Page 87 of Lure

“We all have good days and bad, Gracie-girl. I do okay most of the time and when I don’t… Well, I have Goblin. He helps.”

“I can see that.” I stroked the hair away from his face. His phone buzzed and he stretched over to pick it up.

“One sec.”

He eased upward again and I was suddenly a lot chillier without him. He didn’t go far, just shifted to sit on the coffee table, phone in hand. His thumbs flew over the screen. Answering a message, clearly. Then he hit send and there was a little boop of it going.

A moment later another sound indicated a new message. He answered that, and I rolled onto my side to watch him as he went back and forth with the guys—one of them, all of them, did it matter?—for a few minutes.

Another flicker of a smile then he set the phone aside and looked back at me. “They are in place and have eyes on the target.”

Fresh tension coiled in my stomach. “It’s still daytime though.”

“Yep, they’ll be several hours yet. So we have time. They want to see if he leaves the house before I work on cracking his security. So we have another hour—maybe two before I have to work.”

I licked my lips. “We can do a lot in a couple of hours.”

“Gracie-girl,” he said, a slow grin lighting him up. “You read my mind.”

I don’t know which of us reached for the other first, but his mouth was on mine and I was wrapped around him. We had time.

We were going to take it.

Chapter

Thirty-Two

VOODOO

The warm breeze carried the teasing scents of the Mediterranean: salt, sand, and sun. The brightness reflected off the white buildings around us and seemed to add an intense glare to everything, so I kept my sunglasses in place as I strolled the neighborhood.

There were plenty of people, from older ladies to dog walkers to families out walking their pets, from little powder poof purse puppies to the proud, if pampered, standard poodles and everything in between. We’d tracked Gallo all day. He spent most of the day secure behind the walls of his villa.

The billionaire had a tight net of security with a half-dozen guards on the property. Every single one moved like they were military or former military. His driver was a part of the security force.

He also had easily twice as many women frolicking on the estate as well. I doubted there was a single one over the age of twenty playing in and around his pool. The idea this schmuck wanted Grace to be another plaything for his amusement grated more and more as the day passed.

Each hour served as another reminder that this man actually kept upping his offer into seven figures to get Grace to come to him. Was he paying for all those girls in his pool? And was he paying them or someone else?

I didn’t like judging anyone’s circumstances, but those kids deserved a lot better than that dick.

Ahellof a lot better.

“Housekeeper is on the move,” Lunchbox said over comms from where he was seated at a cafe just down the road from the market. He’d followed her when she left the villa.

“Cars are arriving,” Alphabet said. “I have four, looks like two for security, a decoy, and a vehicle for the target.”

That was pretty standard.

“Some of the girls are also leaving,” Alphabet continued. “I’ve got four, no five, heading out the side gate on foot. They’ve got a couple of the security guards going along with them.”

“Let them go,” Bones ordered. “If he has cars coming, he may be preparing to depart.”

That was my thinking. Particularly after we tracked the crew preparing his yacht. “Better to take him from outside the secure perimeter.”

“Agreed,” Alphabet said. “Gracie says that Gallo generally travels with at least one bodyguard in his vehicle with him—regardless of what company is also with him.” That tracked with what we’d already learned. I checked my watch.

“Give him another hour, keep an eye on those vehicles.” With that, I continued my slow stroll down the street as the vehicles in question drove right past me.

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