Chapter Twenty-Five
Trinity stood in the walk-in closet of the guest bedroom dressed in nothing but a black thong and stared at her selection of dresses. Both her men had gawked at the amount of clothes she had unpacked over the last few days, but hell, she loved clothes.
And shoes.
She fucking loved shoes.
Truthfully, she had taken over the entire bedroom as her closet, but she wasn’t the only one with a lot of stuff. Maxwell’s assistant in London had shipped out some of his things. He had more suits and shoes than any man she’d ever seen, but since he looked damn good in them, she wasn’t about to complain.
Jackson told them he wanted to tear down the wall between the rooms to make the former bedroom a huge closet for the three of them. The massive wardrobe he could deal with, but he’d been a little distressed when Trinity had started unloading her collection of weapons. As a cop, he wasn’t comfortable with having that made unregistered guns in the house, but they had compromised by agreeing to make a secured room to store them in.
They had decided that Jackson’s former playroom would make the perfect weapons storage and panic room once they redesigned it and reinforced the walls. Tony and Finn had been a big help with planning that. Having them around was both entertaining and frustrating. For two men who had sworn they were there to enjoy a little fun in the sun, they had done everything possible to cockblock Trinity as often as they could. It was uncanny how every time Trinity cuddled up to either Jackson or Maxwell, her two friends would show up.
Tony and Finn were loud, adventurous, and full of life. Mixed with Trinity, it was an explosive combination. Jackson had been able to escape the chaos when he went to work, but Maxwell wasn’t so lucky. He was both fascinated and horrified by the way the IAD agents interacted, but overall, even he had enjoyed their visit.
It was only during the late hours of the night when Finn and Tony went to bed that Trinity was able to have any quiet time with her guys. And by then, they were usually so tired they only had the strength to make love without the crazy, kinky shit they wanted to explore more.
She would have been angry, but she knew that their interference was her friends’ way of making sure she was happy with her decision to stay on the island. Tony and Finn would be informing all her other friends that she was content with her new life, but only after they made sure of it themselves. Spending time with Jackson, Maxwell, and Trinity was the only way to confirm they were serious about her.
Having Tony around for a few days was a big help in tracking financials and doing background research. They had located a hidden account in the Cayman Islands listed under Alan B. Caesar and linked it to Alan Browning. He had used his mother’s maiden name, not that the money in the account would be of any use to the dead man. And the man had way more money in the account than was taken from just the new resort construction. It was proof that he had been skimming from all the projects he had worked on over the past several months.
Besides his screwy sense of humor, Finn was also a financial wizard who had helped track down the real issue going on with Riviera Construction. There were several large transfers of money that had been listed as down payments from a Zafiro Corporation for the construction of buildings that had never actually been built. Something always seemed to go wrong, and the money was refunded to the corporation.
It was the perfect way to launder dirty money.
And that upped the stakes.
The transactions had been hidden in the corporate accounts, but Trinity, Tony, and Finn traced these types of payments going back over the last three years. Someone had tried to delete all traces of the previous transactions, but the agents were good at finding information that people didn’t want found.
Only this time, Alan Browning had skimmed off the account before it could be paid back in full. Someone had paid it back anyway. Money had been deposited into the corporate account just in time for the payment to be released back to the Zafiro Corporation. So, an insider had obviously figured out Browning was skimming.
And he had died for that betrayal.
They also discovered that Alice Jensen, the accounts manager who handled the Zafiro Corporation at Riviera Construction, had gone missing one week ago. That was the same night someone had broken into her hotel room. Since Billy Jensen, the security guard Trinity had first met at the construction site, was the brother of the account manager, the ties between the players began to make sense. Billy was also MIA, which meant someone was obviously cleaning house.
After doing a deep trace of the Zafiro Corporation, they learned that it was a shell company. There was lots of cash floating through, making it look successful on paper, but there were no actual completed projects to be found. The ties to the real corporation were buried deep. It would take time to work it out, but they would.
