Page 70 of Out of the Shadows

The room was dead silent. All eyes were on him.Fuck. How long had he been lost in his thoughts? Clarification: lost in his wildly inappropriate thoughts?

Running a hand over his jaw, he dropped his gaze to the table and tried to refocus, tried to recall what the hell they’d been discussing.

Nothing. Not a damn thing. The only thing he could recall was how Bean had looked—all flushed and disheveled and beautiful—as she’d ridden him hard.

His dick twitched.Holy. Fuck. Focus!

Clearing his throat, he glanced at the faces staring back at him on the room’s giant Smartboard. “I’m sorry, Tiny, but could you repeat that last part?”

The other man nodded. “We’re fairly certain that the shooter that offed himself on the McClintock property yesterday was Damian Jacoby Otton. He’s a known gun for hire based out of Vancouver, BC.”

“Why only ‘fairly certain’?” Gavin frowned, air-quoting the last two words.Get your head back in the game, man.

“It looks like he had some work done on his face, so the facial-rec software couldn’t make an exact match,” Tiny said. “Since we don’t have access to his DNA, ‘fairly certain’ is the best we can do. However, if you take away the chin, nose, and forehead augmentations, it’s pretty close to a perfect match.”

“According to some chatter I picked up on the dark web, there was a failed assassination attempt on Otton about a year ago,” Bean said, glancing up from her computer. “Up until then, he was a fairly successful operative who worked predominately with a few different Russian bratva groups along the West Coast.”

As she spoke, more images of Otton popped up on thescreen, some obviously older than others. The man had definitely once looked different than he did now. It was a wonder they were able to make a match at all. “There’s also speculation it was one of those groups that put the hit out on him. The big rumor is that the injuries Otton incurred really messed up his vision, rendering him ineffective. He was basically blackballed after that.”

Gavin could only stare at her in wonder. Brains, beauty, and a shit ton of sass. Who knew that was his type? Hell,shewas his type. The woman was a damn marvel. A marvel who was giving him that annoyed-amused glare again.

He fake coughed into his hand and muttered, “Good intel, B.”

He fought a wince.Good intel? Holy shit, he needed to get his head on straight. Immediately.

“Well,” Xander said, “the fact that both McClintock and Frazier are still standing lends credence to the vision-being-off thing.”

Gavin glanced at his friend in question, still not believing that he’d been the intended target.

Xander held his hands up. “What? Just because you don’t buy that theory doesn’t mean it isn’t an actual possibility.”

“So to add more fuel to that particular fire, I checked Otton’s bank accounts,” Bean said. “In his line of work, the man obviously had quite a few of them, and last Thursday, he received a deposit of fifty grand into one of his Cayman accounts. We did a dive into the deposit, and while it was a little convoluted with multiple shell companies, the money originated from Performance Exports LLC, a Washington state company that was formed last Wednesday.”

Alvarez let out a low whistle. “That’s not suspicious at all, is it? Please tell me you’ve got more info?”

Gavin could see the gleam in Alvarez’s eyes. The guy wasa former detective and loved nothing more than fitting the proverbial puzzle pieces together.

“Of course, I do.” Bean chuckled and met Gavin’s gaze. “You wanted a connection? How about this? The listed owner of Performance Exports is Elena Nabers. She’s a manager at a local auto repair shop in South Seattle. Nabers also happens to be the cousin of Bradley Smith.”

Bean’s eyes were sparkling, her expression indicating he should know the name. He didn’t. A quick glance around the room showed everyone else was also drawing a blank. The name tickled something in the back of his mind. It sounded so damn familiar, but he shook his head. “Throw me a bone, B.”

“Seriously?” She huffed out a disappointed sigh as her fingers flew over her keyboard.

Gavin shrugged. “Hey, it’s a generic enough name.”

Multiple photos appeared on the conference room screen. Otton’s picture, a driver’s license belonging to a woman he assumed was Nabers, and two others. Bean’s mouse hovered over the two. “Richard Penning and Bradley Smith. They were arrested last Tuesday at the warehouse for Anson McClintock’s kidnapping.”

Son of a bitch.That’swhy the name was familiar. Damn, this was turning into one giant clusterfuck.

“Penning was fairly new to the family’s security detail,” Bean continued. “However, Smith is an extra giant piece of shit, because he was part of the McClintock security team when Anson was born.”

Esme, who’d been observing on the video feed, interjected, “My contacts at the FBI are saying that Penning doesn’t know much, that he was basically there to do the grunt work for a big payday. They believe Smith was the brains of the operation.”

Gavin rose and paced the length of the room, absorbingall the new information. “So Bradley Smith recruits Penning, and they kidnap and torture Anson hoping for a twenty-million-dollar ransom. But they fail and get arrested. Then the very next day, Smith’s cousin—Elena Nabers—files the paperwork for this export company, sets up a bank account, and hires a sniper all within twenty-four hours. But for what? To take out Edward McClintock?” Gavin shook his head. It didn’t make sense. “There’s no money in taking Edward out.”

“Well, before you go down that rabbit hole, there’s more,” Bean said. “This is the adding-fuel-to-the-fire bit I alluded to. Tiny ran Otton’s photos through his own facial-rec program”—she turned to Tiny on the video feed—“it’s a brilliant program, by the way, but we’ll talk more about that later.” She faced Gavin again. “We also gave Tiny the security footage of the man running by the McClintocks’ property last week. According to Tiny’s kick-ass program, there’s a high statistical probability that it’s the same person. Granted, without DNA, there’s no way to know for sure, but I’d like to peek at the medical examiner’s report on Otton, which”—her eyes narrowed as she scanned her laptop monitor—“they haven’t entered into their system yet. But if Otton has a two-day-old bullet wound in his shoulder, or even a graze of some sort, it’s likely he’s also the shooter from our car chase Saturday night.”

Gavin’s frown deepened. Not because Bean had just obviously hacked into the King County Medical Examiner’s system—he had every confidence she’d cover her tracks—but because he wasn’t connecting the dots. He held up a hand when it looked like she was going to say more. “Wait. What exactly are you saying, Bean? Spell it out for me like I’m five.” He’d heard her words, but they weren’t processing.

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