Chapter 2
LINCOLN CASTRO
SUCKS TO BE YOU, BABE
ONE WEEK LATER
Istalk through my home office in a shit of a mood, my phone bleating with incoming calls and my emails incessantly dinging to let me know every fucker on the planet wants to talk.
That’s what happens when you run one of the most successful private investigator firms on the eastern seaboard, make a name as a skip tracer for those hard-to-get folks, and charge top dollar for every job.
I can prioritize who gets my time and which emails I open. But as I circle back to my desk with a fresh cup of coffee and sit down to check the screen, one name in particular pulls my interest.
An email subject line that reads check your fucking messages makes me pause. Dread settles in the base of my gut as I snatch up my phone and swipe across to my texts, only for that dread to grow heavier when I find a dossier I never asked for.
Target: Nova Nichols.
Age: 27
Sex: Female
General description: 5’4”. Approx. 118lbs. Light brown to dark blonde hair. Hazel eyes.
I back-swipe to my home screen and set the phone down, shaking my head with a firm fucking no.
Because that text didn’t come from a regular dude searching for a woman.
Not a standard HR rep requesting a background check before giving a woman a job.
Not even from a judge, demanding their perp be returned for court.
That text was from the Richard Aster, a dangerous motherfucker who deals in drugs, money, expensive antiques, and anything else his heart desires. Which means he wants her dead, hurt, or her life turned upside down.
I’m not doing it.
I refuse.
But then my email dings again, the subject line arrowing straight to the fuckin’ point.
I caution you not to be so foolish as to ignore me. You know it won’t end well.
“Fuckkkkkk.” Sitting back, the groan of my chair echoing throughout my office, I press the heels of my palms to my eyes and scratch my head to work through the rage and dread and overall fucking nope coursing through my veins.
My phone trills again, Richard’s name flashing on the screen as I pull one hand away to peek.
Ignore him, and I wouldn’t put it past him to firebomb my home.
Answer, and I fucking know he’ll drag me back to a place I left a long time ago.
“For fuck’s sake.” I shoot forward in my seat and swipe to answer his call. Setting it on speaker, I slump back again. “Richard. You know I’m out.”
“You’re back in,” he counters easily. Too relaxed. Too fucking confident. “You already read her profile, so you know who we’re looking for.”
“We had a deal! I finished my last assignment, and you let me go. That was the end of it.”
“It was the end of it. Now it’s not. I respected our deal for a decade, Castro. But this target is important, and I know you’ve got the skills to get us across the line.”
“Richard!”
“She’s sweet as a button, and pretty as a peach. I don’t even need her dead, which is why I’m calling you instead of Tank.”
Tank. My blood boils just thinking about that nearly seven-foot, muscle-clad, doesn’t-mind-fucking-a-corpse prick.
“She lives in a small town, and he’s too conspicuous. You’ll do this for me, Castro. I’m not interested in the word no.”
“I have my own life now! I have a business and deadlines and shit that keep me busy right here. I can’t hop on a plane and come out to—”
“If you don’t, I’ll send Scarlett’s files to D.C,” he snarls. “It sure is ironic how you’ve made a career of tracking criminals down and handing them over to the cops, when all along, you know exactly where a wanted felon lives.”
“Aster—”
“And then there’s your list of fuckery,” he taunts. “Murder in the first. Assault with a deadly weapon. Fraud. Racketeering. Laundering. Oh, and there was that time you moved powder across the border. You remember that?”
My temper burns hot, my lips curling into a sneer.
“I’ve got you both tied up, Linc, with a sexy little bow on top. I know you have a life you’d like to keep living, and you sure as fuck want Scarlett left out of this. So do the job. It’s only a week, then you go back to that house you think is hidden in the woods.”
I gnash my teeth and know he’s won. For now. “What do you want from her?” I grit out. “She doesn’t have to die?”
“No. But the last guy I sent killed the target right in front of her. So you’re gonna have to be subtle.”
“There was a different target? And now they’re dead? But you want me to go after the girl?” I settle back in my chair and pinch the bridge of my nose. “Consider me confused.”
“Ryan Nichols was the target. He was the woman’s brother. He’s got something I want, and I’m willing to do whatever the fuck I need to do to get it. I sent Harris out first, but he fucked up and killed the guy and himself in the process.”
Curious, I slide my tongue along the front of my teeth. “Like, he turned a gun on himself and pulled the trigger, or like you pointed a gun and pulled the trigger?”
“Like, he thought he could total Nichols’ truck in plain fuckin’ daylight and use the chaos to search for the item, but all he did was make a scene, reveal himself to the girl, kill the target, and walk away empty-handed.”
“He got seen.” I nod, catching the one detail Aster thinks he can slide over. “He was a loose end, so you had Tank deal with him.”
“You know me so well.” He chuckles, the telltale click-click of a lighter playing through the line as he lights a cigar and takes a long puff. “Harris is out, and my other guys are too busy or too conspicuous. That leaves you. And we’re both delightfully aware that you always finish a job.”
“What am I supposed to be looking for? Paperwork? Disks? Footage?”
