Page 11 of A Man of Wealth

Great. So not only are we looking for a needle in a haystack, we don’t even know if we’re looking for a needle. Sebastian and Aiden always say that I’m reactive, and this right now is proof of that. I should have asked what she knew before we left. There’s no way we are going to find what we are looking for, it’s an impossible task.

We ride in silence for a while more until she turns off to the port in Baltimore. The roads back here are uneven and she laughs.

“Uh, your utility vehicle might have been a better choice,” she states with an eye roll. I want so badly to bend her over my knee and smack her ass. Little does she know that this sleek, low-to-the-ground vehicle is easier to hide out here. My utility vehicle is giant and white.

“We aren’t going any farther in this vehicle,” I explain as I point to a small parking area. There’s another way into the shipyard, but I want to watch it for a while first. She pulls up and turns off the car.

“Now what?” she asks.

“Now we wait.”

Chapter6

Vivienne

“What are we waiting for?”I prod as I sit, tapping my fingers on the steering wheel.

“Just wait a minute. We need the next truck to come through and the gate to open. I want to see what’s going on in there before we do anything.”

My mouth falls open. “Wait? You’re telling me you don’t have access to your father’s shipping yard?”

He shrugs nonchalantly. His answer is more of a grunt than a word.

“I’m sorry, what was that?”

“I don’t have access to any of my father’s properties,” he mutters quietly through gritted teeth.

Wow. Just wow. I way underestimated the relationship between Conner and Theo Sterling.

Conner’s phone buzzes and he looks down at it. “Interesting.”

“Gonna share that with the class?” I ask as I glare at him.

“Nope.”

“Fuck off, Sterling, what the hell are you playing at?”

He turns toward me the best he can with his tall frame in this small interior space. “This just got a lot harder.”

My mind goes somewhere it shouldn’t. Damn him. Why couldn’t Conner be ugly?

He raises a suggestive eyebrow and I groan as a smirk spreads across his face.

“For the love of God, just… Ugh!” I groan as I turn away from him and look out at the river in front of us.

I feel his hand on my thigh again. I want to jerk away to show him that I mean business, but the way he tightly grips me there has my traitorous body wanting him to do other things to it.

“What?” I clip as I keep my focus on the water in front of us.

“Aiden says his intel believes that this drug is coming in a liquid form, which is going to take our search from a needle in a haystack to an asteroid in a galaxy.”

I finally turn to him. “Could you possibly be more difficult to understand?”

He points to some refrigerated cargo containers. “We don’t even know how much of it is being brought in on the ship. Do you have any idea how many containers of various liquid materials come through here on a daily basis?”

I shrug. He knows that I know this because I’ve seen the shipping logs.

“So, do you see the problem now?” he asks, emphasizing the last word. Is he going to murder me? He could strangle me with his bare hands. I glance down at his hand and swallow. I was so focused on getting my big story break, I acted carelessly. I should have gotten better intel before I even thought about approaching Conner. I just made a rooky mistake. Damn it!

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