Sighing, Marissa gripped the steering wheel harder as she peered out into the night, her eyes moving across the road as she drove.
“I met Max Adorite at a party,” Marissa began but was quickly interrupted.
“What were you doing at a party with Max Adorite?”
Glaring over at Trace, Marissa frowned. “Do you want me to tell this story, or not?”
Trace pinned her in place with his hardened stare for a brief second but then turned his attention back to the road, where her eyes should’ve been.
Taking a cue from him, Marissa stared out the windshield and continued. “Doug, the journalist Ryan was referring to, had called me up and invited me. Being that I’ve written several blogs about the corrupt political goings-on in Texas, he’d been curious about me. Or so he’d said. I agreed to go because he’d told me I’d get the opportunity to rub elbows with some of Dallas’s elite.”
“The Adorites definitely qualify,” Trace mumbled.
“Anyway, I didn’t talk to Max for long, but his younger brother Brent was there, drunk and a little mouthy. I don’t think he meant to give me a heads up to the feds keeping tabs on them, but I figured I’d do a little digging of my own.”
“Brent Adorite isn’t one to run off at the mouth without good intentions. Drunk or not.”
Yeah, well, Marissa hadn’t known that at the time. In fact, she hadn’t known a lot of things by the time she’d found herself knee deep in a shit hole of colossal proportions.
“It took me a couple of months, but I managed to schmooze the right people and did a little detective work.”
“I thought you weren’t in the PI business,” Trace asked, his tone hard.
He was right. Marissa had purposely not ventured into the world of investigations and security the way her entire family had, choosing to go the route of a journalist. However, in her defense, being a journalist required a bit of investigative work, and that was a part of her job that she found she enjoyed.
Adventure, a hint of danger.
“It comes with the job,” she told Trace. “When I heard the term RICO, I got curious, so I mentioned it to Doug. Since I then had an in with a few people who were close to the Adorites, Doug told me what questions to ask so as not to draw too much attention to myself.”
“How’d that work out for ya?” Trace bit out.
“Better than Doug,” Marissa snapped in response.
“Your friend Doug was murdered, Marissa. And in case you haven’t noticed, you’re on their shit list, too.”
“Whose?” she asked. “Do you think the Adorites are really after me?”
“No,” Trace said, the honesty in the single word drawing Marissa up short.
Glancing over at him quickly, Marissa asked, “Then who?”
“That’s the question of the hour, Marissa. But just like the last time you asked, I don’t fucking know.”
●«»●«»●«»●
“As far as I can tell, they’re on their way back to Dallas,” Barry stated firmly into the phone.
He noticed the nervous flutter of the other guy’s voice. “Where are they now?”
“No clue.”
Squeezing the phone, Barry was tempted to shatter the damn thing. His frustration level had reached an all-time high. The only thing he wanted to do was grab the girl and take her to the Adorites, see if they knew what was going on as he suspected they did.
Hell, he’d already called Max Adorite, the underboss of the Southern Boy Mafia, informing him of what he knew. Screw the annoying asshole who’d hired him. That shithead had already pissed him off. No way was he dealing with him again.
And this guy, the head SOB, Max, he wasn’t one to play around. He wanted answers, which was the only reason Barry had called up his informant in the first place. He would’ve preferred to handle shit without him, since the guy who’d hired him had put them in contact initially, but he found he didn’t have much of a choice. He’d lost track of Marissa Trexler, and he needed to find her ASAP.
“That’s not how this works,” Barry told the informant now. “I’m paid to find this girl. In turn, because my boss is a dick, I’m giving you a cut. And if you expect to earn your payment, you’re responsible for giving me information. Hence the term informant.”
“I don’t know,” the guy growled. “They’re becoming tight-lipped. Last I heard, they’d stopped in Virginia, but I don’t think it was for long.”
“You’re not paid to think, goddammit. You’re paid to tell me what I want to know.”
