Romancing the Alpha: An Action-Adventure Romance Boxed Set (111 page)

“I cracked the encryption, and here’s what I’ve discovered,” he said, swirling one of the monitors to face the group.

“What the fuck?” Ace said.

As Sam clicked, image after image filled the screen. Central Park. The Statue of Liberty. Coney Island. Times Square.

“Vacation pictures? What the hell is this, Sam?” Cruz said, frustration filling his voice.

“Looks like someone had a great visit to the Big Apple,” Sam said as he continued to click through the colorful photos.

“Wait!” Nola yelled.

••••

Six eyes hit her all at once, but Nola focused on Cruz’s. They were bright with question, and a sense of embarrassment stole over her at her loud exclamation.

“Sorry,” she said, lowering her voice. It was probably nothing anyway; she should have kept quiet.

“What did you see, Nola?” Cruz asked, crossing over to her. He didn’t touch her, though.

“Nothing,” she said, the embarrassment now tinged with uncertainty.

“It’s something. What?”

As he watched her, a tingling warmth sparked inside, and she couldn’t stop the memory of the way he’d touched her, how his powerful body had felt above her as he’d thrust, taken her to heights she hadn’t thought possible. The slight shift in his expression, the way his eyes turned liquid, told her he felt it as well. And behind that liquid heat, she saw his confidence in her.

Nola didn’t know why, but she believed his confidence in her more than she’d ever believed herself, allowed herself to trust that voice in her head that bade her speak.

“It’s just…” She approached the screen. “May I?” she asked Sam, who lifted his hands from the keyboard.

She clicked through the images, wanting to make sure she’d seen what she’d thought.

“These are very pretty, but is there a point?” Ace interjected.

“Here,” Nola said, pointing at the top right corner of the screen. She clicked through the photos. “Do you see it? That distortion.”

“I saw it, but I figured it was an issue with the camera. You think differently?” Sam asked. He sounded open, curious, but Nola thought she detected a faint whiff of annoyance.

“I think…” Nola started off quiet but when she looked at Cruz, again seeing his confidence, she started again, louder. “I think there’s something embedded in the images.”

Sam’s mouth dropped, and his eyes narrowed with excitement.

“See,” Nola said, copying the image and then pasting it into a new document. A series of numbers popped up on the page.

“Ahh, genius, ma’am!” Sam exclaimed, taking over the keyboard and mouse again and rapidly copying the images. “They’ve encoded the data in the image, hiding it in plain sight…” He trailed off, now fully engrossed in the images.

“Nice work,” Cruz said, “how did you figure it out?”

Nola shrugged. “I took an image manipulation class once, and the instructor mentioned it. I guess it stuck.”

She felt Cruz’s approach but didn’t meet his gaze, not even when he pressed a soft kiss at the crown of her head. Nola wanted to preen under his attention, but she could see Ace’s smirk out of the corner of her eye and stopped herself.

“Guys! Check this out!” Sam called.

Cruz moved quickly, Ace as well, to again crowd around the computers. Nola followed, glancing at the numbers on the screen. It was incomprehensible to her, but the heavy gazes that passed between Sam, Cruz, and Ace told her it wasn’t to them.

“So this is bad. Some kind of criminal activity?” she asked, focusing on Cruz.

“Oh yes,” Cruz said.

“Drugs?”

“Way more valuable and way more illegal than that,” Ace interjected.

“Diamonds, gold, plutonium?” Nola said.

“Nope,” Cruz said, eyes on her. “Tusks.”

“Tusks,” Nola repeated. “Like elephants?”

“Probably rhinos in this case,” Sam said.

“What? Like the animal that lives in Africa? Why would someone traffic a rhino?” Nola said.

“Not the whole animal. Mostly just the tusks. It’s big business,” Sam replied.

She couldn’t quite wrap her mind around it.

“But I don’t understand,” she said.

“Do you know how much a kilo of ground tusk wholesales for?” Cruz asked.

“I didn’t know that there even was such a thing, but what, ten thousand dollars?” she said, thinking her estimate was ridiculously high.

“To put it in perspective, a kilo of pure cocaine is around sixty thousand. Rhino runs twenty-five percent more,” Ace said.

