Page 71 of Nash

“Isitaware of your ability to keep it shut?”

“Are you aware you’re being a big dickhead?”

He turns onto the main road to the country club and course. When the guard at the gate sees him, he nods and quickly lets us drive through.

“Listen.” Nash parks, turning the engine off. “I need to debrief you.”

“You need to take my panties off?”

“Vale!” he barks. “Get serious.”

I exhale, making my habit of snark when I’m nervous pass before I inhale and answer, “Okay. I’m serious now.”

He turns to me. “This man we’re about to play, Claude Olan Turner the Fourth, comes from a long line of violent men. His father was arrested for assaulting an officer. You know her, Cade Bryant.”

“Cade? Yeah, I know her. She’s a loyal Delta’s customer.”

“Well, you also know how Stacey, your boss, was formerly married to the piece of shit senator, Gentry Evans, who was secretly running a trafficking ring using golf tours for men to disguise it. Stacey and Cade helped to bring Evans and his operation down.”

“Yeah,” I reply slowly, my brain processing fast.

“Well, Turner the Third was second in charge under Evans. He secured the contraband.”

“You mean the trafficking victims.”

“Yes,” Nash answers. “But with both men behind bars, it created a power vacuum, and the young Claude Olan Turner the Fourth filled it, and he’s worse than his father. Too preppy to suspect. Too rich to stop. Too young to know when to.”

My pulse doubles. “How do you know all of this?”

“We hear rumors that lead to sources who give us intel.”

“So you and your brothers stopped him?”

“Not yet. I found the money trail. I figured out his last …shipment,” Nash uses the word with disgust, “but we were too late. They were already sold.”

“Sold?”

“A dozen girls sold at Myrtle Beach.”

My face bends. My heart breaks. “And the cops don’tstophim?”

“They can’t catch him. He’s an evil fucking genius.”

“So now what?”

“We were getting the intel to stop him, to uncover his entire ring and associates. I was on his money trail, in his online accounts, figuring out how he operates, and that’s how he found me. He detected me hacking and found me through a VPN that wasn’t so well encrypted after all.”

“And that’s who was following us that night? He’s the man who tried to kill us?”

Nash reaches out, his fingertips brushing my cheek. “I’m sorry I got you into this. Bet you wish you took that Uber.”

I lean my cheek into his touch. “Bet the driver wouldn’t have made a minivan look as hot as you did.”

He grins … barely.

“This is serious, Vale. This is the hunter being hunted. He’s aiming for me; he’ll recognize you, but he won’t blow his cover in front of his date. To the rest of Charleston, he’s just a wealthy asshole, so he’ll play along. He’s a gambling addict and an average golf player. We need to play him until he’s our pawn. I need him in the clubhouse after the tournament. I need him right where we can get him.”

I nod. For all my snark and sass, I can set it aside and get damn smart. “What do I say?”

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