Maeve: Your little sister colors are showing.
Me: I can’t help it. Your happiness makes me happy. Also, I just had a bunch of orgasms…so…
Maeve: Same, girl. Same.
Me: High five.
43
The Takedown
Lucian
No one leaves here until we have a game plan,” I announced.
Sloane sat contentedly in my home office, dressed in pajamas, eating the burger and fries I’d had delivered. She’d tamed her “sex hair” into a long, loose braid that she wore draped over one shoulder. With her legs tossed over the arm of the chair and her bare feet wiggling, she was the picture of relaxed.
Meanwhile, behind my desk, I was a roiling cauldron of rage.
The team I’d assembled wasn’t helping my mood.
“This’ll be fun,” Nolan said, plowing into a platter of chicken fingers.
“Speak for yourself,” Lina complained. “My fiancé had just invited me to join him in the shower when I got the summons.”
“So what kind of dirt are we looking for?” Nallana the private investigator demanded, shoveling two pieces of pizza onto her plate. She was dressed in a cocktail dress and leather jacket. I realized I had no idea if this was her off-the-clock look or another undercover getup.
“Yeah. It would help to know what we’re looking for,” the only member of the cybersecurity team who’d bothered answering her phone asked around the mouthful of Twizzlers she’d just shoved into her face. She had platinum hair worn long on top and shaved on the sides. Her name was something like Pasture or Great Plains.
“Anything that will force the FBI to move on Hugo now. Not a month from now or a week from now or even forty-eight hours from now. I want him in custody by noon tomorrow.”
Nallana let out a low whistle. “That’s a tall order. Prairie’s right. We need some kind of direction.”
Prairie. So close.
“Your ‘direction’ is to do whatever it takes to get me something we can use. I don’t care if you get arrested in the process. Find me something,” I said on a near snarl.
The doorbell rang.
“Want me to get that?” Sloane asked tentatively.
I shook my head. “Grace will get it.”
I wasn’t letting Sloane out of my sight until Anthony Hugo and his entire organization were nothing but rubble. And then I was going to force her down the aisle. The woman had defended me not just to a crime boss who threatened our lives but to my own mother. And when this was all over, I was going to show her exactly what that had meant to me.
The door to my office opened, and in walked Maureen Fitzgerald, still in her dress from earlier. “Well, this looks like an interesting party,” she observed.
“Is that…” Prairie began.
“The most successful, notorious madam in Washington, DC?” Lina filled in. “Yep. I like your shoes.”
“Thank you,” Maureen said with a feline smile. “Here’s a little party favor for your team.” She dropped a two-inch-thick folder on top of the pizza box. Nolan reached for it, but Maureen laid a manicured hand on top of the folder. “I trust I can count on your discretion.”
“Oh yes, ma’am. Absolutely nothing but discreet around here,” Nolan promised.
“Good,” she said, removing her hand and sliding her arms free of her wool coat. “Are there any chicken fingers left?”
“So we’ve got three more shell corporations nailed down thanks to Maureen’s girls’ intel,” Nolan summarized, stifling a yawn. “First two have about $2 million apiece scattered in offshore accounts. Prairie is digging into the third now.”
“Keep digging.” A few million dollars wasn’t enough to have the FBI knocking on Hugo’s door in the morning.
Lina joined us. “Update time?”
“What have you got?” I asked her.
“Security has informed everyone the offices are closed for the next two days. Petula is rescheduling all in-person meetings and shifting what she can to virtual. Grace beefed up security everywhere, including your mother’s and Sloane’s mom’s. Nash and the Knockemout PD are on high alert and keeping an eye on things back home. Nallana called. She’s squeezing a few street-level sources, looking for intel. Rumor has it he’s got a big shipment due in from South America by the weekend.”
“That’s too far out,” I reminded her.
“Maybe Hugo was just yanking your chain about the forty-eight hours?” Nolan suggested, yawning again.