The Mystery Unmasked: Enigma, #3

by Shandi Boyes

  Her phone hitting the receiver advises she disconnected our call. After throwing my cell onto the coffee table, I move to the large floor-to-ceiling window of my suite. Usually, my nights in Vegas are spent on the high-roller floor or at my nightclub, Jacks, located on the strip. But tonight, I’m holed up in my room, praying Isabelle doesn’t call me with another nightmare.

  Don’t misconstrue my comment. I want Isabelle to call me if she’s having a nightmare, but I’d prefer for her dreams not to be plagued by ghastly, horrid images while I’m a six-hour flight away. When I flew to Vegas with Hunter this morning, we’d anticipated a whirlwind visit, in and out in the one day. As always, not even the most well-thought-out plans follow their anticipated path. We hit a glitch, but once it’s been fixed, I’ll be on the first flight back to Ravenshoe.

  An odd ding sounds from the middle of the suite a mere second before my burner cell vibrates on the glass coffee table. I eye it peculiarly while striding across the room. I’ve never heard it make such a noise. When I flip open the screen, a ghost of a smile cracks onto my lips. The peculiar noise was announcing my phone has a text message. It’s from Isabelle.

  Isabelle: I miss you.

  My faint smirk enlarges to a full smile when my phone buzzes again.

  Isabelle: I love you.

  After hitting the speed dial for Isabelle, I press my phone to my ear. She answers on the very first ring.

  “Hi.”

  “Hi,” I reply as my hearing hones in on a faint dragging noise trickling down the line. “Are you biting your lip?”

  Her giggles stiffen my cock. “How did you know that?”

  “I know everything. Haven’t you learned that yet?”

  It’s so quiet, I hear her cheekbones lift. I shift my eyes to the spectacular view of the Vegas skyline, acutely aware it has nothing on the awe-inspiring beauty Isabelle disperses when she smiles.

  “Why were you biting your lip? You only do that when you’re nervous?” Or horny.

  She better be both nervous and alone.

  When my question is met with silence, I prompt her to answer me. “Isabelle?”

  “I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to use this phone to send you messages, or if it was just for emergencies.” She sounds panicked as if she is seconds from getting into trouble. I understand why when she adds, “I deleted the messages as soon as I sent them, so no one can trace them.”

  My lips vibrate when I release the breath I’m holding in. “That’s the reason I gave you the phone. If you need me, call me. Anytime, day or night. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Her soft purr has my cock straining against the zipper in my trousers, but I do my best to ignore it. “How did your appointment go with Avery today?”

  While unbuttoning my suit jacket, I pace back to the bar in the middle of my suite. Isabelle is over twenty-two hundred miles away, so there’s no use getting myself worked up over the sexiness of her voice when I can’t do anything about it.

  “Good. I really like her.”

  I grin, pleased. “Did you tell her about your nightmares?”

  “Yes. She gave me some techniques I need to do before bed each night. They’ll hopefully lessen their occurrences.”

  “What type of techniques?”

  “Umm. . . visually stimulating prompts.” Her voice lowers to a husky purr. “They’re supposed to prepare my mind for a peaceful sleep by stimulating my senses with positive images.”

  My brow arches as quick, needy breaths double the output of my lungs. “What type of images are you looking at?”

  “I don’t know,” she whispers. “I haven’t looked at them yet.”

  My eyes drop to my watch, which advises it’s 11:35 p.m. in Ravenshoe. “Are you not preparing to go to bed?”

  “Yes.” Her voice is even lower. “I just don’t need Dr. Avery’s images to visually stimulate myself.”

  My pulse quickens as sweat slicks my skin. “Are you using something else?”

  I throw my jacket over a Victorian chaise on my right, too hot to need additional layers of clothing when Isabelle replies, “Yes.”

  I pour myself a generous serving of whiskey before asking, “What are you imagining?”

  “You…” I freeze as a growl rips up my throat, “… naked.”

