Page 16 of Gilded

LUKA

I managed to get several days in New York under the guise of rearranging staff for the takeover. But despite trying to get close to Tarik for decades, I’m reluctant to return.

I’ve been searching for more information on Malia while the guys focus on intel and I have my assistant, Barbie, digging further into the charities.

But I haven’t made much headway. Malia’s ghostlike status and the way her father treats her are making me more and more uncomfortable with the situation I’ve created.

I cross my arms and stare at the ocean through my living room window. The penthouse has a perfect line of sight to Tarik’s island. I purchased this building for that very reason.

Jairo comes through the front door, drops to the sofa, and opens his laptop.

All my men live in one of my apartment buildings. Jairo’s apartment is a few floors below mine.

“She’s been a busy bee on the internet. Took her a few days to take the plunge, but once she started, she didn’t stop. She was online all night. And I mean all night . She’s only gotten a couple of hours of sleep, from what I can tell. Her first search was for Varopolous.”

“Var-what?”

“It’s a Greek surname.”

“This is the first I’ve heard it. But I guess?—”

“She could easily be Greek,” Jairo says, finishing my thought.

That would explain her dark hair, dark eyes, and olive skin.

“Her searches only brought up a famous mathematician from the 1800s,” Jairo says. “Then she started researching how to become someone else. Which makes a lot more sense.”

“She doesn’t seem confident enough to take that bold move.”

“When you’re desperate, you find the confidence. Look at us.”

That’s true. We were just scared kids, and we found a way out. But I’m too aware that we weren’t the norm. Most trafficked children never reach adulthood.

“She researched ways to disappear in today’s world—how to change her name, get forged documents, and live below the radar. She even looked into self-defense and weapons. Guns, knives, mace, tasers. She ran the gamut.”

“Huh. I didn’t see that coming.”

“Then she looked into lifestyles in different countries. Favors Europe. She didn’t go deep.

Seemed to have trouble finding the information she was looking for, which is probably because she hasn’t used the internet much.

Though, she has enough skills to move money.

She transferred fifty K into a bank account never previously used. One with only her name.”

“She’s obviously not as helpless as she seems.”

“If she’s been as involved with the charity as Zeiger says, she probably handled some of that when she was director.”

“Whose account?”

Jairo clicks into online banking links. “A 503B by the name of Finding Forever. Until last night, the balance stayed at twenty- five bucks. Probably the minimum to keep it open. It looks like it was created a year after the others, which are under both her and her father’s names.

She might have been planning on starting up another charity, but now?—”

“It’s her escape money.”

“Looks like it,” Jairo says. “Fifty grand is petty cash for Tarik. If she is embezzling, it’s smart to start small and let it build somewhere no one else will notice.”

“She doesn’t have any of the skills she needs to escape or stay invisible, and she won’t learn them from the internet.”

Jairo agrees. “If she’s planning on going it alone, she won’t make it far.”

I straighten and round the sofa, dropping into the corner and clasping my hands at the back of my head. “What else?”

“Bondage, submission, kink, orgies.”

I drop my head back and slide my hands over my eyes. “Fuck.”

“Have you got some new fetishes I don’t know about, boss?”

“Shut up.”

“She didn’t spend much time on it. Guess what she found was a little too much to take. Skipped to Lego creations from there.”

I frown. “Legos?”

“That was my reaction too.”

I get a text and sigh as I glance at my watch. It’s Zeiger, as expected, telling me they want to go deeper into the business and get specific about what they need. “I should head back.”

“Keep in mind, they could be using Malia as a test of loyalty.” Jairo closes his laptop and stands. “And despite the rift in the family, we have a long way to go to know how deep she’s in on this.”

“Dig into this Varopolous.”

“It’s at the top of my to-do list.”

Jairo flies me back to the island as my mind spins around They could be using Malia as a test.

“There’s a storm coming in tonight,” Jairo tells me as he lowers the chopper to the landing pad. “Looks like a big one. I may be grounded for a while. Choose your battles accordingly.”

It’s another warm day, but the wind has picked up and I heard the forecast of a possible bomb cyclone hitting the East Coast.

