Page 31 of Rio (Knight Empire #3)

RIO

I glare at Raquel as she gets into the car with that old woman, and they drive away.

I don’t fucking believe it. After everything between us, she hits me with a fucking injunction. My insides burn with fury because I didn’t see it coming. I always knew she had balls bigger than a bull, and I let myself fall under her charm again.

Now this.

But when I calm down, and sit back, thinking it over, I realize I’m mad at myself.

For being blind to something that’s going on.

Raquel wouldn’t file an injunction if there wasn’t a good reason for it.

The old man has kept me mired in meetings.

I shouldn’t be sitting here having lunch.

I should be out there, examining the mangroves, and the reef, and talking to villagers.

I should be out there talking to the elder who said he had to buy bottled water.

I should be checking the claims made by the people at the community hall instead of blindly accepting everything I’ve been told.

“What are we supposed to do?” the foreman asks.

“We have to stop construction,” Tomas says.

The old man’s going to freak out. He’ll think I’ve failed and he’ll accuse me of screwing this up like he always does.

I was sent here to smooth things over, make everything look clean again.

But he has no idea that I’m up against one of the smartest damn lawyers I’ve ever encountered.

Someone who knows exactly where to hit us where it hurts.

I rake a hand through my hair, feeling panicked. The injunction isn’t only a legal move, it’s a statement, and I was caught flat-footed. That pisses me off more than anything.

I have a lot to do. Also, I need to let the old man know we’ve been served. That construction is frozen. Halted. Nothing happens until this is resolved. He’s going to be pissed so badly that we can’t open on time.

“What are you thinking?” Tomas asks, his eyes wise, knowing. Like he’s giving me a chance to do the decent thing.

He’s said just enough over the last few days to get under my skin. A few offhand comments about corrosion on the water tanks. He hesitated when I asked about the foreman before Orlando. No one seems to have a real answer for that, but it’s what Tomas hasn’t said that’s starting to eat at me.

I haven’t seen the reef. I haven’t walked the far end of the mangrove basin. I’ve been too damn busy in meetings and reading polished reports from Delport and smooth-talking execs, no doubt handpicked by the old man.

Which is exactly how he wanted it.

“I’m thinking we sit tight, for a few hours.” Because once the old man finds out, all hell will break loose. I get up and walk away, heart pounding, and when I’m out of earshot, I call him. He picks up immediately.

“Tell me everything’s fine and you’re about to come back,” he says. He already knows something’s wrong. I can hear it in his smug and oily tone, like he’s been waiting for my call.

“I just wanted to give you a heads-up. We got served.”

“What?”

“An injunction. EcoGuardians filed it. We’ve been ordered to halt construction effective immediately.”

“How the fuck did this happen?” he thunders. “You were supposed to use your fucking charm and get this fixed.”

“I tried.” I clear my throat and brace myself. “There’s more going on here than we were told.”

“I trust Delport to handle things.”

“I don’t think Delport are being transparent.”

“You don’t need to worry about Delport,” he says, smoothly. “Just leave that to me.”

“But you sent me here to get a handle on the situation.”

“And you haven’t, have you?” he snaps. “Now we’ll have lawyers crawling all over the site soon, and headlines waiting to explode. You should have had this locked down by now. Fix it.”

I grit my teeth. What the fuck does he expect me to do? “I’m not going to overlook an injunction.”

“You’ll do what needs to be done.”

“There could be real damage out here,” I push. “People are upset. Locals at the community hall are talking. No one can tell me what happened to the last foreman.”

“Don’t worry about him.”

“This whole thing smells off.”

The old man is silent for a beat. Then he says, low and lethal, “If there’s a problem, we’ll bury it. Just like we always do.”

A pain slices through my chest. “Bury it?”

“You’re too close to it, boy. That’s your problem. You’re letting that lawyer cloud your judgment.”

I resent him talking about Raquel.

“The eco resort needs to open on time, boy. You make sure it does.”

He hangs up before I can respond.

And now I’m in a real fucking mess, because now I’m more certain than ever that something isn’t right here.