Page 46 of Daddy's Claim
Cole glared at me the second I stepped inside. “Nice of you to join us, Michael.”
“Fuck you,” I shot back without any heat. “What happened here?”
“I don’t have a fucking clue.” Red colored Alex’s cheeks, but I wasn’t sure if it was from anger or embarrassment. “Somehow they managed to get the system down again, but the fail-safes you put in brought it back up pretty quickly. Not quickly enough to catch our thief in the act, though.”
At least my work had held up, although I hadn’t gotten an alert when it had gone offline like I should have, which was worrisome. “What did they take?”
The look Alex sent Cole was pained. “They didn’t touch the weapons.”
Cole’s eyes narrowed. “What did they take, Alexander?”
“We’re still doing inventory, but I know for a fact they took the pearls.”
“Goddammit!”
Frowning, Adele looked at each of us in turn, the confusion obvious on her face. “Pearls?”
“Tahitian pearls,” I offered, since my cousin looked like he was in danger of bursting a major blood vessel at the moment. “Excellent quality. Probably close to a half-million worth of them.”
“Merde.”
“If that means ‘we’re fucked’, then yeah,” Alex grumbled. “Merde, indeed.”
“All right.” Looking a bit calmer, if no less furious, Cole straightened the cuffs on his suit jacket. “Mikey, scour the security footage. The smallest fucking blip, slip, whatever, I want to know about it. Alex, take Adele with you around the perimeter, see if you can’t figure out how the fuck they got into my warehouse.”
“You got it, boss.” Doing my best to forget about my obviously hurting wife, I went to work.
Sixteen
Nora
The longer I sat in the car without being able to talk to Mikey or Adele, the more restless I grew. I’d just about decided I was going to march in there and demand they listen to me and deal with the consequences later when my phone pinged with a message from Rissa.
I need to talk to you about your husband. It’s important. Where are you?
I shot up in my seat, my stomach twisting with fear.What about him?
I can’t do it over text. Where are you? I’ll come get you.
Shit. Shit. Shit. What could she possibly need to tell me that she couldn’t do over text? I looked around hoping to catch a glimpse of Mikey or even Cole or Adele, but not a soul was in sight.
This can’t wait. He’s in danger.
Danger? Fuck. Bile burned my throat as the fear gnawing at my gut consumed me. Mikey’s threat played in my head, butthere was no way I could ignore Rissa’s words. If Rissa said it was important, I needed to go. Someday, in the far distant future, maybe I’d be able to go more than a day without getting my ass lit up. But apparently today was not that day.
I paused, my fingers hovering over the keyboard. Maybe I should tell Mikey what was going on. But he hadn’t wanted to listen to me at the house, so why would this be any different? If I called him or, god forbid actually went into the warehouse, he’d probably just yell at me again. Especially since I didn’t actually know anything yet.
No. Better to get all the information and then go to him.
I’m at the docks. Meet me on the corner of First and Pacific.
I’ll be there in ten.
Before I had time to second guess my decision I opened the door and slunk out as quickly and as quietly as possible. Only shutting the door enough to make the inside lights turn off, I headed for the fence and followed it until I found the entrance. My heart leapt to my throat when I caught sight of the two guards strolling the perimeter, but by some small miracle, they didn’t see me. Relief was quickly followed by anger. With everything going on at the docks, these assholes really needed to pay better attention.
Making a mental note to tell Mikey about it after he was done beating my ass for leaving, I slipped through the gate and hurried for the corner to wait for Rissa’s car. I was about to call her and ask where the hell she was when a huge black SUV came to a screeching halt in front of me and the door swung open revealing a worried-looking Rissa.
“Hurry, get in.”