Page 21 of Emerald

Jade – Located Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

She was bought in Morocco by Sheik Daoui and added to his harem of young women. He’s now grown tired of the women and is selling five of them from his harem on the black market. The sale is going to happen next week.

Shit.

Both girls are in precarious situations. I stare at my computer and the information I’ve been given and work out the best way I can be in two places at once. This is the best evidence for thejewels I’ve seen all week. Once things settled down after coming back from the dead, Sophie and her team let me in on the information they had pulled from Dimitri’s computer, hoping I would be able to shed new light on the entire Morocco situation. Unfortunately, while Morocco was happening, I was in Russia with Ivan, Dimitri’s uncle. If I had known what the bastard was planning, I would have stopped him.

Throwing back the remnants of my coffee, I dress and head out to find Sophie. I’m not about to bother my brother with this news when he just got married last night. Also, Max and Grace are off on their honeymoon later today for a week on their new luxury boat. From what I’m told, Sergei sold off Maxim’s old boat to a friend, and then Tomas bought a new boat in a company named Wildcat Investments, which is Max and Grace’s. Sergei is helping to slowly sell off all of Maxim’s real estate and assets seeing as now he’s technically dead. Maxim’s will stated that Sergei inherited everything, much to our father’s dismay, but thankfully, Maxim was good at hiding his true wealth from our father. Sergei gave him the Lamborghini and Aston Martin as a gesture of goodwill and to stop him from becoming a problem. Maxim is slowly going to repurchase new assets under their new company name to set them both up for their future. I don’t want to ruin what they both have been looking forward to today.

I head over to charities HQ and hope that someone is there that I can talk to about this situation. When I walk into the main comms area, I see Brooks and Sophie talking together quietly. Thank goodness these two are workaholics. The sound of the door closing makes them jump and turn around to see who has arrived.

Sophie’s eyes narrow on me when she sees me. “What are you doing in here?”

“Good morning to you, too,” I bite back. I thought we were getting somewhere, we had fun last night drinking and laughing, but it seems she’s as irritated with me as she always is.

“What are you doing in here, alone?” she questions, looking me up and down.

“My fucking job which is finding the jewels. Which, by the way, I have,” I answer snarkily, folding my arms across my chest.

“You have?” Brooks asks. I have his attention now.

“Yes. But we are going to have to work together on this one because time is of the essence for these two jewels. It’s the best shot of finding them we have. I found out that Jade is in Dubai with Sheik Daoui,” I explain.

“We already know that. That’s not new information,” Sophie bites back.

Ignoring her mood because she’s probably hungover, I continue, “Do you know there’s a chance that she is being sold with four other women on the black market?” That bit of information has her sitting up. “The sale is next week in Dubai.”

“Fuck, we need to get there,” Brooks adds, getting up out of his chair and striding to another computer.

“The Middle East isn’t my area of expertise. I have some contacts in Dubai but not many. I was hoping the two of you would run point on finding Jade as you both have many more contacts than I do, and, Sophie, I know you speak the language,” I explain.

Her eyes widen at that tidbit.I’ve done my homework on you, too, Sophie.

“You’re not going to come with us?” Sophie asks, her voice rising.

“I’ll be in Mexico. They’ve found Pearl. She’s being held as the plaything for some twenty-one-year-old psychopath whose daddy runs the Yucatan Cartel,” I tell her.

“Shit,” Brooks curses.

“You’re going to go by yourself?” Sophie asks.

“Yes. I usually do.”

“You can’t take the cartel on by yourself,” she adds.

“Have before.”

Sophie frowns. “Things are different now.”

“Different? What do you mean?” I ask. As far as I am concerned, nothing has changed other than I’m a ghost.

“You’re Ellie Clark. Max has you back in his life. You’re part of a family. You’re not a lone wolf anymore. There are people here that care for you,” she explains.

“Aw that’s sweet that you care, Sophie, but I have a job to do. The agency doesn’t care that I have people worried about me. This is what I’m trained for,” I tell her.

“What Sophie is saying is, you’re dead. Maybe the old way you used to do things might not work anymore. The contacts you once had are not the same,” Brooks explains.

“You think it’s going to be hard for me to start over from nothing? Please, men are such simple creatures. Me in a bikini will be enough of an incentive for them to come chat. I’ll be fine,” I tell him.

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