As he lowers the chopper to the landing pad, he says, “You tooled up?”

I slide my fingers along the row of my shirt buttons and touch the tiny square box housing the smallest buttonhole camera known to man. Then give my invisible earbud another tap to secure it in my ear canal. “Tooled up.”

Jairo lands and slows the rotors. “As much as I hate the way you manipulated your way closer to this woman, now you need to follow through. I know you think you’re made of granite, but I know what’s underneath. This could blow back on you.”

I meet his gaze, where disapproval pulls his brows tight. We both know there’s no backing out of this devil’s errand, but Jairo gives me far too much credit for having a heart.

I drop to the ground, putting an arm up to shield my eyes from the rotor wash while pulling my suitcase from the back.

I’m more nervous approaching the security SUV this time around.

The camera is small, but not undetectable.

Jairo must be concerned too, because he idles, waiting to see how I’m greeted.

This time, only one guard is there to greet me, James, the head of security, and he doesn’t search me before I get into the SUV. I’m that much closer to becoming a trusted member of their team.

Jairo rises into the air with “Watch your six.”

By the time I enter the house and greet Tarik, Jairo has landed on the helipad at my apartment building across the bay.

Another guard comes in, one I haven’t met, and James turns my bags over to him. “Put these in the Sandpiper guest house. Have Gwen unpack for him.”

Tarik surveys me, and the intense loathing I feel toward him tries to leak out. “Did you get everything you need?”

“I did.”

James positions himself ten feet away, back to the wall, and becomes a statue.

“How are things going with Malia?” Tarik asks.

Essentially, he’s asking, “How is my daughter doing with fucking lessons?”

Jairo mutters, “Cold” in my ear.

“Fine.”

The way Tarik scans my face makes my nerves tingle. “Are you sure we’ve never met?”

“I’d have remembered if we’d met,” I tell him before refocusing as Zeiger approaches the table with a map rolled in one hand.

But I find myself watching the hallway behind him, hoping for a glimpse of Malia.

Then Zeiger unrolls a linear map of South America onto the dining room table like a fucking red carpet. Every one of their facilities is marked with a red, yellow, or blue dot, and there are hundreds.

Hundreds.

On one continent.

My heart kicks. I knew it was big. Bigger than anything we’ve tackled before, but I didn’t expect this insanity.

“Mother. Of. God,” comes through my earpiece.

The deal I struck with Zeiger was to take control of their facilities in South America as a test run.

If that goes as expected, I get more access.

Right now, I’m glad I didn’t push for more right away.

The team and I would have found a way to make it work, but not as smoothly as we would have if we’d had more time to ramp up.

They have facilities on five of the seven continents, and yes, I want information on every last one. The sooner I get that information, the sooner I can end Tarik and Zeiger, then figure out how deeply Malia is involved.

I grip the edge of the table and lean in for a more detailed look with pure adrenaline pumping through my veins. These dots represent hundreds, maybe thousands of people we can free and return to their lives. “What do the colors designate?”

“Yellow are collection facilities,” Zeiger says. “Red are distribution locations. Blue have been temporarily dismantled.”

“As you can see,” Tarik says, “we’ll need all the manpower you can bring to the table.”

“Not a problem.”

“Fuck me,” Jairo says. “I’ll get the guys on it.”

Normally, Xavi and Diallo work on gathering fake staff to fulfill potential employers’ curiosity until we get the information we need, stage a rescue, and end that trafficker and all those who work with him.

But this is different. This is a full takeover.

One we have to not only execute perfectly to gain Tarik’s full trust but have to sustain until we get everything we need.

“We’re scraping together local staff to keep the largest locations running and offloading the low-value detainees at a discount,” Tarik says. “We’re losing money every fucking day.”

“Probably more than you realize.”

“What do you mean?”

“With spotty oversight, the staff will skim money off the top and sell on the side.”

Tarik’s scowl deepens. “If I catch anyone doing that, I’ll cut off their dicks.”

“My first suggestion would be to consolidate the locations, filling those that are closest to the water, the train tracks, or the highway. Like these.” I run my finger over the map.

“Easier for transport. And while you’re at it, move them closer to each other for efficiency.