  My cock turns to stone. I’ve never participated in phone sex before, but Isabelle’s husky purr is encouraging me to open my mind to new possibilities. I plan to make Isabelle mine in every sense of the term, so phone sex should be included in that curriculum, shouldn’t it?

  My lips brush my phone’s speaker when I ask, “Did it make you wet?”

  “Yes,” she breathes out slowly. “Very.”

  “How wet, baby?”

  Her voice is as raspy as her sheets ruffling down the line when she murmurs, “Dripping.”

  My cock leaps in my trousers. I ditch the decanter of whiskey onto the cherry oak bar, no longer needing its heat to warm my belly. Isabelle’s soft moans are already heating me up.

  After sitting on the king-size bed, I commence undoing the pearl buttons on my business shirt until it exposes my white wife-beater underneath.

  “Touch yourself, Isabelle.”

  “What?” she asks breathlessly, sure she heard me wrong.

  She didn’t.

  “I want to hear you come while playing with that pretty pink pussy of yours.”

  A moan parts her quick, panting breaths. “Will you do it with me?”

  When my zipper lowering resonates down the phone, her gasps quicken. “I’m right there with you, baby.”

  I release my cock from its tight restraints, stroking it in a rhythm that matches Isabelle’s breaths barreling down the line.

  “Oh God, are you touching your…” Her words trail off as the most erotic fucking moans I’ve ever heard ramp up.

  “Put two fingers in your pussy before circling your clit with your opposite thumb.”

  Her breaths lower before she moans. “Ohhh...”

  “Does it feel good, baby?”

  “Uh… huh.” Her reply is barely a whisper, but it doesn’t weaken their wickedness in the slightest. “I’m imagining my thumb is your tongue, tasting, licking, and biting my clit.”

  My pumps quicken as the desire to come overwhelms me. “When I see you next, I’ll do precisely that. I’m going to spend hours tasting you before I bury my cock so deep inside you, you’ll feel me for a week.”

  My cock throbs when a low, quivering moan vibrates down the line. I’d give anything for my outdated cell to have video capabilities. Watching Isabelle’s face when she comes is an enthralling experience. The way her pupils dilate and her lips part before my name tears from her throat in a grunted scream is a riveting sight. I’ll never grow tired of seeing that image. Just the thought of her beautiful face in ecstasy has my strokes turning brutal. I guide my hand up and down my shaft, using the precum beading at the crest as lubricant with every stroke I do.

  “I’m close,” Isabelle warns a short time later. “I’m going to come.” Her shuddering voice exposes how imminent her climax is.

  I fist my cock faster, working it as desperately as I wish Isabelle could. “Your fingers are my cock, grinding in and out of you, fucking you hard and fast like you love it.” I match her moans for both intensity and loudness. With my imagination extremely vivid, I could imagine her pussy sucking at my cock, begging for its spawn. “My hand is your sweet, tight pussy, greedily milking my cock, begging to be filled with my hot cum.”

  “Oh… God,” she murmurs. “Ohh… ohhh… ohhh.”

  “Let me hear you, baby. I want to hear you come.”

  My balls constrict when the most seductive purr I’ve ever heard booms down the line along with my name. Isabelle’s sweet cries of ecstasy spur on my own violent release. I grunt as cum jets out of my swollen crown, coating my hand and my trousers with its brutal force.

  Chapter 21

  Isaac

  The next morning, I’m tying my
gray tie around my neck when a knock sounds on the door of my hotel room. Once I’ve secured the knot, I stride toward the door. My mood has dramatically improved after my phone call with Isabelle last night. My muscles are no longer bunched, and the headache that’s been plaguing me the past two weeks has dissipated.

  After cleaning myself in the bathroom, I stayed on the line with Isabelle until exhaustion overtook her. Her soft snores were the last thing I heard before the battery on my cell ran out of charge. A quick phone call from Hugo this morning advised what I had already suspected—Isabelle didn’t have a nightmare last night. Obviously, Avery’s plan to fill Isabelle’s mind with visually stimulating images to reduce the chance of her having a nightmare worked. I very much look forward to testing out her theory again tonight.