Nola’s mouth dropped open, and she was stunned. “Seventy-five thousand dollars for rhinoceros tusk? What do people even do with it?”

“Some think ground tusks have medicinal value, that they cure cancer, AIDS, gout. Others drink it for cleansing, holistic healing. Others just acquire it because it’s so difficult to get. They use it as a status symbol,” Ace said.

“That’s awful, killing those poor animals for no reason,” Nola said.

“That it is,” Cruz said and the others nodded their agreement.

“Something also tells me it is highly illegal,” she said.

“Highly,” Cruz said, “which is where we come in.”

“How?”

“We got a tip that something was coming through, and that you would be bringing it, so we watched. We didn’t know what the cargo was, though now that is clear.”

“Why Vietnam?” she asked Cruz.

“Vietnam used to have rhinoceroses, but they’ve been hunted to extinction. So, this is more of a way station, a place where illegally hunted game are transported from Africa before they make their way to China, Russia, or the Americas.”

“So what now?” Nola asked.

She looked at Cruz, who looked at Ace.

“You thinking what I’m thinking?” Ace asked.

“I’ll make the call,” Cruz said.

••••

Two hours later, there was a knock at the door. Nola listened as Ace answered and heard two muted sets of footsteps approach. By now she’d gotten used to Ace, so his presence didn’t disturb her, but the man beside him made her want to run, or at least run to Cruz. The newest person was huge, menacing, his features raw and seemingly chiseled out of granite. And though he hadn’t looked at Nola directly, at least that she’d noticed, he made her nervous nonetheless, made her want someone to protect her.

Sam had no such reservations. He stood and approached quickly, dwarfed by the huge, scary-looking man, who glared at the smaller man as if he’d be as happy to break the hand Sam extended as he would be to shake it.

“Mr. Saint? I’m a huge fan, sir. Like to consider myself something of a student of your work,” Sam said.

The man turned away without acknowledging Sam’s statement.

“This better be important, Cruz,” Saint said.

The sound of his voice, deep, filled with barely restrained disgust, set Nola’s heart off on yet another gallop.

“I wouldn’t have called you if it wasn’t,” Cruz said.

And then there was silence as the man openly assessed Sam and then Nola.

“I can vouch for them,” Cruz said.

“Me too,” Ace added.

The man moved his head, almost imperceptibly, just a fraction, but enough Nola felt she could breathe again. She turned her gaze toward Sam, whose face had hardened, no hint of the friendliness that had seemed such a part of him present. She understood his anger. That blow-off had been almost cruel, especially if Sam admired the man as much as he seemed to.

“So what do you know about the wildlife trade?” Cruz said.

“Care to be more specific?” Saint responded.

“Who’s moving illegal parts and in quantity?”

“Well, there’s always three or four players, local gangs, a few corrupt party officials, triad offshoots.”

“Any ties to the US?” Ace asked.

“I assume that’s how your lady friend is involved in this?” Even that simple sentence was heavy with threat.

“My lady friend is none of your concern, Saint,” Cruz said.

The tension that had left was back, and Saint, who was impossibly tall, stood even taller. But Cruz didn’t back down and the two men stared each other down, a battle about to erupt at any moment.

“You two ever gonna get past this bullshit?” Ace asked.

If either man noticed Ace speaking, they gave no indication, and Nola’s nerves snapped, along with them the reason she’d managed to corral.

“I’m glad you think your little…pissing contest is important, but people are trying to kill me, so can you save it?”

Cruz was the first to break the heavy stare, and Nola felt oddly comforted at the knowledge he’d done so to look at her, the jaw that he’d clenched tight relaxing as he stared at her.

The other man looked at her as well, traced her from head to toe with cold, assessing eyes. And then to Nola’s surprise, he lifted one corner of his mouth. It was a nanometer, less, but it was something.

“Yeah. There are a few guys moving product through the Americas and into Vietnam.”

“That’s new. Why the change?” Ace said.

“The government’s trying to put on a good face and is making the right noises about protecting the environment. China and many of the other Southeast Asian countries and Russia are still active routes and destinations, but the Americas are a good alternative. Few people are willing to risk it, so there’s less competition, and though security is tight, no one’s really looking for illegal game and what have you.”

“So how does it work?” Cruz asked.

