Page 53 of The Queen's Vow (Ruthless Games 2)

THIRTY-TWO

GIANCARLO

Fucking Fed pricks.

“Again?” Messina asked me, pacing in front of the windows.

The third roadblock crippled me from accessing Julian Russo’s online footprint. With a piece of code my brother wrote, something quick and dirty, something I memorized, I broke into a clearing house’s backdoor that processed bulk credit card payments.

I plugged in Julian’s social hoping he used a credit card somewhere and whatever kind of card he might have carried used that clearing house.

“She’s been gone for more than a week, Giancarlo.” Sebastien marched up to me and grabbed my collar. “I’m ready to fucking kill someone.”

“Is our story holding up at Domenico Holdings?” Messina asked, grabbing Bastien’s hands off me and dragging him to the leather sofa. “That she’s taking some time off to grieve the loss of her father? And given what happened at the cemetery, she’s in an unknown but secure location.”

“Yes,” I answered confidently since I had all kinds of hooks in Becca’s company. “And I made up some phony memo that reassigns Gil and Vale to watch her mother in Connecticut.”

My brain tingled in my head. Vale...

He should have contacted us by now. Something was wrong.

Biting my lip, I accessed Domenico Holdings to find Vale’s employment records. Giovanni had hired him and Gil for Becca as DH employees. Probably a way to keep control over them. Accessing his social was easy.

I went to another screen and plugged it into a tracker to find his credit cards and started tracing those. I’d taken away his phone and according to the cameras installed at Becca’s, no one’s been to her townhouse.

When silence thickened behind me, I glanced over my shoulder to find Messina on top of Sebastien kissing him, the two of them panting. Finishing what they had started in the limo. For a split second, jealousy stabbed at me. They had each other during this gut-wrenching time.

I had no doubt they felt just as frantic over missing Rebecca, but they had an outlet for their stress and even anger. I’d seen what Anthony did to Sebastien, roughly fucking him and I swore it was one of the few times I’d seen Messina calm.

A wave of lust shot through me watching Anthony rub Sebastien’s cock over his suit pants, his hips rocking in sync with low and throaty moans. Was I missing something about what these two had? How they could fuck each other, two men, yet they radiated nothing but ruthless power.

I pushed away from the desk, my cock growing hard. Slowly, I ambled toward them.

Anthony opened one eye spotting me. He stopped kissing Bastien, but kept rubbing his cock. “Yeah, Gian? You finally want in on this?”

“Fuck,” Bastien bit out and pushed Anthony’s hand away. He roughly opened his belt and next, the guy’s massive cock was in his hands. After spitting in his palm and making his cock slick and shiny, he said with his eyes closed, “Let Messina suck your dick, Gian. He’s fucking great at it.”

My heart pounded and my eyes focused on Anthony’s mouth. Full red lips that opened wide to down scotch. Or suck Daria off. I’d watched them plenty of times. Rebecca riding Messina’s cock, while he sucked off Bastien.

“It’s no big deal, Gian. It’s just sex,” Messina said, sitting up and waving me over. “It doesn’t mean you’re gay.”

I didn’t care if I were gay. My father might, however. “It means you’re bi.”

“Yeah, so?”

After a breath, I stepped back. “Never mind. And my official response is that I wouldn’t know what to tell Rebecca when we get her back.”

“Fucking-A, we’re getting her back.” Messina sank to the carpet and stuck his head between Bastien’s thighs.

With a final look, I watched Messina’s head bob up and down while Bastien’s jaw tipped back. He licked his lips and kept his eyes closed. Was he picturing Becca? Was it really that simple?

My jaw quivered as I reconsidered letting a man suck me off until a beep and a banner flashing across one of my screens grabbed my attention. A hit on Vale’s credit cards showed no activity. But something else pricked at me. They’d gone into the subway, could something have...happened? I realized I missed the connective tissue that would explain if Becca had gone with Julian, then where was Vale? With them? Would Julian want him hanging around?

If not, what would cause Becca to leave Vale?

Could he have been hurt? Or fuck...

Something I’d overlooked. With everything else I had tracked...

Back in Domenico Holdings, I found Vale’s health insurance records and put his ID back in the tracker and waited.

The moans behind me were so damn distracting. Shaking my head, I kept my thoughts to myself until something flashed on the monitor I used for tracking Julian.

“Yes,” I ground out under my breath.

Julian Russo’s credit card charges flurried down my screen. I only cared about the date Becca went missing, assuming charges from the days before weren’t for duct tape, rope, shovels, and lime. The charges for the 23rd were spotty.

A restaurant in Manhattan.

A bar in Brooklyn.

Then my heart stopped.

A big box store for $127.76

“Why are you shopping there, my friend?” I whispered in my best Dr. Evil voice.

No location for the charge was given, but there weren’t any stores like that one in Manhattan and Julian lived in the West Village.

