Illusion (Billionaire in Disguise Series, #2)

by Lexy Timms

  “So how can I be a part of this if I didn’t know about Griggs?” Sam asked.

  “Simple. Jacob’s paying you as well, and he didn’t fill you in on the information,” Agent Jones said.

  “What the hell is going on?” I asked.

  Everyone turned their heads to look at me as I stood from my seat.

  “You mean to tell me my best friend and the former head of my security were compromised? And I didn’t know about it?” I asked.

  “Sounds like a question for your ... uncompromised expert here,” Agent Smith said.

  “I should have known this was going on,” I said as I turned to Sam. “Why didn’t you know?”

  “Nothing in his background showed anything. Nothing in his bank accounts showed anything. Jacob could have paid him afterward, after he was fired to make sure we didn’t catch anything,” Sam said.

  “So you mean to tell me my best friend went from a man who couldn’t get out of a locked down building to a man who has orchestrated some mastermind of a plan?” I asked.

  “Derek, this is what they want. They want us to turn on one another, and you’re playing right into their hand,” she said.

  “He’s on high alert. You know, like an expert should be,” Agent Jones said. “Miss Williams, you’re the only person who was on that yacht that night who can’t be accounted for. You had personal access to the yacht, but you have no alibi.”

  “I already told you. I was at home preparing for the evening,” Sam said.

  “And you have no one to corroborate that story,” Agent Smith said. “So you can see how things are getting a little hairy.”

  “Fine. If you think I’m taking payments from some man in the wind, run my bank accounts. Check my credit cards. Do all of it. You won’t find anything there,” she said.

  Sam looked up at me as my mind began to spin. Was it possible she was in on all this? The agents had a point, but I had seen Sam’s face when the boat rocked. I saw her face when the second explosion occurred. She was as shocked as I was. She had been hell-bent on saving that security guard below the deck of the ship.

  Why would someone in on all this do that?

  Why would my best friend want to shoot me?

  Why would the head of my security sell himself out?

  None of this made sense, and yet, all of it made sense.

  Sam sat there, stoic and red-faced with her hands settled in her lap. Her leg was crossed over her knee, and her entire body was calm, but I could see the storm raging within her. I could see her walls coming back up. Maybe she was emotionally compromised. Maybe she couldn’t do her job any longer. None of this should’ve spiraled out of control. I had trusted her word up until this point, and all it had gotten me was heartache, bullets, and a sunken ship.

  “The two of you have enough to think about for now,” Agent Smith said. “Just make sure you stay in the city. Neither of you are to leave until this investigation is wrapped up.”

  “And Mr. Steele?” Agent Jones asked.

  “What?”

  “I’d suggest you watch your back. Since your ... expert security team isn’t doing a very good job of that.”

  I watched the agents leave before I looked back at Sam. She was immovable, buried in her own mind. She wasn’t moving, wasn’t showing any emotion. Hell, her chest was barely moving with her breaths. Her hands were tucked between her thighs, and her eyes were hooked onto a spot on the wall.

  So, without a word, I ripped the interrogation room door open and left.

  Chapter 20

  Sam

  I SAT THERE, LISTENING as Derek left the room. I was angry. Confused. Blindsided and hurt. Griggs had been bought out by Jacob? How the hell could we have not seen that? We were an expert team. We left no fucking stone unturned. How the fuck could we have missed something as big as that? I should’ve asked those agents more questions, asked them how they came to that conclusion. I could get Lance to hack their records. I could get Lance to pull the information they had on file so I could figure it out.

  Figure out what the fuck I had missed.

  The room was cold, and the sad thing was, I couldn’t blame the agents for thinking the way they thought. They didn’t understand the dynamics and the gravity of all that had happened over the past two and a half months. With the information they had and being two completely unbiased parties, it did look like I was one of the perpetrators.

  I sighed, releasing my jaw from its prison as the door opened again.

  I turned my head and saw Derek come back in. His face was red, but his posture was composed. He unbuttoned his coat and sat in the chair next to me, scooting it close before he took my hand within his. He laced our fingers together, letting out a dramatic sigh as his eyes raked up to mine.

  But I couldn’t look at him.

  I had failed him.

  “I know you’re not the one doing this,” he said.

  “You sure about that?” I asked.

  I turned my gaze to him, watching him hesitate before he nodded his head.

  “One hundred percent.”

  “Then why did you pause?” I asked. “If you’re so certain, why did you leave? Why did you hesitate?”

  “Because I know you. It wouldn’t make sense for you to throw yourself in front of a gun Jacob was shooting from if you were working with him.”

  “Damn straight,” I said.

  “But the FBI isn’t wrong.”

  “What?”

  “About you and your alibi. I wasn’t going to say anything in front of them—”

  “And you shouldn’t say anything now,” I said.

  I looked up at the cameras, noticing they were still recording. I unlaced my fingers from Derek’s, pulled him up from the chair, and then ushered him out the door. I wanted to know what his point was. I wanted to hear what he had to say, but there was no reason for us to be doing it in that room where cameras were pointed at us. We had been free to go, so we needed to take that right and get the fuck out of the building.

