Chapter 5
T he sun disappeared behind the horizon, leaving a fiery glow across the Florida sky. Leandra never thought she’d enjoy the south, but if she were being honest with herself, she missed it.
Even the damn heat.
The only reason she’d moved back north was to be near her family for their support after Kent had passed, but she’d fallen in love with the south almost as much as she loved Kent.
She sat next to Nick in the front seat of a dark-colored luxury SUV. Logan was situated in the back. She found their relationship to be filled with a loving angst that only brothers could share. Of course, she had no idea, considering she had no siblings herself, and neither had her husband.
She loved their sarcastic banter and was humbled by the way Logan seemed to drop everything to help his brother, which in turned helped her, and that thought gave her a warm shiver.
She understood why Nick’s brother had his back, but why did Nick have hers?
The thought he might care about her sent a different kind of shiver across her body.
She’d fallen so hard and fast for Kent that she’d barely had a chance to catch her breath before she found herself walking down the aisle in a white dress on her father’s arm.
Stealing a glance at Nick, her breath hitched. He looked her way and smiled. Her heart pounded so fast against her chest she figured it had jostled her breasts.
Nick pulled the SUV into a parking garage about five miles from the warehouse where Agent Fielding and his team had set up a meet to go over their part of the plan.
“You really think this is a good idea?” Leandra asked. Her interaction with the FBI had always been antagonistic in nature. Being a PI wasn’t always valued by various law enforcement agencies.
Not to mention, she had a tendency to bend the law.
Just a tad.
Nick backed into the designated spot, across from three dark government cars. “I don’t like bringing in the Feds, but he’s got a man in Ramos’ camp, and we need to know who that is and how to protect him.”
Logan shifted in the back seat. “They had Ramos dead to rights on the casinos, but until Leandra here showed up, almost nothing on the trafficking, at least from what we’ve dug up on their investigation. ”
“According to Fielding and his agency,” Leandra muttered. “Don’t you think it’s a little strange they had an inside guy for this long and he barely knew about the human trafficking ring?”
“The thought crossed my mind,” Nick said.
“I’m happy to help take this asshole down, but I don’t want them getting in the way of me finding my client’s daughter, or trying to shut me out.” Leandra reached out and touched Nick’s forearm. “I’m not stopping until I find her.”
He curled his long fingers over hers. His gentle smile sucker punched her lungs.
She swallowed.
“Neither am I.” He stared into her eyes with such deep intent it made everything around her blur.
Except him.
“Thank you,” she said softly.
“Mia hasn’t been able to decipher the merchandise list, which also makes me skeptical that maybe it’s a distraction,” Logan said, snapping Leandra from her trance. “And worries me that Fielding is in contact with the agent, who might be giving us a line of crap.”
“What does she say about the email?” Nick asked.
“She’s still tracing it back to…” Logan paused for a moment… “something about finding the IP address where the email was created and tracking it through that.”
Leandra nodded. “Any luck getting blueprints of the warehouse from the town?”
Nick rested his hand over hers. She stared at his thumb caressing her skin. It had a calming effect on her mind, but the opposite in her heart.
She’d felt this intense pull once before.
Jerking her hand away, she turned her head and stared at the concrete wall.
“I should have them shortly, and Dylan has a guy who will compare them with what you were sent and let us know any discrepancies,” Nick said. His tone had remained even, but she thought she heard a hint of disappointment.
Or maybe she made that up.
Focus on the case.
Another SUV backed into the spot next to them. A tall man with the same smile as Nick stepped from the vehicle. Tall was an understatement. He wasn’t quite as broad as the other two brothers, but he had the same confident swagger as he strolled toward the car.
Nick hit the button that rolled down the passenger and rear side window.
“This must be Leandra. I’m Dylan, the tallest and best-looking of the Sarich brothers.”
Both Nick and Logan coughed.
“Correction,” Nick said. “Meet Baby Dyl who has yet to hit puberty.”
“Screw you, hickey boy.”
Leandra’s cheeks went hot as she covered the mark on the side of her neck, which she realized wasn’t the side that Dylan stood on, which meant he hadn’t seen it…but knew about it .
“Christ, Logan,” Nick muttered. “You’ve got a big fucking mouth.”
Dylan laughed. “Yeah, he does. But I enjoyed telling Mom you got a girl in your life. She’s planning your children’s names right now.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Nick said under his breath.
