Page 82 of Resolution

Gregory Aston had been treated at the hospital and shipped back to the U.S. under heavy guard, only to undergo extensive interviews and interrogations. After all his partners and other associates at his law firm had refused to represent him in the criminal complaint the FBI was compiling, he’d been assigned a public defender. The law firm’s existence was up in the air, since the FBI’s White-Collar division was still going through crates of files it had confiscated from the firm with a court order. It was going to be a big case. Aston had known he was going to federal prison. When presented the evidence they’d had tying him to the murder of insurance investigator, Dave Reynolds, he’d cut a deal to plead guilty to all his dealings with the cartel just to keep from getting a death sentence.

The ruby pendant had been found locked in Castillo’s safe on the property where he died, along with Brian Leopard’s diamond pin, and Charlotte Mulberry’s diamond. To date, no other gems had been located. If they existed at all.

FBI agent, Roy Cabe’s tortured body had been found in one of the outbuildings on the property, along with his new wife’s, both shot in the head.

Aston admitted that Salvatore Mancuso had arranged for Lyle Trench to be killed in jail and had stolen the gems from both Leopard’s house and Tawny’s husband’s safe. Aston told FBI investigators that he’d been working with the rogue CIA cell all along. Our assumptions had been right on all accounts, and Aston confirmed that Tawny had been a willing dupe, hopelessly enamored with Mancuso.

She’d carried on a brief affair with the slimeball but hadn’t been a part of her husband’s demise. A closer look at autopsy results and a deeper investigation into the timing around his death found that surprisingly, Benedict Flores had probably done himself in, overdosing on his own heart pills which had killed him. Perhaps after learning about the affair, he hoped his wife would be blamed. He must have known she’d never be able to get her hands on the trust funds he set up in Grand Cayman for her. Obviously, he was an angry and slightly unstable man…angry enough to kill himself in revenge.

Tawny had been beaten to within an inch of her life just for sport. Worse yet, Castillo had held a gun to her head while his sicarios had gang raped her after he’d had a first go at her. She’d recover from her physical injuries, but it remained to be seen how long it would take before she recovered from her other, more serious, emotional ones. She wasn’t criminally charged by the FBI.

Brian Leopard was genuinely an innocent man in everything. During his interview with the FBI, he’d admitted to bankrolling the casino but had never realized his partner, Benedict Flores, had gotten into bed with the Sanchez Cartel. He didn’t learn that the investors whom Flores had borrowed money from had been part of the cartel until he was shown documents the FBI had found in Castillo’s safe—which had once been Benedict Flores’ safe—along with the jewels. Brian hadn’t been raped but he’d been horribly beaten as a part of Special Agent Willis’ torture. The agent had been forced to watch the brutality. He’d come out of the ordeal a very different, very broken man.

Special Agent Trevor Willis had barely survived the gunshot wound from Alex Filmore and the torture meted out by Castillo’s men in the days preceding Filmore’s arrival at the compound. He’d gone into surgery and remained there for over seven hours. He’d had severe internal injuries, multiple broken bones in his face, limbs, and back where he’d been kicked, stomped, and beaten. Castillo had learned he was a DEA agent quite by accident when one of the youngest of his sicarios recognized him from a bust early in his career.

The sicario had died inside the house that day, and Willis had barely survived. His recovery would be long and arduous, and it remained to be seen whether he’d ever return to active duty after suffering horribly at the hands of Alex Filmore and Castillo’s men. Brian Leopard remained in Grand Cayman at his bedside. SAC Bannister stayed as long as she could, but left him in Brian’s care, when she was ordered to fly home for her own debrief.

I glanced at the hotel room door when I heard the lock disengage. Raven came in, red faced and smiling as a blast of heat followed him into the room. “Hey there, good looking!” he said, coming over to me. I lifted my face as he bent down to kiss me.

“Did you meet with the medicine man?” I asked as he sat down on the bed opposite the chair where I sat.

“Yes. I left Nana and Dolly with her. They’ll be out there on the rez most of the day. We’ll go pick her up after nightfall. I’m pretty convinced Dolly wishes she was born Navajo.”

I laughed as suddenly, the phrase he’d used struck a cord. “Her?”

“What?”

“You said her. The medicine man is a woman?”

“Oh, yeah,” Raven said with a broad grin. “Women usually meet with other women. It’s a cultural thing I’d completely forgotten about.”

“I didn’t realize that.” I smiled back.

“Well, that’s the way it is. What are you doing?”

“I was thinking about the wrap up of our case.”

He narrowed his eyes. “That’s it?”

I shook my head slowly, knowing it was probably the perfect time to talk with him about the offer SAC Waters had made back in Houston. That was six days ago and our promise to give him an answer had a deadline. Still, something else was at the forefront of my mind. I smiled at Raven, beckoning him close. “Come here.”

He grinned. “What?” Coming over to the bed where I sat, he stood in front of me and put his hands on my shoulders. When I reached out and began unbuckling his belt, he laughed.

“You have a one-track mind, Miguel.”

“You bet I do.” It only took a few seconds to have him the way I wanted him…pants around his knees, his cock in my mouth. He wound his hands into the short strands of my hair as I took him down to the root, sucking hard.

“God,” he gasped, “I love it when you do this.”

I hummed around his dick, rolling his balls in my hand and holding onto his ass to keep him close as I sucked him off.

“Son-of-a-bitch,” he said. “Your mouth feels like heaven.”

I looked up at him, mouth stuffed with cock, smiling around it. I met his lusty gaze and redoubled my efforts when he pulled hard on my hair.

“Jesus, Miguel, you keep that up and I’m gonna blow,” he said.

I nodded, sucking harder, sliding on and off as his cock swelled in my mouth.

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