“Not here, dude.” The blond guy bobbed his pale head up to the corner of the garage.
Her stare followed the gesture, and she blanched when she caught sight of the cameras. Yeah, she was worried. No, afraid. What the hell was going on?
The guy in the wifebeater stepped back and seized her arm. “He’s right. Damn it.”
Laila turned to nuzzle her face in the man’s neck. Then she repeated the gesture with the puny putz. Ruse or not, she was laying it on thick, and it was goddamn hard to watch.
“Let us go to the guard shack, then,” she murmured. “I am impatient.”
To get tag-teamed by these two losers? They seemed to think so, but Trees wasn’t buying it. Or maybe he didn’t want to. But he’d seen her face in passion. This was all bullshit.
For what cause?
“Good call. Follow me.” The big one dragged Laila out of the garage.
When the two of them disappeared, the scrawny one tried to grow a brain. “Wait! We’re not supposed to leave the garage open. Anyone could come in and steal the car.”
“Who do you think is around to do that?” the other guy asked off camera.
After some arguing back and forth, the blond guy finally caved and stomped after them, leaving the garage door open.
Thirty seconds later, the light in the garage clicked off. Must be on a motion sensor, he thought vaguely. But what really worried the hell out of him was Laila. What was she doing during this timeframe, fucking frick and frack in the guard shack?
Why?
Not ten seconds later, another man sneaked into the garage. The light flashed on again, and he tried skulking in the shadows, but he was wearing the same clothes, right down to the ski mask, as the asshole who had taken Laila.
Trees’s heart rate surged as he watched the man slink around the garage, find the keys to the car hanging on a hook at the back, then slide into the classic automobile. The engine turned over with a purr, and since someone had clearly backed the car in, the stranger in the ski mask merely had to ease it out.
The timing was too coincidental for Laila’s “seduction” not to be premeditated. She had cooperated with the man who’d taken her from his house to steal Montilla’s coveted car. For money? For revenge? Nothing made sense.
Suddenly, the man ripped off his ski mask. From the back, Trees saw only the man’s shoulders and his dark head. Who the fuck was this guy? Why had he taken Laila and coerced her into this mess?
Just as the driver was exiting the garage, he stopped abruptly and stroked the dashboard. “Get in. Montilla is going to miss the hell out of this car. Too bad for that fucking bastard.”
“Go!” That was Laila. She sounded panicked. “I will meet you by the rental truck in five minutes.”
The man merely nodded, offering no argument at all. What the fuck? Was she his captive…or his partner in crime?
As the sounds of frantic footfalls faded away, the guy behind the wheel turned to watch her go. Trees glimpsed the bastard’s profile. His blood went cold.
Victor fucking Ramos.
That changed everything.
The bastard disappeared from his view and the clip ended.
Trees ripped the buds from his ears. Since her family was safe, the asswipe must be holding something over Laila’s head.
Trees stood, determined to get to her. Laila had been in Florida a couple of hours ago. That was a place to start. With or without his bosses’ consent, he was going.
Halfway down the hall, Matt met him, adjusting the cowboy hat he always wore. “You done watching the video?”
“Yeah.” He tried to sidestep the guy and reach the colonel.
Matt stepped in his path again. “They’re busy working other angles of Kimber’s whereabouts, so you and I will be following the lead from that video. What are you thinking?”
“That we need to get the fuck to Florida, and that every second I waste explaining myself is another second this bastard has to use Laila before he hurts her—”
“Why would he do that when she helped him? She’s obviously in on it.”
“Laila would never voluntarily help that asshole.”
“You know who he is?” That clearly surprised Matt.
“Victor Ramos.”