Page 26 of Daddy’s Oath (The Daddy Guard #2)

Chapter Twenty-Six

Two hours later, Ace sat in the back of the van with Ryan and Isaiah.

Kendrick was in the front seat, behind the steering wheel, just in case they needed to leave in a hurry. Matteo was in the passenger seat beside him.

Jack was elsewhere, with Stryker and Harrison, getting ready to enact the plan.

Cameras showed the guys in the back a clear view of the street and sidewalks all around them.

“Man, you cleaned the van out, right?” Isaiah asked.

Sitting in his seat behind one of the monitors set up, Ace said, “Huh?”

“After you fucked Lana’s brains out back here. You cleaned up, right?”

Ryan laughed. “Kind of wondering the same thing, too.”

Despite trying his best to remain stone-faced, Ace started laughing, too. “How do you know what we did?”

Isaiah turned from his own monitor until he was looking at Ace. “How do I know? You brought her to a screaming orgasm outside! Dude, pretty sure everyone within one square mile heard you two.”

“He’s right,” Ryan chimed in. “And then when you carried her inside all kissing on her while she was naked as a jaybird, barely coherent, it was pretty obvious.”

Ace leaned back in his chair, a cocky grin plastered across his face. “Take notes, boys. That’s how it’s done.”

The other men scoffed.

“Please,” Ryan muttered.

Isaiah laughed. “I’m just glad she recovered enough to go to Athena’s to play with Iris and the other Littles.” A moment passed with the men watching the monitors.

“Guys,” Ryan said, “let’s stop busting balls and start watching. It’s time to release the drone.”

“I’m on it,” Ace said. He pushed a button that caused the keyboard in front of him to retract downward and underneath the monitor. A few seconds later, a control stick came up to replace it. “Damn. I wish I was back behind the controls of a chopper.”

“You miss flying, huh?” Isaiah commiserated.

“Every day,” Ace told him. “But this will do for now.” He hit a few buttons on the controls in front of him and said, “Launching in three. Two. One.”

Atop the vehicle, a small panel slid open, allowing a black drone to fly straight up and away. The tiny camera mounted underneath it sent stunning, full HD-quality video back to the screens in the van.

Just having the control stick in his hand made Ace smile. But it would be even better if he were in a chopper, flying over the city. That wouldn’t serve the current mission, anyway. Plus, he didn’t have access to a chopper.

Perhaps one day that would change.

Right now, though, all that mattered was stopping the thugs who wanted to hurt his babygirl. Nothing would stand in his way. The mission would be completed, one way or another.

“You all watching?” he asked.

“We’re on it,” Ryan replied. “You just fly. We’ll spy.”

Ace groaned. “That was really bad.”

“Ah, man,” Ryan said. “I kind of workshopped that one for a while. Held it for just the right time. It sounded better in my head.”

“Well, you should have kept it inside,” Ace told him.

In his peripheral vision, he saw Ryan extend his arm and hold up his middle finger. Ace just smiled and kept on staring at the monitor before him while his steady hand expertly guided the drone over a typically busy Hollywood.

He sent the small aircraft up to Yuca Street. “Anything?” he asked the others, though he had the same view on his monitor that they had on theirs. Most of his attention, however, was focused on keeping the drone on course.

“Nothing,” Ryan announced.

He kept going to Franklin. “I’ll go north a bit, but I doubt our federal friends would be up this high. Getting into the hills and just a bunch of dead-end streets. Hard to get in and out of.”

The palm trees lining both sides of the street were huge now. So were the homes. The cars parked in front of them cost a pretty penny, too.

“I’m bringing her back down toward us,” he announced. “Feds aren’t driving these cars.”

The other guys laughed.

He brought the drone a little higher, giving them a view of the 101, and took one last look from that vantage point. Then, he lowered it a bit and dropped it south to Franklin.

The drone was back now in the world of apartments. Still a nice area, but not the gated homes that were just a couple of blocks north in the foothills.

Ace smiled to himself. Take it even further south, near where their van was parked, and one would hit a sketchy part of Hollywood Boulevard.

It wasn’t awful. And it was still touristy.

But it had abandoned theaters, tattoo parlors, and cheap souvenir shops about a mile away from homes that sold for a couple of million bucks.

Hollywood was like that.

“Let’s sweep down Cherokee Avenue,” he said, referring to the block behind Lana’s apartment.

The drone soared above a woman walking a fluffy dog. Either she didn’t notice the drone or it was such a common occurrence around there that she didn’t feel it was worth paying attention to, but she never so much as glanced its way.