  Eyes were heavy on us as I escorted us down the stairs.

  “Can I talk?”

  “Hush. You can talk once we get into the car,” I said.

  We stepped out of the building as a car drove up to us. I checked to make sure it was the driver I had done my background sweep on, but I felt a twinge of doubt course through my system. Those fucking agents had gotten into my head. They were making me doubt myself and my work.

  And I knew the type of work I could do if I wasn’t emotionally compromised.

  Like I was now.

  “Get in,” I said as I opened the door.

  “Then we talk?” Derek asked.

  I nodded my head, stepping in after him quickly before the car took off from the curb.

  “So, what are you saying about the FBI being right about me?” I asked.

  “Sam, don’t do that. Just hear me out,” he said. “I didn’t want to mention it in front of them, but when you rushed off after the second explosion, I wanted to run after you, but I didn’t. The security guards wouldn’t let me.”

  “Good. That was their job,” I said.

  “But when the ship tipped back the first time, I realized the explosion must’ve been coming from my cabin.”

  “What?”

  “You said you couldn’t make it past the kitchen, right? But the kitchen wasn’t what was on fire?”

  “Correct.”

  “And when you found the security guard,” he said, “there was no fire on that end either?”

  “Not one bit.”

  “My cabin room was just past the kitchen. If you had kept going down that small little hallway, you would’ve hit the door. It’s the only place that makes sense, given what you went through down there. And if they’ve come to that same conclusion, which they probably have, that means the bomb was probably in the luggage we brought on board. For our overnight stay.”

  “And the only people who handled it were myself and the team,” I said.

  �
��And the team’s alibis have all been accounted for.”

  I leaned back into the seat of the car as I tossed my gaze out the window. How could I have been so stupid? Always take someone with you to do shit. That was one of the first rules taught when going through training for private security. I’d gotten comfortable with my blossoming relationship with Derek. I assumed his trust in me would cover me in certain scenarios, which disabled me from seeing scenarios like this one. I was more than emotionally compromised.

  I was making stupid decisions because of it.

  “You know you’re suggesting that someone on my team is corrupt, right?” I asked.

  “I’m aware of that, yes,” Derek said.

  “Which means someone’s been pulling the wool over my eyes the entire fucking time.”

  “I know how you feel. Jacob did the same thing to me.”

  I groaned as I raked my hands down my face. Holy fuck. My mind was swirling with so many possibilities, and it was hard to settle them all into place. I had to stick with what I knew. I had to deal with the facts and not the possibilities.

  But first, we had to deal with the obvious.

  “I think my relationship with you has caused unnecessary risks,” I said.

  “You’re not pulling away from me now. We’ve been through too much,” Derek said.

  “Doesn’t matter what we’ve been through. I’m speaking with you as your employee now. Not as your lover. I’m not making sound decisions anymore because of our relationship.”

  “I’m not letting you go, Sam. I didn’t on that boat, and I won’t now just because a couple of dickhead FBI agents want to pit us against one another.”

  “I’m taking unnecessary risks that are putting your life in danger. Your luggage was supposed to be checked before it even got into my hands. That was the plan. And I made the mistake of not checking myself. I don’t know why, but I think John was right.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “John and I had a conversation about a week ago about us staying on this case too long and getting soft. I’m getting soft. I trusted my team too much and didn’t do a last check on my own. Had I done that before your luggage got to the ship, I would’ve found the bomb easily if it was in there. It was negligence on my part because I’m trusting my team too much. I never trust my team that much.”

  “But you have to. That’s what a team is for. That’s why we didn’t see it coming with Jacob. And Griggs, apparently.”

  “But I should have. That’s my job, Derek. Don’t you see that? All of this is my job. It’s my job to see what you don’t, not to rely on your fucking opinion and go with it. You're rubbing off on me and in a way that’s going to cost your life,” I said.

  I beat my fists into the cushions of the car as Derek sat there, staring at me with wide eyes. I was pissed. My instincts were kicking into full gear now. It was the only damn thing that made sense. There was a protocol that went into checking that luggage. I picked very specific people to rifle through it and make sure nothing was out of place. I made sure a chain of command was in place to make sure nothing like that made it onto his yacht that night.

  And since the FBI confirmed the presence of a bomb on the ship, that meant someone in that chain of command had planted that fucking bomb.

  Holy hell. Someone on my team was corrupt.

  “I think we should set up a trap,” Derek said.

  “What?” I asked.

  “A trap. To catch whoever on your team isn’t doing their job.”

  I nodded silently, trying to allow that truth to dawn on my mind. It all made sense. The attack on the security guard. The placement of the bomb. The handling of the luggage. It would explain the attack on Jacob in the garage. I confirmed it was the same assailant, but it never crossed my mind that Jacob could’ve paid someone to attack him. The same person that attacked that security guard on the yacht. Griggs on his payroll would’ve given Jacob access to his house and his personal schedule, but Jacob paying someone on my team a kickback would give him personal access to a private event like the Fourth of July celebration Derek threw for just the two of us.