“That’s where it gets tricky…” He exhales, his voice changing with the movement of his throat. “I don’t know.”
“The fuck you mean you don’t know? I can’t pick this woman’s pockets if I don’t even know what I’m taking.”
“Nichols was one of five soldiers,” he explains. “They each possessed a key of some sort.”
“So… a key?”
“A set of numbers, to be precise. But of the original five men, we’ve recovered four completely different things.
A key card, a USB stick, a ring, and a laptop.
We need the last key to access…” He hesitates for a beat, secrecy a weighted blanket draped across our call.
“Something that holds a great deal of interest for me. We don’t know where Nichols saved his key or what it looks like.
We don’t know if he kept it on his body, or at his sister’s house, or in the truck, or—”
“How do you know the code wasn’t destroyed in the accident?”
“Because that’s not acceptable to me. We have four of the five keys. And the girl, Nova Nichols, is Ryan Nichols’ only living relative.”
“No women in his life?”
“None in years, and I already looked at her, just in case. He dumped her, cut all contact, and left her cold half a decade ago. She’s still pissed about it. The only relationship he maintained outside of the military was with his sister, and she admits she only ever saw him once a year, at best.”
“She admits?” I set my feet on my desk and cast my gaze toward my computer screen. “You already made contact?”
“Thompkins did. Briefly. Bought her a drink and chatted for an hour. She bailed before he could buy her a second.”
“She smelled a rat?”
“Uninterested, so far as Thompkins tells it. Now she knows his face, so I can’t send him back. Which means—”
“I’m up.” I tip my head back and stare at the ceiling. “What if she decides she’s not interested in me either? I do my best, try to slide in, but she throws up roadblocks. You still screwing me over despite our agreement?”
“Blow it on purpose? I’ll end your life my fucking self.
Make a genuine effort and do the job I know you’re capable of, and I’m certain we’ll get what we need.
I’m running out of men I trust for this, and I’m old enough to be the girl’s grandfather.
So I’m counting on you to bring the fifth key home. ”
“When?” I drop my gaze and exhale through my nose.
“When do I need to be there? When’s the deadline for recovering the mystery fucking thing we can’t even describe?
And have you considered that she may grow suspicious if I steal all her phones, USB drives, and the television remote?
Even a blind woman would notice that shit. ”
“I figure you can use that brain of yours, Linc.” He takes a long draw from his cigar, filling his lungs with black poison. “You’re not new to this. Swipe what you think is important. Leave the rest. The longer you’re there, and the more you take, the closer you are to discovery.”
And once I’m discovered, he’s taking me out and tossing Scarlett to the feds.
“I need you in town in under twenty-four hours. Her brother’s funeral is tomorrow afternoon. Go. Pay your respects and search for a way in.”
“Jesus.” I groan. “Hitting below the belt, don’t you think? You killed her last living relative, and now you want me to intrude on his funeral, too? What am I supposed to say: Hey there, beautiful. You look sad. Let’s go back to your place and fuck till you fall asleep?”
He snorts, exhaling a plume of smoke. “This is your show, Castro. But if it were me?” He shakes his head, the scratch of what I remember as a short beard scraping along the phone speaker.
“I wouldn’t start with that. I’ll have a plane waiting for you tomorrow morning.
Sunrise. Don’t be late. There’s a rental with your name on it near her house, and a car parked in the driveway, so you’ve got a way around. ”
“Why not just get me a hotel?”
“Because, as already proven with Thompkins, she ain’t loose, no matter how smooth he is with her drinks.
She’s not inviting you back to her place an hour after you meet, and she’ll probably be suspicious if you’re living out of a hotel for an extended period for no reason.
If she thinks you live there, she’s more likely to let you in.
She was raised by an Army Ranger, and her big brother was Special Forces.
She’s not your typical damsel. So you’re gonna have to work harder. ”
For fuck’s sake.
“I’ve sent over everything we have on her. And him. Read the files so you know your mark, then get me my fucking code. You have seven days. The faster you are, the more I’ll pay you.”
“You’re paying me?” I lower my feet to the floor and lean forward to click on my emails.
I open the folders and watch as my security software scans them both, destroying the sneaky little trojans Aster attempts to include, then I move to Nova’s file and focus on her green-eyed gaze.
“I thought this was one of those ‘Do it, or I’ll fuck you up’ jobs.
Now you’re telling me there’s money involved? Well, shucks, Boss.”
He coughs out an emphysemic chuckle. “Smart asses are better than the kind who tell me no. I await confirmation that you’re on my plane tomorrow morning.”
And just like that, he kills our call and leaves me staring at Nova Nichols.
Her brief says she has green eyes, but fuck, they’re so much more than that.
They’re green with brown speckles, golden flakes, blue waves, and a whole fucking rainbow of color that draws focus long before her narrow nose.
Her bow lips. Her soft brown hair, which may be closer to blonde.
Poor girl.
I roll my bottom lip between my teeth and shake my head. Because she’s got a target on her back and a price on her head, and her only crime is being related to someone else who is too dead to hand over a key.
“Sucks to be you, babe.”