Stand of Redemption (11 page)

“I walked into Zane’s gym for a coaching session like I do all the time, and to my surprise, the girl I’ve been thinking about is there, wrapped around another man,” he growled.

Ria jerked her head up.
“Really? You had been thinking about me?” She felt the excitement build inside of her again.

Nicholas looked at her.
“Yes. I’ve wanted you since the night in the ambulance. I just hadn’t figured out a way to ask about you without drawing too much attention. I asked around about you, but no one told me you had been fired.” Nicholas frowned. “I still can’t believe you ended up at that shithole.” Nicholas sounded angry again.

“Don’t start,” Ria warned him.
“It was meant to be only temporary, okay?”

“I know
. Did you get your test results?” Nicholas asked.

Ria nodded her head. “I failed.
Lacey warned me it was too hard working full time and studying for the test. The only benefit for staying here is that I have plenty of time to study now. I’m taking the test again on Monday.” She put her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes.

She would deal with her problems tomorrow.
Tonight, she wanted to enjoy being close to Nicholas. She wanted to pretend they were simply two people out on their third date and had gotten to know each other more intimately.

His hand rubbed her back
, lessening the tension. “You were under a lot of pressure. You’ll pass it this time.” She heard the confidence he had in her that she had never had in herself.

Her resolve strengthened
. She was going to get them out of this mess, without Nicholas getting further involved.

Chapter 1
5

“I want you to release Nicholas from the deal you made with him,” Ria stated firmly. She had driven to Emiliano’s house after she had taken her test for the second time. This time, she was much more confident that she had passed.

“No.” Emiliano laid down
his pen, his face showing his displeasure. Ria didn’t let it stop her.

“Please, I’ll do anything you want.”

His face tightened even further. “You’re putting your heart in the wrong place. He has a reputation with women, one he had to take a restraining order out on.”

“It’s not his place to help me out
,” Ria argued.

“That
, I agree with. If you want your freedom, Ariel, show me this time you are more capable of handling it.”

She felt a brief spurt of hope only to have it dashed.

“Of course, Nicholas must fight the next three fights I have scheduled. I cannot change the schedule now. Many bets have already been placed.”

She had no choice. Three fights were better than watching him getting pounded until he could get control of his money away from his father.

“Ty needs some help. He has one that is proving evasive, so he cannot give other jobs the attention they need.” He opened his desk drawer, pulling out a file and sliding it across the desk to her.

She picked it up.

“I’m giving you a chance. Don’t disappoint me.”

“
I won’t.”

Ria waited until she got back to her apartment before looking through the file. She was tr
ying to find a twenty-five-year-old man named John Maxwell. He had been skimming money and drugs then skipped town. Ria’s task was to find out where he was and then report back to Mitchell. Once she gathered all the necessary information, someone else would go after him for the money. She could understand why Ty was so good at this job. With his street smarts, he knew where to search when someone was on the run.

She was relieved
Emiliano was starting her off with a job that felt more like doing background checks than criminal activity. In reality, she wasn’t doing anything illegal, just doing research on a person’s whereabouts. What they did with that person after they found him or her was probably not so legal. She didn’t want to know.

Right now, all she knew was that he worked in an ice cream store.
In this case, it was a perfect cover. He would put small amounts of the product in the bottom of the cones and his customers always overpaid for the ice cream in cash. He started getting greedy, keeping some to himself, and started falling behind in his payments to the cartel. Once he knew he was in over his head, he had skipped town.

She was parked outside the parlor but knew he wouldn’t be there.
She thought of how she could possibly make one of the co-workers talk. She was just going to have to wing it once she went in.

She stepped out of the car and walked to the parlor.
Inside was a man in his early twenties that seemed happy to see her. She was hoping she could use that to her advantage.

She smiled.
“Hi,” she said as she looked at all the flavors.

“Hello
. Can I offer you any samples?” Ria caught his eyes raking over her body.

“Actually, I was looking for an old friend, John.
I heard he worked here. Do you know when he works again?” Ria asked.

“John quit over a week ago,” he stammered.

“Oh, that’s too bad. We’re old friends, and I’m only in town for a few days.” Ria pretended to pout. “Do you know where I can find him?”

“No, he took off,” the man replied, but Ria knew he had more information.
He was acting anxious and nervous.

She had to figure out a way to make him talk.
She had looked John up on the internet, but now that everyone had a cell phone, it wasn’t as easy to find someone’s address, and John Maxwell was a common name.

She had narrowed it down to a few possible addresses and took a chance.
“Does he still live on Hillcrest?”

“That’s the street he grew up on,” the man replied.
He seemed to relax, hopefully because now he believed they were truly old acquaintances.

Ria tried to hide her relief.
“Oh, where does he live now?”

“Over on Meadows
.”

That was another address she had seen associated with a John Maxwell.

“Oh
, that’s right. I remember that now,” Ria said gratefully. “Did he say why he quit?”

The man leaned over the counter and spoke quietly
. “I think he may have been in some trouble. He didn’t give any notice, just said he had to get away. I know he has family in Port City.”

“Yes, he does,”
Ria agreed as if she knew all about this John Maxwell. “Thank you so much!”

Ria looked at the flavors again
. “What do you recommend?”

The man mentioned the flavor of the month
, and Ria paid for the ice cream then tossed it in the trash on the way back to her car. Her hands were shaking, but she had made some headway. She would start with his house on Meadows and see if she could find any clues that would help track him down. She assumed he was in Port City, or at least, she sure as hell hoped he was.

She looked up the directions to his house and passed by it once before parking a little way down the street.
She had purposefully waited until it was dark so it would be easier to approach. She had dressed in exercise gear, hopefully giving the impression that she was merely out for a walk.