  I swallowed thickly as I nodded my head.

  “A trap. Okay,” I said. “I can do that.”

  “I think we should also keep it beneath the FBI’s radar,” Derek said. “You know, until we can confirm things. Prove our theory. The last thing we need is them pinning something on you that you haven’t done. No one’s ripping you away from me, Sam. No one.”

  I felt his hand curl over mine as I closed my eyes. A trap. I could set a trap. A trap to lure out the snake that had slithered into our midst. I started running the names of everyone who had handled that luggage down in my head. Men I’d worked with before. Men I’d trusted with my life on several occasions. Men I’d garnered reputations with and hired on for multiple jobs before this.

  One of them had turned their back on me.

  And they weren’t going to get away with it.

  Chapter 21

  Derek

  I WAS STANDING IN MY office, looking at a gun Sam had left for me to use to defend myself. Over the course of the past couple of days, we had been formulating a plan. If we wanted to keep it under the heavy radar of the FBI, it had to be simple. There couldn’t be any elaborate steps, and we had to get the entire team in one place. I was insistent that we only had to target the chain of command Sam had set forth for handling the luggage that went onto the yacht, but she didn’t want to rule anyone out.

  She was nervous that she was slipping, so I let her have the win.

  Our plan was simple. We were going to tell everyone that an emergency meeting was taking place at my home office. The security team would gather, and we would see who didn’t show up. If everyone showed up, then Sam would slip in after a well-placed phone call to her, and she would start her own interrogation. She was confident she would be able to flush out the perpetrator if she could look every single of them in the eyes.

  And the gun? Well, that was for self-defense. If the team gathered and someone decided to lash out at me, or worse, try to use it as a way to take me out, I had something to defend myself with.

  Like she had provided for me on the yacht.

  The plan was simple almost too simple, in my opinion. But it was all we had left. She had called some guy named Lance at her company, but it was going to take him a while to run background checks and pull the bank account information of the team I had hired. There was a lot of red tape this guy had to hack around in order to not get flagged doing what he was doing.

  And the fewer people we could tip off, the better.

  My phone rang on my hip, and I answered it. I knew who was calling. Sam had all of this planned down to the minute, and I had been expecting the call from her. I gazed out my window as I watched the afternoon sun rise high in the sky. It was ten minutes before the shift change, which meant there was a brief moment where the entire team was on my property.

  That was when she had called the meeting. It was convenient for everyone, which meant no one had an excuse to bail out for any reason.

  “You still breathing?” Sam asked.

  “Deep, just like you said.”

  “This is going to go just fine. I’ve alerted everyone that there’s a team meeting in your office. Your office can fit fifteen men, right?” she asked.

  “Easily and with room to sprawl out.”

  “Good. I’ve told them John’s the one up there, so they really have no reason to flake. When they get up there and see you, stay as calm as you can. There should be fifteen men in your presence. You count every single one of their heads, and you call me if you don’t have fifteen.”

  “Where’s John? Are we not investigating him?” I asked.

  “We are, but I’ve got some special tactics I’m using with him. John’s smart. On my level. The guys you’re going to be encountering are strong, but they aren’t always smart. Investigating John is as much psychological as it is physical, but I’m no
t leaving him out of the loop. Don’t worry.”

  “Not worried. Just curious,” I said.

  “Plus, I need John. I need someone to be here to provide an alibi and double-check my movements. Not having someone there is what’s gotten me into hot water with the feds in the first place. He isn’t expected at the meeting, so don’t look for him.”

  “Does he know why we’re having this meeting?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you think it’s smart to be filling John in on things when we’re also investigating him?”

  “If I don’t fill him in, he’ll know something’s up. But if I keep him at my side, I can watch him. Keep my eye on him. He can provide me with an alibi if something goes horribly wrong, and I can watch his face while I ask the guys those questions. If they all make it up to you for the meeting.”

  “So he knows the guys are expecting him?” I asked.

  “They do.”

  “And he knows we’re trying to flush out a traitor?’

  “He does, and he’s very angry. But I posed the argument, and he was quick to see our side. John cares for the men we hire, but he’s logical. He sees what we’re facing, and he knows that we’ve ruled out every other avenue. The only thing that explains all the strings we can’t tie up is someone on the inside, someone who has access to you in a professional and personal way.”

  “Which is the hired security team, as of now,” I said.

  “Exactly. Now, I’m sending pictures to your phone of all the men who should show up. Fifteen pictures with their names. If someone comes in with their mask on, order them to take it off. If they don’t, call me. If all fifteen don’t show up, call me. If all fifteen do show up, and you identify all of them, call me. I’ll come up and start my interrogation then.”

  “So, there’s really no scenario in which I’m not calling you,” I said.

  “Someone might drop to their knees in fear and confess everything,” she said.

  “Highly doubtful,” I said with a grin.

  “One can dream.”