“Best guess, they have someone inside. Wouldn’t need much, just some idea of when Customs might single out a shipment for a bit of extra scrutiny.”

“Seems like a lot of effort,” Nola said, “especially planting something on me.”

“It’s actually genius if you think about it,” Sam said excitedly, rebounding from Saint’s cold shoulder.

“Why?” she said.

“Well, if you’re running an international trafficking syndicate, keeping info in your head or with pencil and paper ain’t gonna cut it. But do you want to risk using a network? Probably not. I mean, if we know anything it’s that the Internet is not private. So this is a great middle ground. Load up a practically unlimited amount of data on a jump drive, have it brought into the country by some clueless tourists”—Sam looked over at Nola—“no offense.”

“None taken.”

“So they get the drive, drop it wherever, and have access to the information without leaving behind too much of a digital footprint.”

“But would it be something to kill over?” Nola asked.

“Wouldn’t you?” Sam asked, voice serious.

Before Nola could answer, Saint cut in. “Why am I here again?”

“If you lived in this area and you needed to move product, where would you do it from?” Cruz said by way of answering Saint’s question.

“For the animal trade, I’d probably move several hours up the coast. It’s secluded and you can transport down the rivers and tributaries. I can call a guy,” Saint said with a shrug.

Cruz turned his eyes to her, smile on his face. “Nola, you up for another trip?”

She didn’t even bother to hold back her sigh of resignation.

“You see it?” Cruz asked.

“Yep,” Ace replied.

They’d been in the car for several hours, the road getting bumpier the farther they got away from the city. But they’d also encountered less traffic, something that, until this moment, Nola had counted as a positive.

Saint said nothing, but Nola felt the tension in each man, which skyrocketed her own. She lifted her gaze to the rearview mirror and saw a green truck rolling up on them quickly, moving with a purpose, and the dread that had seemed almost a memory roared back at full force. She suddenly wished Cruz was with her in the backseat, that she could reach out and touch him, steal some of his strength.

The
click
of Saint slamming the magazine into the gun he’d pulled from seemingly nowhere filled the small confines of the car. And it was quickly followed by others as Cruz loaded several more weapons.

“Argh!” Nola exclaimed, reaching for the door handle, her stomach dropping as Ace cranked the wheel hard to the left, rotating the car one hundred eighty degrees. Before it had settled completely, he slammed on the gas, approaching the truck at an ever-increasing speed.

Though muffled, Nola couldn’t mistake the first and then second and then third little crack that she’d come to recognize as gunfire.

“What are you doing?” she called when Cruz lowered the window and reached out, shooting with the same practiced ease he’d had at the hotel.

“Duck!” Cruz screamed.

Nola was stunned, but when Saint lowered his window and began firing, she scrambled, pressing herself to the floorboards. She cried out again when she heard a
thud
, and then thought she might lose the contents of her stomach when the vehicle lurched.

“We’re down two tires,” Cruz called. “Aren’t going to go too much longer. Let’s make this count.”

The men began firing more rapidly, the vehicle rocking unsteadily.

“Nola,” Cruz called, “when we stop, get out and run.”

She heard him, but rejected his words. There was no way she was getting out of this car.

“Do you hear me?” he called.

His voice cut through her frantic thoughts like a laser, the tone like a lighthouse, a beacon in the foggy chaos.

“Y-yes,” she responded.

And then, suddenly, the vehicle stopped. The men wasted no time jumping out, and when Nola looked up, she saw Saint standing facing the road, the mean-looking gun he pointed only enhancing his aura of menace.

“Out!”

Cruz’s voice again pulled Nola’s attention, and she scrambled to comply, getting out of the car, some of her dizziness receding when her feet hit the red-brown dirt of the hard-packed ground.

“Run, Nola!” Cruz said.

His voice had a strain of urgency that she had never heard. But she was frozen, unsure of what to do. Couldn’t imagine leaving him.

“Go!”

His voice, sharp, firm, spurred her, and she turned and ran toward a thick copse of trees. She looked back, saw him face away, squared, waiting for the green truck that approached.

He turned, and she caught his eye.

“Go! And don’t look back!”

Something in his eye and his voice begged her to comply, so she did. It was nearly impossible to listen and not see, but she kept her gaze ahead, ran with all the strength in her body.