  When I swing open the door, Parker, a security employee I keep on the West Coast, greets me with a nod. “Boss.”

  I return his greeting with a lift of my chin before gesturing for him to enter my room. Parker has been with my empire the past six years. He doesn’t have a job title. He was my all-rounder until Hugo arrived in the picture. He gives the impression of a solitary man who rarely speaks unless it’s a requirement. He prefers scrutinizing those around him than hold a conversation. His inky black hair hangs well past his ears, and his maturity isn’t seen on his face. He’s seven years older than me, but you wouldn’t know that by looking at him. He has no trouble attracting the ladies if they’re enticed by a guy who looks like a trained killer.

  “Did the transfer of money go through as scheduled?” When my question is met with silence, I raise my eyes from my cufflink. Parker’s eyes are darting around my room. They’re brimming with suspicion. “Hunter scanned the room last night. No one has been here since then, and I’ve never left.”

  Happy we’re not being eavesdropped on, Parker says, “The transfer was completed as scheduled yesterday morning.”

  “Then what caused the delay in the exchange of assets?”

  He shrugs in a non-answering type of way. Mercifully, his non-verbal reply is backed up with words. “They’re cautious after your arrest. They’re suggesting we delay the exchange by a few weeks until things settle down.”

  “That was not the agreement. I paid the required amount, so I want the exchange to occur as scheduled.”

  “It will happen. Just not this week.”

  Fury scorches through my veins, warming my body from its furious heat, but before I can voice my annoyance, Parker adds a stipulation to our negotiations I never saw coming. “They’re requesting to meet with you before the exchange occurs.”

  “When?”

  “Now.” Parker’s reply is almost drowned out by three quick taps hitting my hotel room door. “That will be them.”

  A heavily tinted black Escalade takes me to a massive steel warehouse on the outskirts of Henderson, Nevada. It’s a one-level complex tucked away from the main roads, inconspicuously hidden from prying eyes. I’ve always wondered how far Col’s underground fight circuit stretched across the country. Now I know his demographic reach is impressive.

  When I step out of the back of the car, two burly men with automatic weapons strapped to their waists move toward Parker and me. My jaw muscle tenses when one of the gentlemen, a large Samoan man, begins frisking me. “I was searched before entering the car, yet you feel the urge to do it again upon exiting. Paranoia causes costly mistakes.”

  He grunts but continues his vigorous search. “I can guarantee you that that’s all me,” I sneer when his extensive search pats over my crotch on more than a half dozen occasions. “If you don’t believe me, ask your mother for confirmation.”

  The brute’s nostrils flare as he rises to his feet. The width of his shoulders is double mine, and my eyes only hit the bottom of his chin, but nothing will have me missing the furious blaze igniting in his eyes from my taunt. He has a very short fuse that’s ready to explode at any moment. If he were ever part of my empire, his short fuse would warrant an immediate termination. Keeping him on would be a costly mistake for any business capitalist.

  Our intense stare-down is interrupted by a deep, accentuated voice on my right. “Casper, that’s enough. This is not how you treat family.”

  Casper’s head immediately balances on his broad chest. When feet padding across a concrete floor sound through my ears, I shift my head in the direction the voice came from. The thump of my heart kicks up a gear when I glance into a pair of eyes that are a replica of Isabelle’s in every way.

  “Isaac Holt, it’s a pleasure to put a name to the face I’ve heard many great things about the past five years.”

  Vladimir’s Russian accent is as thick as the gel holding his hair back. For a man at least in his seventies, he’s a fit-looking gentleman. His face is void of the wrinkles most men his age have, and he stands at approximately six-foot-two or three. His build is similar to mine, although he’s a little rounder in the mid-section.

  I keep the riled expression off my face when he places his hands on my cheeks to cradle my head like you would a child. “I heard your meeting with Albert was…” he stops talking to find an appropriate word to express my botched meeting with his right-hand man, “… flagrant. I assure you the FBI will not bother you while you’re in my house. Vegas is my home, and you, my friend, are always welcomed in my home. You also have my guarantee that the error shown by my men that day was taken care of.”

