when the two men had started working over weapons, she stood, walked to Clay, where he was watching the proceedings. He didn’t really have much to do until Hamilton called and he was trying really hard to calm the fuck down.
“What are they doing?” she asked, nodding toward the men.
“Prepping for war,” he said simply, and with the words felt himself begin to go cold. Tactical. “We’ve got a good team here, Katie. We’ll get her back.”
“And what about you?” she asked. “What do you bring to the table?”
Clay was silent for so long that Dev interjected from across the room. “Logistics. Clay is the planner of the group, and he can’t do a damn thing until we have an idea where this is going to go down. As for me,” he said, likely knowing she was going to ask. “I’m money and tech.”
He was so much more, but it wasn’t relevant, not right now.
Katie swung her attention back to him. “That’s what you did in the military? Plans?”
He shook his head. “No, I was a C-17 loadmaster. I just like planning on the side. Always have.”
Dev cut in again. “Don’t let him bullshit you. Loadmasters have to be logisticians, understand all kinds of information that we would never even consider, to make sure our cargo planes don’t become lawn darts. The fact he’s excellent at planning overall is why he’s exceptional. Just like the rest of us.”
Katie digested that information as Dev went back to his monitors. From what Clay could see he was hacking CCTV cameras at casinos and businesses around the city, specifically on the Strip, where it’d be so very easy to lose oneself. He’d loaded Hamilton and Ivy’s photos into a facial recognition program that was sweeping each of the cameras he’d hacked, looking for information. While that was going on, another monitor showed a stream of numbers that made absolutely no sense to any of them but always got them what they needed.
Katie looked around the church, really looked at what they were doing, how they were going to the mat for Ivy, and that seemed to break something in her. She motioned him away to the end of the conference table, away from the others.
“Tell me that you’re as good as Dev thinks you all are,” she demanded, tears glossing her eyes. “I need to hear you say it.”
“We’re better than Dev thinks we are,” he said. “Because he knows everything about us, just like we know everything about him. That kind of familiarity makes us function as an incredible team, but it also has the potential to blind you to ways we could be better. That’s my job, to maximize our potential.” It all sounded very cold and clinical, but now that they had Katie and were buckling down, he’d turned his attention from self-castigation and into what he did best, without even really thinking about it. Multiple contingency plans rolled through his mind, looping back to the prime objective. To recover Ivy and take down Hamilton—however they had to.
He couldn’t, wouldn’t let his thoughts circle to what Hamilton could be doing to her, because that brought the rage again, and a hollowness in his chest he’d only felt once before, when he’d lost his grandmother. He wouldn’t lose Ivy. They had a lifetime together.
The thought staggered him. Even though he’d been moving in that direction this morning, before she’d been abducted, now it seemed so very crystal clear.
Katie made a noise, and he turned to see that the tears that had glossed her eyes had eased out, were streaking her face.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief. Everyone always gave him shit about having them, but Nonna had taught him to be a gentleman. And a gentleman always had a hankie.
“She’s my best friend,” Katie said brokenly, as she accepted the cloth. “I should have known she’d try to find me, that she’d move heaven and earth to make sure I was okay.”
“I understand completely.” He lowered his voice so none of the others could hear. “I think she’s the love of my life,” he confessed, watched as her eyes rounded. “I’ve known her less than a week and I can’t imagine my life without her in it.”
“She has that effect,” Katie replied wanly. “After this is all over, you and I are going to have a long talk about what’s best for Ivy. If she gets to butt into my life, then turnabout is fair play.”
That brought a smile Clay hadn’t thought possible. “We’ll get her back, Katie, without sacrificing your safety.”