Barry was met with silence, which only pissed him off more. Taking a deep breath and exhaling slowly, he peered through the front windshield. He’d stopped at a rest stop to take a break. That’d been three hours ago. The two-and-a-half-hour nap he’d managed hadn’t done a damn thing for his mood, but at least he knew he’d be able to drive for a few more hours without running the risk of driving into a ditch. More than once, he wished he hadn’t shoved Jimmy out of the car. He could’ve used the extra body to drive while he slept.
Since that was no longer an option, he’d had no choice but to stop.
“The minute you find out where they are, you better call me. And I don’t mean when they get back to Texas. I need to find them before that. Once they’re ensconced with the family, my chances of snatching her decrease exponentially.”
Another moment of silence and Barry couldn’t help but wonder if his informant even knew what those words meant. Maybe he should’ve used smaller words, something simpler to get his point across.
“You understand me?” Barry snapped.
“Yes. I’ll call you back.”
The line disconnected. Barry drew the phone away from his ear and stared at the screen.
This wasn’t working out the way he’d planned. He should’ve grabbed Marissa Trexler himself, instead of letting Dennis go in after her. If he had, he wouldn’t be sitting on the side of the highway waiting for a snitch to feed him information.
The thought made him smile.
He hoped, when this was all done and the girl was in his possession, that the snitch was identified. Hell, Barry didn’t even know his name. Although the guy had provided him with information thus far, that didn’t mean he liked the guy.
Barry’s cell phone vibrated in his hand, his eyes darting back to the screen once more.
Shit.
He thumbed the button to silence the call. He wasn’t prepared to talk to the cranky asshole right now. Actually, he wasn’t prepared to talk to him ever again.
Luckily, he didn’t think he was going to have to.
Eight
Wednesday morning
Thirty-four hours later
Dallas, Texas
Trace stared at the iPad screen, watching as Z drove through the massive iron security gate that Trace had opened with the push of a button only seconds before. Although the compound was surrounded by an eight-foot-high stone wall—as well as another gate that they could all access using a numeric code and their fingerprint—Trace had opted to man the interior gate around Marissa’s parents’ house manually today.
Just as an added precaution, he told himself.
Truth was, he was feeling a bit overprotective ever since he’d arrived back in Dallas with Marissa yesterday evening, and watching over her, keeping her safe, had become his one and only obsession.
Not that he liked the sound of that. Not at all.
Admiring the sleek, monochrome Ducati 1199 Superleggera idling as the gates slowly opened, Trace watched on the screen as the massive guy on the bike punched the gas, the motorcycle launching forward as he headed up the front drive.
That was one thing he admired about his buddy Z … he had damn good taste in motorcycles.
Granted, unlike Trace’s family, Z hadn’t always been into motorcycles. Not until he’d relocated from the small town of Coyote Ridge to Dallas nearly a decade ago. Z had come to work for Sniper 1 Security when Trace had been in the Marines. It wasn’t until Trace left the m
ilitary that he’d been introduced to the man he now called friend. For the first couple of years after Trace had joined the civilian ranks, working for Sniper 1, he and Z had worked alongside one another. Within the first year, they’d decided to go in on buying an old abandoned warehouse in the downtown area, converting it to two loft apartments that they still shared.
From the get-go, the two of them had gotten along well. It wasn’t too difficult considering they were so much alike. They each wanted their own space, didn’t care to talk if they didn’t have to, yet enjoyed watching football and drinking beer on Sunday when the opportunity arose.
Oh, and, of course, they both had a fascination for motorcycles, although Z’s interest had come along long after Trace’s. The entire Kogan and Trexler clans—at least the men anyway—were what some would call fanatics when it came to bikes, each of them having one, if not more, of their own. Until recently, Z had been sporting a used Yamaha R6 that Clay had sold him, but he’d finally decided to invest in a new one. One that had drawn quite a bit of attention.
Maybe if Z was nice, Trace would give him a couple of pointers on how to ride the damn thing. Grinning to himself, Trace stretched and then made his way to the front door, pulling it open moments before his roommate reached the porch.
