Five hundred thousand. That was more than the average American’s initial mortgage loan. For some, it would be enough to live off for the rest of their lives. And yet, H&K had enough liquid resources to transfer that kind of money without anyone panicking. Eli shook his head.
Now the five-million-dollar bounty on Chad’s head made sense. Everyone around him was rolling in money.
He would never know what a life like that was like. Sure, he had enough to pay his bills and never have to worry about where his next meal would come from, but he couldn’t imagine not being overly concerned about a missing five hundred grand from his bank account.
“What do you think is going on?” Eli asked.
Zoey was staring down at her phone. Maybe she wasn’t taking the loss of that kind of money as flippantly as he thought she had been.
“Are you okay?” he asked, when she refused to answer.
She pointed in the direction of a Starbucks. “I’m going to need a coffee.”
Yep, she wasn’t taking this well. His body relaxed a little bit as she returned to the land of normal Americans who lived on a budget. He loved the idea of her being successful and doing well with her family and their businesses, but he wasn’t sure that he could be with a woman who was a magnate—he would always feel completely out of her league. He wanted to be an equal partner in any relationship, and that wasn’t limited to fiscal matters.
He pulled into the Starbucks and parked. “Want a caramel macchiato, two pumps of hazelnut?”
She smiled. “We can go in together. You still like your coffee so dark and bold that it can hold the spoon up, right?”
He laughed. “A lot can change, but as far as I’m concerned there is only one way to take coffee and that’s it.”
She rolled her eyes in feigned exasperation. Before getting out, she turned around and grabbed a tablet from out of her bag. She turned it on and connected into the Wi-Fi.
“Seriously, open Wi-Fi? You’re good with that?” Eli was surprised.
“Often, it’s best if we just hide in plain sight.” She gave him a sly grin as she took a beanie-style hat out of her bag and slipped it over her pink hair. She handed him a baseball cap. “But I would hate to be too obvious.”
He slipped on the hat, aware that it would keep him anonymous in the coffee shop’s cameras.
Inside, the place smelled like pumpkin spice lattes, hopeful writers and daring entrepreneurs. He loved it.
After ordering the coffees and making their way to a private table, Zoey turned her tablet back on and set to work. He watched her as she frowned and nibbled on her lip. She had always made the same face when she was concentrating and working hard. He had nearly forgotten how beautiful it looked.
There was a strand of pink hair poking out from under her gray hat and it sat at the center of her forehead. Each time she huffed, the little hair would flutter up and down like a frustrated mother’s arms.
Finally, she smiled and looked up at him with a vindicated look in her eyes. “I think I got it.”
“What?”
She moved so he could see her screen. “It looks as though the money was transferred to the BBVA bank in Sitges. About six hours ago, a man came in and picked it up, one John Smith.” She clicked on a few buttons and pulled up the bank’s security camera feed.
“Did you seriously hack into a bank’s mainframe on public Wi-Fi in a matter of minutes?” he asked, both impressed and uncomfortable. Out of some intrinsic fear, he looked over his shoulder, as if one of the other people in the shop could see what they were up to.
She put her finger to her mouth, motioning for him to be quiet. “This is the best place to do it. Now watch,” she said, pointing to the screen.
The video was of the entire bank’s lobby, and though the area wasn’t large, the size of the room made it seem as though they were zoomed out quite a bit. A man walked in from the street wearing a dark tan jacket and a wide-brimmed hat. He made his way up to the teller. A few moments later, a woman walked into the bank and stood behind him.
Though she was never closer than five feet from him, the way she moved made Eli wonder if they were together. The teller disappeared from the screen for a moment, then returned and started talking to the man.
Though they could not hear what the people were saying, they watched as the man produced an ID. The teller nodded, seeming appeased. The teller walked out of the frame and quickly returned carrying a small stack of wrapped euros.
Perhaps there was an odd number in the transfer because of the exchange rate. And there might have been some sort of fee for sending the money, but he wasn’t sure.
The manager turned toward the cash drawer and pulled out a random selection of coins. Eli shook his head. Maybe his theory was wrong. Maybe this had nothing to do with exchange rates and fees. Rather, there was something more to the odd number of transferred monies. But what?
The man in the video turned, and looked straight up at the cameras. As he moved, the woman behind him jabbed him in the ribs, forcing him to look down. They took the money and quickly left.
Zoey turned off the video. “Did you see that?”
Of course he had seen it, it was a video. But it didn’t seem like the time to be a smart-ass. “Which part?”
“That.” Zoey turned to her tablet and skipped back to the moment the man looked up at the camera. “There... That’s Chad. He’s alive.” There was palpable relief in her tone.
“Good.” Hopefully Chad would stay that way. Eli squinted in an attempt to make out the man’s face just a little bit better. “Who’s the woman?”
“I have no idea,” she said, moving closer to the screen like she was trying to see some tiny detail that could possibly give away the woman’s identity.
“Has Chad been dating anyone?”
“No. At least not that I know of. But who knows what he’s up to these days. When it comes to that kind of thing, he normally keeps to himself.”
He and Chad had never been super close. They had never worked a job together, but it wasn’t because they had a difference of opinion or didn’t like one another. It was just that Chad was normally the man they sent to be a bull in a china shop and Eli was the man they sent in to make a death look natural. Needless to say, they had different methods when it came to doing their jobs.
After finishing their coffees, they made their way back out to the truck. With the door closed, he turned to her. “Let’s have Mindy and Sabrina look into the Swedish and Algerian ties—maybe they can get info about the officials there and find out if anyone has a grudge or reason to want to align themselves with the Gray Wolves.”
She let out a long exhale. “Do you think we should go to Spain?”
“It’s as good a place as anywhere. As far as we know, no one else has spotted Chad. If we get there before anyone else does, we have a chance of getting him to safety.”
“Where would safety be, exactly?” she asked, sounding tired.
He couldn’t answer her with any level of honesty. Right now, her family’s world was upside down, and tangentially his was as well since he had allied himself with them. “The Gray Wolves can’t hunt you forever.” Even as he spoke, he heard the lie in his words.
“I’d like to think that, but so far that has yet to be true,” she said with a haggard look.
He should have stayed quiet.
Calling Mindy, Zoey told her the plan. It took only a few minutes, and though Zoey hadn’t heard from Trevor and Jarrod yet, it would be only a matter of time until she did—as long as they were safe. He had to assume they were all right. At the thought, he could feel his blood pressure rise, putting pressure on his eyes. The last thing they needed was for all of the brothers to be one step away from being murdered, but it seemed like that was exactly where they were.
He had to stop playing out the worst-case scenarios in his head. This wasn’t getting them anywhere.
“You have your passport?” he asked.
“Which one?” she said, motioning toward the back.
This was going to be one hell of an adventure—hopefully, they would both make it out alive.