Now that they were armed with the knowledge that someone inside Riviera Construction was laundering money for an unknown entity, the murders made more sense. Alan Browning put a large operation at risk, and his greed had caused a chain reaction that led to his death.
He wasn’t the only casualty, but hopefully, he would be the last.
Tonight was the auction event being held at the resort, and Trinity wanted to look amazing for it. She had taken her time doing her makeup, using a heavier hand than usual to create the effect that she wanted. Her hair fell in a mass of waves down her back, making her look like a 1950s starlet. The style went perfectly with the bronze sheath dress she had selected to wear for the gala.
Her hair was held back on one side with an intricate barrette that was decorated with small diamonds. In a pinch, it could also be used as a weapon. Adding to her personal arsenal, Trinity strapped on the thigh holster to take what she liked to call her dress-up gun.
It was small but still packed a punch.
When she slid the dress on, she held her breath while she zipped the back closed. The bustier top that hugged her breasts was tight, but the rest of the dress was a fluid panel of flowing silk. There was a discreet slit up the right side that showed off her long leg when she moved and gave her easy access to her weapon.
She attached a multi-tiered bronze necklace that matched the dress perfectly. She also put an amber ring on her right hand. It might have looked like an interesting piece, but with a flick of the stone, a tiny needle would pop out. It held a powerful drug inside it that would take down a two-hundred-pound man in less than three seconds.
A girl could never be too careful.
When she finished getting ready, she checked herself over in the mirror once more before leaving the guest room carrying a small clutch purse. She had insisted on getting ready alone so Maxwell and Jackson would get the full impact once she was completely put together.
Her heels clicked on the stairs as she descended slowly, waiting for the reaction from her men. She paused on the landing as someone let out a loud wolf whistle and glanced over to see Finn and Tony grinning up at her.
Beside them stood her gorgeous men.
Jackson had on a black suit and black shirt with no tie, while Maxwell was decked out in a three-piece charcoal gray suit with a pinstriped shirt and a silver tie. They both looked absolutely heart-stopping, but what made her smile were the expressions on their faces. Their eyes were wide, and their jaws were hanging open as they watched her walk the rest of the way down the stairs.
Stopping in front of them, she stuck out her leg and posed. Her heart pounded in her chest when a look of absolute lust darkened both of their eyes.
The silence continued until she was forced to ask, “Well, what do you think?”
“You’re so fucking beautiful,” Jackson whispered.
Finn snorted. “Smooth, man. Really fucking smooth.”
Jackson glared at him, then turned back to frown at Trinity. “Every damn man is going to be hitting on you tonight.”
Maxwell smiled as he came forward to take both of her hands in his. “What he meant to say is you look like a vision, Kat. You take my breath away.” He pressed a light kiss to her lips, then graciously moved to her side before Jackson could push him aside.
“Yeah, what he said,” Jackson grumbled. “Baby, I’m not going to be able to wait to make love to you. Why don’t we just stay home?”
Laughing, Trinity shook her hair so it flowed over her bare shoulders. “Oh no, we’re going to the auction. Besides, waiting will be good for you. It will make later even more…explosive.”
“Okay, enough of that. My virgin ears can’t take anymore,” Tony quipped. “But you do look smoking hot, Trin. I’d do you if I didn’t think of you like a sister.”
“I’d do you anyway,” Finn said. “But you’d probably kill me if I tried, and then your men would cut me into tiny pieces and feed me to the sharks.”
“Damn right,” Jackson replied.
“Yep, sorry, mate. Get your own girl,” Maxwell said.
Trinity smiled. “Sure you don’t want to join us?”
“Hell, no. That would require us dressing up like these two, and you know how wearing a suit makes me itch,” Finn said with a shiver. “Besides, Tony and I have dates tonight. We actually met some models shooting a calendar spread at the resort.”
“Ah, which months?” she asked.
Finn grinned. “All of them.”
That made her roll her eyes. “Why does that not surprise me.”
Jackson sighed. “Come on, baby. If you insist on going, we should head out or we’ll be late.”