Page 35 of Guarding The Phoenix: Vol. 2

I wouldn’t put anything past the son of a bitch.

But I was damn tired of him outsmarting our agents. My brother, Grant, had been the best in the business. And Santos swatted him off like he was no more than a fly bothering him.

Once I was certain the hull was clear, I surfaced at the back of the yacht. Axel stood on deck with a scowl.

He leaned down and gave me a hand up. I shoved my mask up. “Everything okay?”

“We found two more. That fucker has been tracking us this whole time.”

“Fuck.” The oversight and blame was mine. I should have checked for bugs. Stupid mistake. It was a rookie mistake, all because I’d been blinded by my grief.

“Sums it up nicely. Mateo said you have an idea of what to do with these that could help.”

“I do. We need a drone.”

A grin spread on Axel’s face. “Planning to send them in the wrong direction.”

“It’ll work. We need command to triangulate their location. Once the sun sets, we have the drone move out in the opposite direction from our destination. Then we wait until we’re sure they took the bait and are following the drone. And then we slink out of the harbor under the cover of darkness.”

“It could work.” Axel nodded with a smirk.

“Yeah, it could. Get on the horn to command, tell them what we need.” I stripped off the scuba suit.

“What direction do you want it to lead them?”

“Opposite from us. Send the fuckers toward Central America. That way when they figure out it’s not us, we’ll be a thousand miles away. This way we can get to the Alaska house, grab what we need and go before Santos reaches us again.”

Because I doubted a man that slick wouldn’t figure out our heading, eventually. We had no idea whether Santos knew about the house in Alaska or not. It’s not like Carlos Vega and Luka Santos had been bosom buddies.

“There’s more.”

“Just spit it out.” Axel looked like he swallowed a hot poker.

“Kylie’s phone is compromised. The Find My Phone app is up and running. We don’t know who is tracking her phone. It might have been her dead husband.”

Mother puss-bucket. The laundry list of ways I’d fucked this case of was getting longer by the damn minute. “Was Vega’s cell phone found with his body?”

“Nope. I’d bet money Santos has it. Likely how he found her in town the other day.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. We made mistakes. I fucked up the most though. As the leader it had been my job to handle all this shit, and make sure there wasn’t anything we missed. Honesty, from the moment Kylie opened the front door, my focus had been on her. I’d wanted her with a desire bordering on obsession.

“Her phone needs to go with the drone too.”

“What do we tell Kylie?”

“As little as possible.” The less she knew about the case, the better. It wouldn’t stop Santos from torturing her if he got his hands on her. But I wasn’t going to let that happen.

***

Kylie

“Are you sure this will all fit in the van?” I stared with skepticism at the five cartloads of goods.

When Gideon mentioned that Chase would take me shopping for supplies, I figured we would grab what we needed and be done. But this mountain of items went far beyond what I thought we were picking up. We had everything from eggs to coffee creamer to fresh fruits and veggies. Loaded into the carts were pounds of meat, loaves of bread, rolls, baking supplies, bags of frozen goods, dairy products, and everything else in between.

“I’m sure it will, beautiful. What’s put that frown on your face?” he asked as two sales associates helped us wheel the carts out to the van.

“Don’t worry about it.” I didn’t want to spill my guts in front of strangers. Chase grimaced. I saw the question in his eyes. He wouldn’t let this go.

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