We might also want to move them into fewer countries.

Countries with the best atmosphere for us. ”

That will also make them easier to raid.

“I’ll need floorplans for every location,” I tell them.

“Number of guards, number and ages of current detainees, and weapons and vehicles available at each site. We’ll collect property information, names of known enemies in the regions, corrupt politicians and law enforcement whose silence can be bought.

Once I have the full picture, we’ll make a comprehensive security plan to shore things up and increase efficiency. We’ll be letting all current staff go and replacing them with mine. You’ll see your income soar.”

I straighten. “I want to execute these takeovers seamlessly, so word doesn’t spread before we’re secure. The quieter we do this, the better.”

I roll up the map. “My team and I will get started tonight.”

“How long?” Tarik wants to know. “We need movement.”

“You need safe movement. Controlled movement. Strategic movement.”

Tarik’s phone rings, and he excuses himself to take the call in the other room.

“How are things going with Malia?” Zeiger asks.

“What is with this obsession?” Jairo mutters.

“Progressing,” I tell Zeiger.

“What are you teaching her? I haven’t seen any marks on her body, and she’s still mouthy. I’m sick of her attitude.”

“Oh,” Jairo says in my ear. “He’s a real peach.”

“Smart men don’t leave marks where they can be seen,” I tell Zeiger.

Tarik returns, looking even more tense, and tells Zeiger, “I need you with me in Columbia.”

To me, he says, “You’re right. We’ve got a coup brewing in the southeast quadrant. We need a show of force to make sure everyone knows who’s still in control. Work on the plans and watch Malia. The security team will take care of anything you need. We won’t be gone longer than a day or two.”

“Good,” Zeiger says. “You can take her to that stupid cocktail party Dawson is throwing. I hate those things.”

“Dawson?” I ask.

“Ana Dawson,” Zeiger says.

“New director of the New York ICE field office,” Jairo tells me. “I guess it would be beneficial to have the person responsible for immigration enforcement in your pocket when you’re trafficking people.”

“Get your things and get to the car,” Tarik tells Zeiger as he turns and heads toward one of the master suites. “We need to leave before that storm comes in.”

I feel the need to grab more information before they leave. “What happened at the dock?”

“She told you about the dock?”

“No, you did.” When Zeiger frowns at me, I say, “At dinner the other night.”

“Oh. She tried to leave the island.”

“And the plot thickens,” Jairo says.

“Why?”

“Because she’s fucking stupid,” he snarls. “Haven’t you figured that out yet?”

“When can you get those floorplans to me?”

“I’ll send them from the plane.”

“Where’s Malia?”

“I don’t know,” he says, disgusted with the topic. “Probably in her room with her Legos.”

My mind shoots back to the Lego she was holding last time I was here. “Legos?”

“Tarik spoils her. She won’t be doing that when she lives with me.”

Zeiger disappears down the stairs to his lair, and I breathe easier.

“Curious about these Legos,” Jairo asks.

I don’t respond because James is still hovering. I turn toward him as another guard approaches. He’s big and stony-faced with a buzz cut, someone I’ve noticed hanging in the background. He’s also on the young side, wears his bulk with pride, and has the kind of eyes that see everything.

“This is Toby,” James tells me. “He’ll be in charge while I’m gone.”

“You heard Hugo. I’ll be in charge while you’re gone,” I say to both of them. “Toby will be in charge of everything I tell him to be in charge of. Is that clear?”

James’s mouth tips in a condescending smirk before he heads toward the back patio.

“Peanut dick,” Jairo says.

“What’s your last name?” I ask Toby.

“Why?”

I harden my gaze and slow my speech. “Because I asked.”

“Finley.”

“I’ll get background on him,” Jairo says.

“No hovering, Finley. No spying. No interference. Do you understand?”

His jaw ticks and his gaze burns into mine, but I hold it until he reluctantly nods.

“I hope we won’t have problems while the boss is gone,” I tell him. “That would end badly for you.”

His “No, sir” is laden with attitude.

“Good to hear. Turn up the heat on the pool. I want it to feel like bath water.” I head toward Malia’s suite, telling Jairo, “Keep me posted.”

“Right back at you, boss.”