Chapter 1
Bianca
Phoenix, Arizona
From her spot in the back of the cramped van outfitted to look like a cable utility truck, Bianca Sutherland could see the target on the other side of the dark-tinted windows. It looked like any McMansion in suburbia, but she knew better.
The asshole who’d kidnapped Gidget Harms had picked the house as one of his latest testing grounds for Genie’s Wish. If half of what the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency had in their files about the powerful hallucinogen was true, they were in a world of shit if it ever hit the streets.
Containing the drug was the DEA’s objective; the more important one for Bianca was finding Gidget Harms. She’d been searching for her missing friend for six months and still coming up short at every turn—as if the kidnapping drug kingpin was toying with her and the rest of the B-Squad Security and Investigations team.
The comm device in her ear let out a soft beep.
“B, the scan is complete,” Elisa Sharp said from her position in the mobile tactical unit parked three blocks away. “Infrared isn’t picking up anything inside or outside the house.”
“Fuck.” She tightened her fists, the edges of her fingernails biting into her palms. The asshole had given them the slip again. “Are you kidding me?”
“Am I telling you that shiny satin is flattering? No,” Elisa deadpanned. “Therefore, I’m not kidding.”
Bianca looked around at the five men who’d just heard Elisa’s report on their comm devices. Each man topped out at more than six feet and had enough muscle and firepower to follow through on the trouble their bodies promised. Her gaze locked with a pair of sympathetic mossy-green eyes. Taz. As her second in command and boyfriend, he knew just how much another dead end stung.
Her comm beeped again.
“Just tapped into the bank’s ATM video camera a few blocks away,” said Lexie, the sound of her pounding away at her keyboard coming in clear over the comm, despite her being back at the rented house they’d been using as their headquarters since leaving their office at the Devil’s Dip Gym in Ft. Worth. “It’s showing a current-year SUV Arizona license plate X52GL4 passing by four hours ago, according to the time stamp.” More clicking. “The same tag is logged into the books of a private airport twenty miles out.” More fast fingers followed by a heavy sigh. “According to their records, luggage was loaded onto a private jet which took off shortly after. The flight plan of which mysteriously disappeared.”
Of course it had. Bianca closed her eyes and let the back of her head thunk against the van’s window. “I’m fucking shocked.”
“I’ll let my DEA contact know,” Vivi Yang said from her spot in the driver’s seat as she pulled her encrypted cell phone out of the glove box.
None of the men crowded into the back of the van with Bianca moved. They looked to her as the point person to make the next call. It would have rankled some guys to be led by a woman. Not them. Taz’s brothers, as he called them even though they weren’t related, saw her and the other female B-Squad agents as fellow agents, not damsels in distress. The hesitation in their eyes now had nothing to do with her gender and everything with wondering what she’d do next.
The B-Squad’s unofficial and very under-the-carpet partnership with the DEA on the Genie’s Wish case put certain restrictions on the team’s standard operating procedure of getting the job done no matter what, even if that meant crossing lines that the people with badges couldn’t. She’d had to promise they wouldn’t do that on this case.
She glanced at Taz. He gave her his best former juvenile delinquent turned badass boxer cocky grin. Yep. Her thoughts exactly.
“Kill the call, Vivi,” she said. “We’re going in anyway.”
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The former DEA operative arched a perfectly waxed eyebrow. “You know the feds will want to be on site for that.”
“And since when do you play by the rules?” Bianca asked.
Vivi smirked and tossed her phone back in the glove box. “Good point.”
She surveyed the team and activated her comm device so Lexie and Elisa would hear as well. “We don’t know how he got the jump on us, but he did. We missed him by hours not days or weeks like at the other targets. That means he had to skedaddle out of there in a hurry and probably left some things behind. We’re looking for any information on Gidget’s whereabouts and anything that could lead us to the chemists working on the latest iteration of Genie’s Wish. You don’t have to go in there with me. God knows the DEA is going to be pissed, but I’m not giving that drug-dealing asshole any more of a head start while we sit here and cool our heals waiting for the feds.”
With one last look out the van window at the McMansion, Bianca threw open the doors and exited into the desert heat. The entire team piled out behind her, Lexie and Elisa calling out their ETAs, as Bianca led the charge toward the house.
Yasmin
Los Angles, California…
The trap was laid. Bianca Sutherland just had to take the bait. Then that bitch would finally get what was coming to her.
Yasmin Romanow sat back in her chair and took another sip from the divine 2006 Vieux Chateau Certan Bordeaux as she watched Bianca and her B-Squad Security and Investigations team search the Phoenix house. The guys with the big biceps and the bad-boy attitudes were make-you-bite-your-bottom-lip hot. Sitting in her office a state away from the scene being live-streamed onto her laptop, Yasmin raised her wine glass in a mocking toast. That bitch Bianca knew how to surround herself with some dangerous-looking, well-built studs—each of whom had an ass you could bounce a quarter off of and get back perfect change.
Yasmin’s research into the newly formed B-Squad Security and Investigations had given her full background workups on the team—even the members she already knew. In addition to Bianca’s besties Vivian Yang, a former DEA agent with anger issues, Lexie Porter, a hacker with a very gray view of legalities, and Elisa Sharp, a straight-up con artist, the team had five male agents. She consulted her notes. Marko Pike, Lash Finch, Duke Trino and Keir Locke were all former elite military. The nonconformist of the group, Taz Hazard, was a retired boxer, still in fighting shape judging by the way his black T-shirt stretched across his broad shoulders. Yasmin would bet money that underneath that cotton she’d find an eight-pack. He was also Bianca’s live-in love.
“You always were a lucky bitch, Bianca,” Yasmin muttered.
Not that being in the middle of all that delicious testosterone was going to save Bianca, Vivi, Lexie and Elisa. They were finally going to get what they deserved. Yasmin had worked too hard, for too long to finally get her revenge on the people who’d brought the feds’ attention to St. Bernadette’s Academy for Young Ladies and had gotten her father killed. Not surprisingly, the Russian mob wasn’t so forgiving when their to-be-cleaned millions ended up getting seized by the government.
That was the past though. Nothing would get in her way now—thanks to Genie’s Wish.
It was amazing how a perfect set of tits, a devious mind and one totally unethical chemist could combine to create one of the most powerful recreational drugs known to man.
Whether they wanted passion, power or an adrenaline rush, Genie’s Wish gave users the night of their dreams—and it gave her total control over that blissed out human beings. Byron Ward, her lead chemist with a boob obsession, had found a way to chemically access the users’ IDs. Whatever their deepest, most base desire at that moment when they inhaled Genie’s Wish, they were suddenly empowered to make it come true. Of course there was a catch. Genie’s Wish put them in a highly suggestive trancelike frame of mind so they could be easily controlled. That meant that with only a little effort on her part, Yasmin could document an orgy-fueled scandal that could be used for blackmail to knock the most powerful from their perches, watch as the richest heiresses gamble away their entire fortunes in one night, or sit back and observe as the power hungry ripped their enemies to shreds—literally.
At least that was the plan. They were almost there. A few more rounds of testing and the new formula would be set. And that thought led her back to the screen, where she watched as the men and women of the B-Squad searched the house in Phoenix that she’d had to vacate a little sooner than expected, thanks to Bianca’s snooping. Yet another mark against the poor little rich bitch playing private investigator.