Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 98035 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 490(@200wpm)___ 392(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98035 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 490(@200wpm)___ 392(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
“What ride? Who’s coming?”
“People who care about you.” He removed a small device from another pocket. “I need to do a sweep for transmitters. Did Tiago put anything on your body? Like a small chip under your skin or maybe a piece of jewelry?”
“You mean a GPS chip?”
“Yes. You can’t go to the Restrepo estate until we’re certain you’re not being tracked. The location is a highly guarded secret.”
Her heart slammed as a fresh wave of sorrow washed over her. Tiago would’ve absolutely chipped her, and she knew exactly how. She didn’t even care if he meant to track her. In fact, she loved that about him.
She loved his possessiveness.
She loved his bossy mouth, his sexy Spanish accent, his cruel eyes, and his addictive masculine taste when he kissed her. She loved everything about him, and so what if that made her a head case?
“He hasn’t put anything on me.” She rolled her shoulders forward so the material would hang more loosely across her breasts. “We have to go back for him, Cole.”
He narrowed his eyes and waved that device right over her breasts until it sounded a low beep.
Her molars crashed together.
“You have piercings.” He removed a tiny flashlight from his pocket. “I need to see them.”
“I’m not removing them.” She hardened her voice. “Take me back to the island.”
“Not going back, Kate.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled. “You can take out the piercings or leave them in. I don’t give a fuck. I just need to see if there’s a tracker on them.”
“The thing beeped, so you already know.”
“It detected metal. You’ll get the same response when you go through an X-ray machine at the airport.”
“Oh.” She released a breath.
If he needed to see them, he would have to do it while they stayed in.
Without removing Tiago’s tuxedo coat, she wriggled the straps of the dress down her arms. When her breasts hit the warm air, he powered on the flashlight and angled the beam on the glimmering red stones.
“The fuck?” He leaned in, eyes bulging as he stared at the jewelry. “It can’t be.”
“What?”
“Did he tell you what these stones are?”
“Uh… Pawneets… Or no, it was pennet…”
“Painites.”
“Yes. Painites. Why?”
He barked out a strangled laugh and sat back on his heels. “That son of a bitch.”
“What’s wrong?”
He shook his head and gripped the back of his neck, his eyes fixed on the piercings, as if he couldn’t believe they were real.
“Did you find a tracker?” She straightened, startled by his strange reaction.
“No. The barbells are too small. It’s not that. It’s just…” He scrubbed a hand down his face. “You can fix your dress.”
Tiago hadn’t put a tracker on her?
Her breath stuttered as she put the gown back in order. “Is it the stones?”
“Yeah, Kate. Those fucking stones…” He shifted to the seat across from her and rested his elbows on his knees. “Painites are one of the rarest gemstones on the planet. Extremely valuable. But that’s not important. It’s…”
Something thundered in the distance, a clap-clap-clap whir of noise that grew louder, closer. In the next breath, she recognized the sound. A helicopter was coming.
“That’s your ride. Listen…” Cole ran the device along the rest of her body as he spoke. “There’s a rumor going around in the criminal underground that Tiago Badell sold his entire syndicate to some unknown investor in exchange for…” A swallow jogged in his throat. “Four rare painite stones.”
“What?” Her face chilled, and she pressed a hand over one of the piercings.
“That sort of hearsay runs rampant in his world, usually conceived as a means of subterfuge and rarely accurate. I didn’t even bother fact checking it. But the evidence…” He glanced at her chest and cleared his throat. “Jesus, Kate. If those gemstones are real…”
“He wouldn’t give me fake gems and call them real. Not his style.”
Cole nodded, his voice stunned. “You’re wearing the last twelve years of his life. His entire goddamn livelihood.”
“What does that mean?” Tears welled in her eyes as the whomping sound of the helicopter sped closer. “Did he give up his organization?”
“It appears so.”
“But he gave the stones to me a month ago, and he’s been going to the compound every day, conducting meetings with all his men.”
“Meetings about what?”
“I don’t know. They’re always in Spanish.”
“He was probably transitioning everything. Or dissolving operations.”
“Oh my God.” She jumped from the seat, rocking unsteadily as waves slapped at the boat. “Take me back. I need to go back!”
The helicopter swept in above her, swallowing her voice and enveloping her in a mist of ocean water. She covered her ears against the god-awful noise, unable to make out its silhouette against the night sky.
No way would she agree to board that thing. How would it even work?
She turned back to Cole and shouted over the wind, “Take me back!”