Page 25 of Ridin' True

“Three days ago, I showed up to my attorney’s office and found Rocco Borrero sitting across from her. They were not friendly. Don’t have much, but she went silent three hours ago. I’m at her office now. Found her phone and one of her shoes but not her.”

“Shit,” he muttered. Wrangler heard movement on the other end of the line then, “Off.”

“Seriously?” came the muted yet exasperated voice of a woman.

“Don’t make me say it again,” said Twister.

There was the sound of more movement, then he brought the phone back up to his ear and said, “Okay. What do you need?”

Wrangler didn’t bother commenting on what he just heard. He got straight to the point.

“He has her. I know he does.”

“Brother, I hate to break it to you, but that doesn’t mean shit. We can’t just roll up on the cartel bangin’ down doors. We do that, we’re asking for a fight. We gotta be smarter than that. What else do you know?”

He raked his fingers through his hair in frustration, “I know this shit isn’t her fault. It’s her brother’s mess she’s mixed up in.”

“This brother got a name?”

“Torres. I don’t know his first name.”

Twister sighed. “Alright, look—my guy workin’ computer forensics with the PD, I’ll see what he can find.”

“Twist, that could take hours,” he muttered with a scowl.

“Don’t have much of a choice, Wrangler. Besides, this is Gillette, not Sacramento. How many Torreses do you know?”

Wrangler lifted his brow and dropped it again, realizing he had a point. “Right. Alexia is her name.”

“I’m on it. Sit tight.”

He disconnected without bothering to say goodbye, and Wrangler went to collect Alexia’s heel. When he returned to her office, he grabbed her phone and wasn’t surprised to find it was passcode protected. He then searched for her purse. After he found it, he rifled through the contents but found nothing useful.

He swore under his breath, taking her things with him as he headed for the exit.

The kid cleaning was nowhere in sight.

Upon returning to his Street Glide, Wrangler stowed Alexia’s things in one of his saddlebags and then began to pace. He thought about his attorney, picturing her in his mind. Her amber eyes and cute nose. Her long hair and full lips.

In the right hands, she was an undiscovered treasure.

In the wrong ones, she was the perfect prey.

He didn’t like to think of what Borrero could have done to her. He didn’t know what Alexia’s brother had gotten himself into, but he knew Borrero had a reputation for more than supplying drugs. He had a collection of women. Some of them hung around for the money. Some of them for his protection. Others were there to pay a debt. It was akin to Solomon of the Old Testament and all his concubines.

Just the thought made Wrangler clench his jaw in anger.

It wasn’t merely the thought of Alexia forced to join Borrero’s harem that sparked his ire—it was the father in him, too.

Men like Borrero where why he intended to protect his daughter’s body, heart, and soul until she found a man they could both trust to take his place. As far as he was concerned, that wasn’t likely to happen for another thirty years or so.

His phone rang, and he was quick to check it. Barely ten minutes had gone by. He was sure it couldn’t have been Twister with news already, and he was right. It was Bull.

“Yeah,” he answered.

“Shit timing and one hell of a coincidence. Had you go around Hoffman to avoid any connections to the cartel, and now this?”

“But in this case, she’s the victim.”