  I was arrested the morning after attending a meeting with Vladimir’s right-hand man, Albert Sokolov. The men who flanked Albert assured me our meeting was being held in a secure premise. If my arrest is anything to go by, their intelligence was severely lagging that day.

  “It was nothing I couldn’t handle.” I stare into a set of eyes that are identical to Isabelle’s while saying, “The FBI doesn’t have the authority to say who I can or cannot dine with.”

  Vladimir grins. It’s a smile that shows the conniving, vindictive man he is. “I’m glad to hear that, Isaac, as I’m very much looking forward to the adventure we’re about to undertake.” He gestures for me to follow him into an office at the side of the warehouse. “So why don’t we get down to business.”

  When he shuffles away, Parker tilts in close to my side. “Are you sure you want to do this, boss?”

  “It’s too late to back out now.” I shadow Vladimir into the office that’s going to push my empire in a direction I never saw coming. It will now forever be seen as a syndicate in the Russian mafia crime entity known as the Povov Clan.

  Chapter 22

  Isabelle

  I drag my overstuffed suitcase out into the entryway of Regan’s apartment, grunting for every inch I travel. I wasn’t sure what to pack for a fundraising gala, so I was a little obsessive with the number of accessories and shoes I crammed into my bags. Noticing my struggle, Brandon grins a lopsided smirk before assisting me the last four feet.

  “You do realize we’re only going away for three nights, don’t you, Izzy?”

  Hugo’s cheeky question doesn’t warrant a reply, so I don’t give him one. Instead, I roll my eyes and stick out my tongue. He smiles a megawatt grin before winking, loving that I responded to his taunt even without words.

  “Is this everything?” Brandon’s eyes float over the large suitcase and five carryon bags dumped at his feet.

  I nod. “Yep.”

  “All right, I’ll take them down to my car.”

  Hugo’s brow arches, but since Brandon is so eager to get on the road, he fails to pick up on Hugo’s silent annoyance.

  “Thanks.” I wait for Brandon to juggle my bags into the idling elevator before shifting on my feet to face Hugo. “We’re traveling in the one car because not only will it save the environment with fewer emissions, it’ll also stop your baby from getting too many miles on her clock.” I strive to keep my tone neutral to smother the unease in the air. “Brandon even agreed to let you drive.”

  Hugo does a good job of keeping the tick of his jaw out of his words when he says
, “The driver also maintains control over the radio.”

  “As long as it isn’t country, I’m fine with that.”

  “There’s no possibility of that ever occurring.”

  Our banter brings back the Hugo I was verbal wrangling with before Brandon arrived. Who knew a man four inches shorter than him and a hundred pounds lighter could rile him up so much?

  I dash back into my room to grab my cell phone and charger off the bedside table. I don’t want a flat battery having me miss out on another arousing phone call. Last night was the first time I’ve participated in phone sex. I’ve sexted and sent the occasional raunchy pic to boyfriends during my younger years, but I’ve never orgasmed during a phone conversation before. I’m not usually so bold, but Isaac’s deep, commanding voice had me paying careful attention to every syllable he spoke.

  I thought I’d be too embarrassed to get myself off, but Isaac’s pleasurable moans soon took care of that neurosis. Add that riveting experience to the four-mile run Hugo and I undertook yesterday afternoon, and exhaustion soon overtook me. I fell asleep with a smile on my face, my cell attached to my ear, and not a single negative thought in my head.

  After housing my phone into my jeans pocket, I follow Hugo out of Regan’s apartment. The air is forcefully removed from my lungs not even a second later. Since my steps were ultra-springy, I crashed straight into the back of Hugo when he suddenly stops walking.

  “A little warning next time…”

  My playful scorn fades away when I discover the reason for his abrupt stop. Clara is standing across from us. She’s wearing a Yves Saint Laurent red and black floral satin shirt with black leather pants. She’s the most casual I’ve ever seen her, but she’s stunningly beautiful.