Page 44 of Kidnapped By the Boss

“The Wreckers haven’t made a single move until now, which means that they must have recently accomplished something,” Mario said as he and Devrick sat down.

“It’s more people,” I interjected. “You saw someone new driving that car. He’s probably reacting to the number of people we brought to our raid by making sure he has numbers himself.”

“You think Shaina is his new queen?” Taylor asked.

Vincent scoffed. “Doubtful. If he was refusing to settle for worse than Katya, he’s going to have a damn hard time, and that Shaina woman is beautiful, but notthisbeautiful.” He nodded in my direction, and I couldn’t help but flush a little at the compliment.

“The problem that we’re facing now is that we have no idea what we’re up against,” Devrick concluded. “At least before we had some semblance of what The Wreckers were composed of, but now other than Antonio, Shaina, and the Tanner guy that Lyn told us about, we have no way of knowing where they’re operating or who they’re operating with. We’re not just back to square one, we’ve lost ground. We’re at aseveredisadvantage.”

“I agree.” Vincent folded his hands on top of his desk. “It sucks, but it seems we’re going to have to start from scratch and we may need to get a little risky to do it. For one, we don’t have eyes on them, but they clearly have eyes on us. We may have to bait them out and see if we can’t follow them back to where they’re currently holed up.”

I nodded. “I like that plan.”

“It would be too suspicious if it was Mario again, so Annie, I want you to do some driving around the city—no bridges—and see if you pick up a tail. Taylor, you need to be close in a different car. If you see someone tailing Annie, you need to tail them, and keep her posted of course so that she can protect herself if they try to cause an accident.”

Taylor and Annie both nodded. “Yes, Boss.”

Stealth was my thing, so it was a little surprising that Vincent didn’t involve me in the process at all until he said, “If they’re tracking us, however, they could just have a tail on Taylor and we’d be playing cat and mouse, so we need to set up a covert car exchange in a garage of some type. Have Taylor drive in, get into a different car, have someone else drive his car out, and then he can leave in a less suspicious vehicle. We have minivans for just this occasion. One of our lesser soldiers can pick it up from one of our yards and store it there. Someone they wouldn’t think to follow.” I thought Vincent was going to involve me inthispart of the process, but instead he looked at Devrick. “Can you make the arrangements for this bait and switch? Pick one of the lower soldiers for the car exchange to keep eyes off of us.”

Devrick nodded. “Yes, Boss.”

“Mario, I need you to do a tour of our businesses and make sure everyone is prepared for the possibility that an attack may come. They shouldn’t be lettinganyonethey don’t recognize in or out, and I want photos of every single customer that comes or goes—no—every single human that walks through any of our doors, I want to see their face.”

“Yes, Boss,” Mario said.

I kept waiting for Vincent to give me a task, but at this point, he was acting like I wasn’t even behind him.

“Devrick, I also want our security system here totally gutted and for something new to be installed. As soon as humanly possible, I don’t care how much it costs. There are too many coincidences that make me think we’re being tracked. New phones for all of our employees as well, and look into encryption data that will prevent them from being hacked. And make sure to go over our policy with phones. No one uses their personal phone for business, or their business phone for personal matters, not unless they want my boot up their asses.”

“You got it.”

“Okay. That’s what I got for now. Get to work, and keep me posted oneverything.”

“Yes Boss,” the group resounded, and then one by one, everyone got up and left.

I was trying to hold out hope that Vincent wasn’t doing what it seemed like he was doing—that he had a specific task for me that he just didn’t want to share with the group. I waited patiently for everyone to file out, and then once the door was closed, I was so sure that Vince was going to give me something to do, that I stood up and walked around to sit in one of the chairs facing his desk again, but I sat down and he opened up his computer and began working like he was none-the-wiser that I was there.

“Vincent.” He looked up at me like he was shocked that I even called his name. “What do you want me to do?”

“I need you to stay close,” he said. “If trouble comes looking for us here, you and I will need to fight.”

I stood up out of the chair and leered down at him. “You’re gaslighting me? Do you think I’m stupid?”

“No.”

“You’re not keeping me here because you want me to fight with you, you’re keeping me here because you don’t want me out there!” I screeched. “You said you hadn’t made a decision about me stepping down yet, but it sure seems like it.”

“Kat, I’m just trying to—”

Waving him off, I turned around to leave. “Where are you going?”

“None of your business!” I barked back, then I slammed out of his office without another word.

Only after stopping by our weapons storage to load myself up with a couple of guns did I make my way over to the containment unit. The same guard from earlier was still standing outside, and when he saw me coming alone, he stood up and stepped in front of the door.

“Move,” I ordered.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Costello, but—”