“Did the office get relocated and no one told me?” Trace asked, stepping out of the way so Z could come inside, bringing a blast of cold air with him. Z scowled back at him and grunted, rubbing his hands together, probably trying to feel his fingers again.
Z was one of those guys who managed to make Trace feel small. Considering that didn’t happen often, it was saying something about Z. At six foot six inches, the man towered over most people.
“Who else is here?” Z probed when he stopped in the entryway, glancing around suspiciously.
“My father’s in Bryce’s office.” Pushing the door closed, Trace faced Z. “My mother’s with Emily upstairs in the library.”
“They’re both here?”
“Yup,” Trace replied. “That doesn’t surprise me, though. What does is seeing you up at this hour. Must suck to have to get out of bed so early,” Trace teased as he sidestepped the brooding man and headed for the kitchen.
“I wouldn’t know. Isn’t that your area of expertise?” Z grumbled with the hint of a smirk as he glanced around the house as though he wasn’t familiar with where he was.
Trace wasn’t used to seeing Z quite so early in the day—the guy tended to keep odd hours—so he’d been surprised when he’d had to buzz him through the gate a few minutes ago. But seeing him out of sorts was rarer than being in his presence at sunrise. Then again, neither of them were used to hanging out at Bryce Trexler’s house on a weekday morning. Trace had one reason and one reason only for why he was there: Marissa.
As for Z, it seemed as though he’d been personally beckoned.
Trace could only assume something was up because most of their meetings were held at the Sniper 1 Security offices, not at the compound. Not to mention, based on Z’s appearance, he didn’t look like a guy who intended to spend much time hanging out and shooting the shit. Dressed head to toe in black—black fatigues, boots, and T-shirt beneath the black textile jacket he wore ... hell, even the 9mm tucked into the holster on his hip was black—the giant of a man looked like the enforcer that he was. Which meant Z was on assignment.
Maneuvering through the Trexlers’ enormous kitchen, Trace headed to the coffeepot. “Coffee?”
“Yeah,” Z huffed as he took a seat at the long breakfast bar that separated the working area from the oversized breakfast nook.
“How’s that bike treatin’ you?” Trace asked, nodding his head toward the front of the house, where Z had parked the Ducati alongside Trace’s bike.
A genuine grin formed on the guy’s face. “Pretty damn sweet. Got it up to one-twenty on the way over.”
“One-twenty, huh? Careful or you’ll be eatin’ asphalt. We all know your old ass needs some practice.”
“Old? Fuck off. Just wait, you’ll be thirty soon enough,” Z groused with a grin. “As for practice, you name the time and the place. I’ll smoke your puny ass any day.”
Trace laughed as he pulled the carafe from the machine and poured the potent black liquid in two mugs.
“Where’s Lilah?” Z asked.
“Haven’t seen her since I got here,” Trace told him.
The Trexlers’ full-time, live-in housekeeper/cook was usually the first person to greet him anytime he came to the house—which honestly wasn’t all that often—but not this morning. Not that he didn’t know how to make his own coffee, but now that he thought about it, Lilah’s absence was a little odd.
“How’s Marissa?” Z pinned Trace with a glare as if he knew Trace didn’t want to answer that question.
“She hasn’t talked to me much since we got back,” Trace admitted as he carried the two mugs over to where Z was sitting. Passing one over and keeping the other for himself, Trace added, “So I’d say things are pretty normal.”
“She’s not talking to you? Or you’re not talking to her?” Z asked, sipping his coffee and meeting Trace’s gaze again.
No one ever said Z didn’t know Trace well.
Trace didn’t answer the question, though; he merely continued to stare at his friend. That was the way it worked. Having two brothers and one annoyingly nosy sister, Trace had learned to clam up when he didn’t want to talk about something—and for the time being, a discussion about Marissa was certainly off-limits. A simple look was usually all it took for Z to get that Trace wasn’t going to confide his innermost secrets. It was their code. Nine times out of ten, it was effective, and since Trace knew Z wasn’t particularly interested in talking about his own personal issues, Trace figured the guy would return the favor.