As she approached the house, she noticed all the lights were out, which was good
; it would be difficult for anyone to see her at the door.

W
alking casually to the door, she looked around the outside carefully. She was hoping he left in such a hurry that he would’ve put a key somewhere so a friend could get his stuff. Taking a chance, she raised the welcome mat, practically jumping up and down when she saw the key lying there.

She gave a
silent thanks to John.

She put the key into the lock then slipped inside, locking the door behind her.
She pulled out a small flashlight and started looking at mail and any papers that would provide any clues to his whereabouts. It was all normal, a mixture of bills and advertisements.

She went back to search through the bedrooms and started looking through drawers, but still nothing.
She went through a desk and did find a birthday card addressed to him from Port City. She memorized the address and put the card back where she’d found it. It still wasn’t enough, though.

S
he started searching harder, lifting mattresses and looking through the closets; however, she couldn’t find anything. She was getting desperate until something caught her eye. One of the picture frames on the bedroom wall was just slightly crooked.

She held her breath as she walked up to it and pulled it off the wall
, revealing a hole.

She looked through the stack of papers,
which were invoices of how much product was given to him and the dollar amounts based on quantity. From what she could tell, he was making a good profit, so why he was taking more didn’t make sense to her. Why risk having members of a murdering cartel come after you?

She went through each piece of paper until she finally found one that had additional i
nformation. It was an address with a date and time. It was tomorrow afternoon at one p.m., outside of Port City.

Mitchell told her that
, once she located him, to call him, and they would send their collector out immediately. But he warned her not to waste their time on false leads. Her job was to make it easy for the collector. She wanted to call and tell him the information she found, but if John wasn’t there tomorrow, Mitchell would tell Emiliano she had failed. She had to be sure before she called Mitchell.

Ri
a took all the paperwork John had kept about the drugs, shoving the papers under her top before letting herself out of the house. She made it back to her car without running.

Once home, s
he set the alarm so she would be there an hour before the meeting. Once she laid eyes on him, she would call Mitchell.

She l
ay on the bed, tossing and turning for the next several hours before she finally fell asleep. Her last thought was of Nicholas, craving his touch, but at the same time, glad he wasn’t here to witness her actions. She didn’t want him to think less of her. She was turning another man over to the cartel to release Nicholas.

Ria consoled herself that
Nicholas was innocent while this man had worked for the cartel. He had known what he was getting involved in. Nevertheless, none of her thoughts eased her guilt.

F
inally giving up on sleeping, she got out of bed and dressed.

*  *  *

Ria sat in her car across from the meeting place. She looked at John’s picture again. He was such a normal looking guy. He looked more like a surfer than someone who would steal money from a drug cartel. That was why he had probably never gotten caught dealing. She looked at the time again. He should be there in five minutes.

She was parked across the street with a newspaper in front of
her; giving the appearance she was enjoying the breeze. Fortunately, the meeting place was outside of a restaurant and river walk; as a result, there were a lot of people around.

She held her breath when the clock turned to
one. She looked around for any signs of John. A moment later, a man casually sat at a table outside of the restaurant with a hat and sunglasses on. Fuck, it looked like him, but she couldn’t be sure. She stared at the picture again, then at the man at the table. She focused on the nose and mouth. They looked the same. It had to be him. The next moment, another man joined him. The discussion seemed serious.

She dialed Mitchell’s number.
“I see him.” Ria gave him the address.

“We’re sending someone now
. He’ll be there in twenty minutes. Don’t let him out of your sight,” Mitchell commanded. “If he leaves, follow him. You’ll receive a phone call in twenty minutes to confirm location.” With that, Mitchell hung up without giving her a chance to respond.

Ria watched the two men.
Their body language made it appear it was two friends catching up, but she knew there was more to their conversation. All she could do was hope John stayed there until the collector arrived

A
bout ten minutes later, she watched John casually hand a small case to the other man. They shook hands and went in separate directions.

Ria watched John walk away,
unsure if he’d walked or driven. She didn’t know if she should walk a distance behind him, or follow in her car in case he was on the way to his. She decided she felt safer in the car.

She started it and slowly pulled out, keeping up with John.
As he kept walking past all the cars, she assumed he’d walked from wherever he may have come from. She was getting anxious because she knew she would have to speed up once cars started backing up behind her.

She looked at the time
. They should be calling in the next few minutes. She decided to park and walk.

S
he jerked her car over into a space on the side of the road and quickly got out.

Her phone finally rang
, and she quickly answered it with a shaky hello.

“Location
,” was all she heard on the other end.

Ria looked up to see the name of the street.
“Waterway and Wilson.”

Her phone went silent.
She looked at it to see what had happened and realized the man had hung up on her.

Ria didn’t know what to do now
. All she recalled was Mitchell telling her not to allow him out of her sight, so she continued to follow until a sedan with darkly tinted windows pulled up next to John. The next thing she knew, he was getting pulled into the vehicle and the car was speeding away.

She stared in shock.
Not one person had seen what happened. She started having second thoughts. She didn’t want to be a part of this. She wanted to cry at what she had just done.

John made the decision to steal the money and knew the consequences. If she hadn’t found him, someone else would have
, she kept telling herself over and over.

She walked to her car and headed back to the apartment.
Mitchell said the next file would be delivered to her. All she could do was wait.

*  *  *

“You look like hell,” Emiliano snapped.

It took everything she had not to tell him what she thought of him.
She had glanced at the mirror in her bathroom before she had been summoned from her apartment and had to agree. She was tired and stressed.

“I haven’t been feeling well,” Ria told him.
She was telling the truth. She had been sick at herself for turning someone over to the cartel.