Page 63 of Daddy's Oath
“Are you wanting me to freaking tell you everything?”
Ace laughed. “That’s the idea. Yeah.”
The guy didn’t say anything. But the one next to him did.
“I’ll tell you. The client isn’t worth going down for. But you can’t talk to the cops.”
“How do you know we aren’t cops?” Ace asked.
The guy scoffed. “The LAPD can do some shady shit. But this is even crazier than anything they’ve done.”
Ace couldn’t argue that point. It was one of the reasons he’d given up the badge. Of course, he was now standing in a company headquarters that he’d broken into, hovering over the men he’d tied up and waving a shotgun around. But this was all for Lana.
He’d do anything for her.
“Talk.” He didn’t promise he wouldn’t tell the police. But whatever he passed along most likely wouldn’t stick, anyway. Not since this was all highly illegal.
He had bigger fish to fry, anyway.
Ace wanted Garza.
“Look, some people connected with our client saw this woman on some TV show. They reached out to us to track her down.”
Ace thought about it for a moment. That was all in line with what they’d suspected. “Miguel Garza?”
The guy just nodded, though it was hard to see the way he was lying face down on the floor.
“He wants revenge, huh?” Ace probed.
“I don’t know about that. Maybe,” the guy said. “But he has a new trial coming up. His attorneys found a way to throw out his old conviction. Look, that’s all I know.”
“Shit!” Ace said, looking at Jack. “They want to silence the star witness. Keep her from testifying again.”
Jack nodded. “And with luck they just happened to see her on that TV show. All bad timing.”
“What I want to know,” Matteo said, “is how they found her address.”
The man on the floor who’d spilled the info answered. “Theydidn’t. We did. That TV show said she worked for the studio. Used our contacts, bribed some people we know. Easy info to come by.”
Ace figured he meant someone in the studio’s HR. He’d have to figure all that out later. Right now, though, he had another burning question.
“You said your contract ends tonight. Why?”
Dead silence followed.
“Remember this.” He tapped both of thugs he’d been talking about on the sides of their heads with the shotgun.
The first guy broke the silence. “Our work is done. We’re monitoring her place to make sure she doesn’t go back, but like we said, at midnight, she isn’t our problem anymore.”
The man next to him finished the story. “They’ve had time to mobilize their own crew now. They’re taking care of things. Snatching the girl.”
Ace’s heart raced and his mind spun. He knew losing his cool wouldn’t help Lana. So, he forced himself to calm down, drawing deep, soothing breaths.
“How would they know where she’s at?” he asked, more to himself as he tried to fit all the puzzle pieces together.
Isaiah answered. “She was by her place today. If they had people watching?—”
“They saw her.” Ace groaned.