Especially since there were a hundred questions Trace had for Z these days. And they all revolved around Z’s apparent interest in RT. That revelation had been quite surprising. No one pretended not to know that Z and RT were gay, nor did anyone really care, but for the two of them to now appear to be circling one another … that was new. Grinning to himself, he opted not to throw out the question. Learning the details of Z’s love life wasn’t high on Trace’s list of things to do on a good day. Hell, on any day, in fact.
“Did Casper call you, too?” Z asked, setting his coffee mug down on the granite bar top.
“Nope.” Trace leaned his hip against the counter. “Came by to keep an eye on the wild child,” he admitted, nodding his head in the direction of the stairs.
That statement earned him a grin. At one time, Marissa—Bryce and Emily’s one and only daughter—had been affectionately known as the wild child, though she hadn’t been nearly as rebellious as her four brothers. On the other hand, add Trace’s sister, Courtney, to the mix, and the two of them had managed to stir up a shit ton of trouble.
However, as much of a pain as Marissa had been in her teenage years, at twenty-six, she was no longer an unruly adolescent, and they were all hoping she’d get some of that spark back. With the situation she was currently ensnared in, they understood what had caused the light in her pretty blue eyes to be replaced by shadows, but they still held out hope that the fire would return. Soon.
This last clusterfuck hadn’t helped one fucking bit.
And even though Trace was personally taking on the task of keeping an eye on Marissa, he did his best not to think about her unless he absolutely had to. After the two days it had taken to get back to Dallas, spending that much time alone with her had been nearly more than he could bear. The woman was way too distracting, and the last thing Trace needed was to let down his guard. It was bad enough that they were under the same roof now.
Subtly changing the subject, Trace asked, “What did Casper say when he called?” Referring to his father by his first name had become second nature to all of them over the years. Working for the guy—or rather with him, as was the case these days—it was easier for everyone involved.
; Trace had seen his father when he’d arrived at Bryce’s nearly an hour ago, but they hadn’t talked.
“Elusive as ever, you know how he is. He just said he wanted to talk. Told me to meet him here.”
Trace’s phone beeped, drawing his attention away from Z. He snapped it off his belt and glanced down at the screen. “Hold that thought,” he told his friend as he slipped back to the formal dining room, where he’d left the iPad he’d been using to watch the security cameras.
Punching a button to engage the audio, he smiled. “You got some ID?” he asked the two men sitting at the gate, waiting for Trace to grant them entry.
“Yeah. Open the fucking gate and I’ll show it to you, dipshit,” Conner told him, his middle finger reflected back on the iPad screen.
Trace laughed and hit the button that would retract the steel gate, allowing his oldest brother, Conner, as well as Marissa’s oldest brother, RT, through. The face mask on Conner’s helmet flipped down, and the rumble of engines revving was the last sound Trace heard before he cut the audio connection. He watched as the two Yamahas hammered down, rocketing up the driveway before coming to a halt right outside the front door.
With the door unlocked, Trace made his way back to the kitchen to see Z pouring himself another cup of coffee.
“Who was that?” Z asked without looking up.
“Con and RT.”
Z’s head jerked around, his gaze slamming into Trace’s. “Seriously?”
“Yep. It’s officially a fucking party,” Trace told him, trying to pretend he wasn’t as anxious to know what the hell was going on as Z seemed to be.
“Glad you could make it,” a gruff voice said.
Trace looked up to see Bryce coming toward the kitchen, his face expressionless as always.
“Where’s Casper?” Trace asked.
“In my office. Get your coffee and join us in there,” Bryce instructed in that no-nonsense tone Trace was familiar with.
Conner and RT appeared in the living room, pulling their helmets from their heads and propping them on their hips as they watched Bryce.
Wait for Morning (Sniper 1 Security #1) Page 7