A search engine powered by a piece of code resembling a Molotov cocktail littered my screen with raw data. All I had was the date of Julian’s American Express card charges, but Rebecca had been with us all day and I knew the time she left her townhouse. With thousands of stores in that big box chain though, I’d have to write some code to go through close to a million transactions and isolate that transaction total.

With each click of the keyboard, another moan sounded from across the room. Then with a sudden cry of “fuck, yes,” from Sebastien, one record popped up onto my screen.

A store north of Manhattan in a town called Swanville. And the transaction was riddled with woman’s toiletries and clothes. It didn’t prove Julian had her. But...come on.

At another terminal, I searched for that store, did more digging, and hacked into their security cameras. Something they didn’t have as many safeguards on. With the transaction isolated, I reviewed the time and then set the security video to start playing an hour before and ten minutes after.

My heart stopped when I saw Rebecca. Looking unharmed in the clothes she left us in. She did look unsteady though. And... There. Behind her. Julian Russo holding his arm like he’d been injured.

Jesus Christ. Had the hitman found them? Did he fight them off? I felt bad referring to him as a prick. I watched them walk further into the store. No Vale. Where was he? Did they fight over her? Did Vale shoot him? Did the hitman kill Vale trying to get to Becca?

Bastien cried out.

Good, they’re done.

A glance behind me showed they’d switched places. Shaking my head, I went back to wondering if I should keep this information a secret. My throat closed, thinking I could have Rebecca to myself.

God, I loved her so much. I missed her so much. Those two had each other, their newfound love after years of just hard fucking.

No, they’d hunt me down.

Plus, Becca loved them. Wouldn’t live without them. We’d gone through this. And since becoming a tightly formed love-alliance, she’d fallen deeper in love with all of us as a family.

Exhaling, I watched all the cameras as Rebecca and Julian ambled around the store. My hand closed tightly around my mouse, spotting her at the wireless counter. Alone. Talking to a sales clerk who eyed Becca with suspicion.

Why wasn’t Becca buying the burner phone like I suggested? I held my head, worry firing on all cylinders. Julian had looked hurt. And she left here with a fully loaded Ruger.

What in fuck’s sake happened?

I zoomed in on her face, fearing I’d see cuts and bruises. Nothing. Just her hair seemed a little out of place. Her eyes looked so damn tired. Shit. And... Uh oh. Her coat... That shiny rainslicker she had on. She’d worn a heavier trench when Messina gave her money. When did she change? I was so frantic that night we sent her uptown.

Is she without money?

I took her phone.

Jesus Christ...

I kept my stomach tight as I fast forwarded, unable to take the play by play any longer. My imagination ran way off the rails. This tape was from more than a week ago. I needed to see them leave the store and find the car they took off in.

With the entire camera array on one terminal, I tracked them to the checkout register, out in the parking lot, and then right up to a car...

“Come on, you bastard,” I yelled, zooming in, pissed the angle of the shot fucked up my view of the plate.

“We’re almost done,” Anthony whined behind me.

Through loud sucking smacks, Bastien said, “Did you find anything?”

“I don’t want to interfere with your blow job, but I found our girlfriend.”

Bastien pushed off the couch, leaving Messina’s hard wet dick bobbing. “Thanks a lot.”

“You’re close. Finish yourself, Messina.” Bastien now hovered over my shoulder. His taut body and tight jaw left no doubt who he wanted.

Becca.

“Wait,” I said, pushing him. “That monitor. Watch it carefully. Tell me if you can see the plate. I’m slowing down the feed.”

Bastien leaned closer. “Go.”

“Anything?” It took a surgeon’s precision on the trackpad.

“There!”

I zoomed in and enlarged the frame seeing the license plate as clear as day.

“Got it. We got you, motherfucker.” I plugged the plate number into the New York State Thruway plate reader system. “I will find you.”

“We will you, my love,” Bastien said, his pants undone, hanging low on his hips. “What’s that?” He pointed to the other monitor tracking Vale’s insurance info.

“Oh fuck,” I snapped and scrolled through the records. “Well with that good news about where Becca is, here’s some bad news.”

“What?” Bastien’s eyes widened, seeing the logo for a popular insurance company. Fucker grabbed the monitor off my desk. “Whose records are these?”

“Look carefully,” I said to him. “It’s Vale. He’s in a hospital near Columbia University.”

“Who put him in the hospital?” Messina asked, zipping his fly.

“I’m texting Gil to find out and get back to me,” I said to Messina, pulling my phone off the charger. “Then I’m heading north to find that license plate.”

“You think you’re going alone?” Messina bit out.

“I just got another hit on the plate. About six hours north of here. We all can’t disappear for that long. That was the point—”

“Enough,” Bastien roared. “I’m done with how this looks. Pack your weapons, boys. We’re all heading north to get our girlfriend.”

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