“Thanks. Update me at least daily,” Ryker ordered before hanging up and opening the email. After he’d called her yesterday, she’d spent three hours at a salon, but his PI was right: there wasn’t anything suspicious in her activity. However, being with Little Joey in any capacity was enough to make him start connecting the dots. Little Joey had arrived in Charleston months ago, before Bianca had started to work for him. Containers had gone missing during that time and Ryker would bet she was doing it as a favor for her boyfriend. The only question was whether she knew what her boyfriend was up to or if she was an innocent player.
“Do you know how annoying this is?”
Ryker looked up and smiled at a pissed-off Mary Alice. She had the cast on her arm and her arm in a sling. A ruler was peeking out of the sling, ready to be drawn like a sword.
Ryker handed her the passcodes from Kale. “Tell everyone it’s from IT. Then give Bianca her normal workload. Have Dare be the errand boy to the docks for you—the grunt worker. He can get to know the dockworkers, the transport guys, and so on, but still be in the office some. Have Paxton working the closest with Bianca and have Granger assist you with things outside of the office to give Bianca some time alone. Granger can also do all the copies and such. Granger and Paxton will try to befriend Bianca. Dare is an ex-con we’re giving a second chance. I want you to be a little hard on them and hopefully that will give Bianca an in with them. They can commiserate over your treatment of them.”
“I don’t have to be nice to her?” Mary Alice asked with hope in her eyes.
“No. In fact, I want you to be Sister Super Strict with all of them. It’ll bond the others together against you. When they all get here, I want a group meeting and then you can take them out there and issue your orders.”
The grin Mary Alice gave was anything but angelic. “I have decades of misbehaving students’ antics to pull from. This is going to be fun.”
Mary Alice spun on her feet and walked out into the newly converted office space. An hour later, she came back in with Bianca, Granger, Paxton, and Dare following behind. Dare had fake tattoos on his neck and arms and looked ready to kill someone. Bianca was in a designer suit with a triumphant smile on her face. Paxton looked like a confused dork with a bow tie and wearing the ugliest glasses Ryker had ever seen. Granger looked pretty normal in slacks, a button-up shirt, and a tie. Only it wasn’t normal. Ryker couldn’t remember the last time Granger had been dressed up.
“The help is here,” Mary Alice said with annoyance. “I told you before that I don’t need help, especially from a criminal.”
“Hey, I served my time,” Dare said with a hint of defensive anger.
Ryker cleared his throat. “Don’t make me regret starting this second chances program. I’m a busy man and don’t have time for this. Mary Alice is in charge. Do not come to me unless she tells you to or if I ask you to. I appreciate you coming on such short notice to help out, though. Now, I need to get back to work. Mary Alice has a list of things I need done today.”
“What about me?” Bianca asked with a flirty smile. “Don’t I report directly to you to make sure all your needs are met?”
“It’ll be the same as before. I’ll use the messaging system if I need anything or Mary Alice will tell you. Bianca is second-in-command. If you don’t have enough work, and she asks for help, help her. Got it?” Ryker asked the group.
Bianca gave a little pout, but the men all nodded. Mary Alice ushered them out the door and the games began. Ryker took a deep breath and tried to focus on the piles of actual work he had, but he found himself watching the newly installed security feeds half the time.
It had to mean something that Bianca knew Little Joey and that a member of the Porzio family came from Italy to try to kill him. He wondered if Bianca knew that. She hadn’t acted surprised to hear his voice when he’d called, well, beyond the surprise that he’d call and ask her to come back to work.
Now he had to wait. He’d given her the rope and now he needed to find who’d be left hanging at the end of it.
23
Four days of following every move Bianca made was growing tiresome, but things were developing. Mary Alice was punishing with her high demands, and it was driving the four of them closer together.
So far, the roles were going according to plan. Paxton was playing the bumbling dork whom Bianca was taking advantage of and getting him to do most of her work by flirting with him. She was also hitting on Granger and had denied having a boyfriend even though the PI followed her to Joey’s a couple of times. However, the most interesting was Dare. She hadn’t approached him yet, but she watched his every move and even found a way to be in the dockworkers’ break room when he was there. Dare, being one of the best undercover agents, had fallen in with the workers his managers trusted the least.
Ryker could feel that things were going to go down soon. It made him anxious, especially when it was three thirty in the morning and Kenzie still wasn’t there. He’d just gotten a report from Kale that the Italian authorities had intercepted a major Porzio shipment, resulting in the arrest of eight men. Ryker smiled when he saw the report. He was going to hit them in Italy and in New York.
Are you on your way? He texted her as he drummed his fingers on the report he should be reading regarding Seraphina’s proposed job in Florida. The head of his lab was impressed when he’d interviewed her and wanted to offer her a job. Because she was Kenzie’s friend, he finished the report and sent an email back to the lab approving her hire and salary.
Ten minutes later with no text reply, he moved to the report from each head of human resources on his idea to aid the women of Christabelle’s to find employment. He had ownership stakes in more companies than he could count, but the response had all been positive. The heads were working under Ryker’s direction to create a program not only for Christabelle’s, but for several other charities supporting all kinds of survivors—including his cousin Sydney’s charity, Daughters of Elizabeth, that supported sex trafficking victims, and his Uncle Miles’s charity for military veterans. Thirty minutes later, Ryker grabbed the phone when he received a text message.
Just leaving the hospital. See you soon.
Soon couldn’t come soon enough. The best part of his day was seeing Kenzie again. Now that he knew she was on her way, he turned his attention to the assets held by the Porzio family. He’d told Nico the truth—if they messed with him, he’d destroy them all and that’s exactly what he planned to do. And arrests weren’t all he was going to do.
“Ryker, it’s four in the morning. If this isn’t about death cooties, I don’t want to know,” Olivia’s sleepy voice came through the phone.
“No death cooties. My new boat arrives next week. This is about taking down the Porzio crime family. I’m emailing you a list of assets they own. I’ve attached instructions next to them on how I want you to dismantle their organization.”
“Hold on,” Olivia said and he heard her switch him to speaker.
“You’re normally up at this time. What’s going on?” Ryker asked.
“My eldest brother, Damon, called me. He’s bought a house in Shadows Landing and is coming next week to see it in person and start the renovation process. He wants to meet you.”