“Kidding you? I just entered the goddamned twilight zone,” Leandra said, glaring at Nick, who had the audacity to shrug. “And this”—she pointed to her neck—“does not make me your girl.”
“When a Sarich leaves his mark—”
She poked the center of Nick’s chest with her index finger.
“Ouch.” He smiled as he rubbed his chest. “That’s going to leave a mark. Does that mean—”
“Oh, my God. You’re impossible.” Leandra’s embarrassment quickly turned to amusement, which didn’t make sense and sent her stomach on a roll. “Really? You had to give me a hickey?” She looked over her shoulder, giving Logan the evil eye. “And you had to tell your brothers?”
Turning her attention to the youngest man, she waved her finger at him. “What is wrong with you people?”
“You have to understand he was known as Hickey Boy in high school,” Logan said, laughing. “It was like he saw a neck and had to suck.”
“At least I didn’t get caught by my girlfriend’s father in nothing but my birthday suit right after having sex for the first time,” Nick said with a dark and playful tone.
“No, you just got caught by Dad in the patrol car with your ass in the air,” Dylan said with a stupid smile.
Leandra opened her mouth, but no words came out. Only a high-pitched screech.
“This coming from the guy who sent his crazy ex-girlfriend a dick pic who then preceded to plaster it all over Facebook,” Nick said.
“Oh…my…God. Is the other Sarich boy as perverted as you three?” She blinked a few times, staring in Nick’s warm blue eyes, wondering why the hell she found their banter endearing.
“We’re not perverts,” they said in unison.
“And Ramey is worse,” Nick said.
“I used to hate being an only child, now I’m tickled pink,” she said, her hand still covering the hickey.
“More like a dark red,” Nick said.
She punched him in the shoulder.
“Ouch, geez, hon.” He rubbed his arm. “Are you trying to brand me?”
“Yes.” That was not the answer she expected to come out of her mouth.
“Sorry about my butthead brothers.” Nick smiled, curling his fingers around her wrist. “But I can’t say I’m sorry about anything else.”
The brothers laughed.
She shook her head. “I imagine there are no secrets in your family.”
“Nope.” Nick rested his hand on her leg, his fingers entwined with hers. The weirdest part of the entire conversation was that it didn’t feel weird. Nor did holding his hand while his brothers exchanged funny glances.
She glanced across the parking lot and stared at the dark sedans. “Why are they still sitting in their cars?”
“I suspect trying get us tossed off, officially,” Dylan said, resting his arm against the window.
“So much for wanting our help,” Leandra said.
“They wanted our intel,” Nick said. His touch was like a feather floating in the air.
“They want my team to stand down,” Dylan said. “But that isn’t going to happen. We’re so much better at this than those idiots are, and if the Aegis Network can get officially hired, then we just become a part of that, and we can show the FBI how it’s done.”
“Is everything a pissing contest with men?” Leandra shook her head.
“Pretty much.” Nick tapped her thigh, then pointed across the parking lot as six men, all in dark suits and all wearing wires in their ears, stepped from their vehicles.
“Why do I feel like I just went from The Twilight Zone to Men in Black ?” she asked under her breath.
Dylan opened the car door, but Nick grabbed her arm. “We’ll be out in a sec,” he said.
She let out a long breath. “We need to get out there. The clock is ticking.”
He nodded. “I wanted to apologize properly for the way I behaved, along with my brothers. It’s just that our mom has had it in her head that we all need to get married and have babies.
For years we’ve enjoyed harassing and tossing each other under the bus with our mom to deflect her constantly telling us we need good women in our lives. ”
She cocked her head. “And you boys tell your mother everything?”
“No, but my mom has got a blind date set up for Dylan tomorrow night, and he’s using this op to get out of it and that hickey to deflect attention from him to me.”
“You do realize you’re all grown men, right?”
He laughed, squeezing her hand. “You’ll understand when you meet my mother.”
Before she could say another word, he was out the door. She pushed hers open and followed him across the parking garage where Dylan had pulled out a map and was pointing at it while the other men stood around him and nodded.
She’d deal with the idea of meeting his mother another time.
“Leandra?” a shorter man said as he stepped from the crowd, his hand stretched forward. “I’m Agent Fielding and while we’re not thrilled by how you came about your intel, we appreciate it.”
“Just doing my job.”
“Now let us do ours.” Fielding’s voice rang out with an authoritative and aggressive tone.