A lot of photographers used drones to capture stunning images of Hollywood. Of course, that worked to the Guard’s advantage. Ace could fly the thing around without anyone really caring or getting too curious.

On the other side of the street, a group of young people were getting out of a pickup and talking about how to move the couch from the vehicle’s bed all the way up to the apartment on the sixth floor of the building before them.

Down the sidewalk, an LAPD cruiser was parked at the curb.

“Guys,” Ace said.

“We see it,” Isaiah commented.

Ace guided the drone closer. The cop might notice but probably wouldn’t think much of it.

Again, this was Hollywood.

“He’s just eating lunch,” Isaiah said as the image of the officer came into view.

Behind the steering wheel, the cop was shoving the last bits of a burger into his mouth. He picked up an In-&-Out cup, sucked on the straw, then put it back in the cupholder before pulling away from the curb.

“He’s not looking for Lana,” Ryan noted. “Just having lunch.”

“It’s not him I’m worried about. It’s whoever’s in this vehicle.” Ace took the drone up a little higher, hopefully out sight of the person—or people—in the big, black SUV. “Those windows are tinted beyond what’s street-legal for civilians.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” Isaiah said. “Can you get a look at the plates?”

Isaiah, Ryan, and Ace all spoke in unison the moment the drone had a good shot.

“Government plates.”

“We have a winner,” Ace said. He hit a few buttons on the panel before him that patched him through to Jack, Stryker, and Harrison’s audio feed.

Now, thanks to the earpieces they all wore, everyone involved in the mission was linked and hearing the same thing.

“On Cherokee, south of Yucca. North of Hollywood. East side of the street. Can’t see how many guys are inside, but we have a black Suburban with government plates and some really tinted windows. I think we found our feds.”

“Nice work,” Jack’s voice came back.

“Thanks. I’m parking the drone on a nearby ledge so we’ll have a good view of the show. We’ve got about twenty minutes of battery life left.”

“Sit back and enjoy,” Stryker said. “I’ll be at Cherokee in about five minutes.”

“We’ll be in position, too,” Jack announced.

It was less than five minutes, actually, before the show began. Thanks to the drone’s hi-def footage, the guys in the van had the perfect seat, too.

Stryker started, driving the large, nondescript moving van he’d rented down the center of the street, avoiding the cars parked on either side of the curb. He stopped and hopped out.

“Hey! Anyone in there?”

Ace chuckled. It was a risky move banging on the SUV’s driver window like that.

Stryker might be a Little, but he sure had some balls.

“I need you to?—”

The window rolled down.

From the drone’s vantage point, and with Stryker blocking the view a bit, Ace couldn’t make out any details about the guy’s face or what he was wearing. But he still had little doubt he was a U.S. Marshal.

“Sir, do not put your hands on the vehicle.”

And that confirmed it. If it had been just a private citizen, he probably would have responded a bit more angrily.

Might have even hopped out of the SUV and charged Stryker or something.

But this guy was going out of his way to be professional, though there was still an authoritative edge to his voice.

“Sorry, man. But I gotta park right there. And you’re not supposed to be here.” Stryker pointed to the sign on the sidewalk that read LOADING ZONE.

It was a stroke of luck the thing was there. Obviously, they hadn’t planned it that way.

“My damn help isn’t here yet and I have to get all this furniture delivered within an hour.” Stryker paused. “You guys wanna make a quick fifty dollars? Give me a hand here?”

Guys.

Smart, Ace thought. Stryker was letting everyone listening know that there was more than one person inside the SUV.

“Sir, we cannot help you unload anything.”

Ace nodded to himself. Yeah, this guy talked exactly like a fed.

“Can you at least move then? Whether my crew shows up or not, I gotta get this stuff out of that truck and up to that damn apartment. Somehow.”

For a moment, Ace feared the guy would just move his car up the street a little. But as was typical for the area, there were already too many vehicles lining both sides of the streets. Finding real estate at the curb was difficult around that part of town.

Ace continued to watch as the man stuck his head out of the SUV’s open window and looked around in frustration, probably realizing what Ace had just noted.

There wasn’t much room.

And with Stryker’s big, rented van taking up the center of the street, there was only one way the SUV could go: south.

Onto the busy Hollywood Boulevard.

Luck was smiling upon the Daddy Guard and their operation. And ultimately, on Little Lana.

She’s all that matters, Ace thought. She’s my world.

The guy sighed but then, without another word, the window rolled up and the SUV inched away from the curb.

“Thanks!” Stryker yelled, giving them a friendly wave.

The plan was working.