As we walked into Chase’s room, I saw Jordan and Nate sitting at the table near the window. I secretly hated that Nate was there. Not because I didn’t like my brother, but because I knew Roxanne was going to love him. He was the bad boy type that I was pretty sure Roxanne normally went for.
Nate hid his bad boy behavior by working a private security job, but his tattoos made it pretty obvious that he didn’t care very much what people thought of him. Nate was only a couple years younger and had served in the Navy Seals with me.
“Well, who do we have here?” he said as he stood up and made his way directly over to Roxanne.
I felt my stomach double over in knots at the look in his eye. Roxanne was dressed conservatively in jeans and a t-shirt, but there was no denying how beautiful she was. Her long red hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she didn’t have an ounce of makeup on, yet she was one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen.
Chase eyed me as Nate made his flirtatious introduction to Roxanne. I could tell that Chase wanted to see how I was going to react, but quite frankly, by that point I didn’t care what Chase thought. He knew that I had warmed up to Roxanne and I was being nice to her – that was all he needed to know. I wasn’t about to tell him anything else about what personally went on between the two of us.
“I’m Roxanne,” she said as she held out her hand to shake with Nate. “You must be the infamous Nathan.”
“Oh, they have been talking about me? I like that. Now, how about we just leave this group to take care of things and you and I head to the beach?”
Everyone in the room laughed at Nathan’s humor, even Roxanne. I absolutely hated that he had made her laugh. I saw her face light up as Nate flirted with her.
“Come on, Nate. Roxanne is here to help. She’s got inside information on Stephano that can be really useful,” I added.
There was no way I was going to tell Nate that Roxanne had been a stripper. I didn’t want him thinking about her naked, at all. He needed to keep his hands off of her, that was for damn sure. Even if I had doubts about what was going on with her, I didn’t have doubts about how I felt about her. I wasn’t about to let Nate gets his hands on her.
“Nathan, it’s very nice to meet you,” Roxanne continued as she looked ba
ck at me and glared. It was clear she didn’t appreciate me meddling.
“Okay, Chase. I’m going to pull this lovely lady down to sit next to me and why don’t you give me the lowdown on what is going on and what you need from me.”
“Actually, Nate, I’m in charge of the operation. I’ll give everyone the run down as soon as PJ arrives.”
“Who’s PJ again?” Chase asked.
“She works for the CIA’s human trafficking division. She usually works more overseas but happened to be in Florida, so is offering us her services.”
The knock at the door came just in time and I made my way to let PJ into the room.
“PJ, it’s so good to see you,” I said as I opened the door and led her into the room.
The room wasn’t all that big and with six of us in there, it started to seem much smaller than before. I watched everyone’s faces as PJ made her way into the room. She always had the ability to throw people off kilter. I neglected to tell everyone that PJ looked more like a blonde supermodel than a CIA agent. But it was so much fun to watch people be shocked by her.
“Now that’s a CIA agent,” Nate leaned over and said to Roxanne.
“Everyone, this is PJ. She’s an old friend and one of the best agents I know.”
“Is she old enough to work? I thought you had to be at least twenty-one,” Roxanne said as she leaned over to Nate.
“Yes, I’m twenty-eight. I’ve actually just been very blessed to look so young,” PJ said as she reached her hand out to shake hands with Roxanne. “You must be Roxanne. I’ve heard a little about you.”
The kindness that PJ talked with Roxanne shocked me a little bit. Roxanne had been pretty rude to PJ and I wouldn’t have been surprised if PJ had returned the rudeness. But PJ was totally professional in how she dealt with everyone.
We took a few minutes to let everyone get introduced before we started to talk out our plan.
“All right, so here’s the situation. Jordan’s friend Ana has been with Stephano for about a month. PJ, that is a long time to sit without being sold, is that right?”
“Yeah, she is either sick or they are waiting on a high roller, possibly both.”
“Our information so far is that he’s been drugging her up and keeping her for himself while he waits for a high roller that is coming in soon. My thought was to try and bid higher for her and just take her off his hands.”
“No, sorry, Jackson, that won’t work. He’s likely got someone who he’s been working with before and he’s not going to piss that guy off for a little extra cash. International buyers sometimes purchase dozens of girls each month. But if he’s saving a special girl, it is likely that the buy has already decided he wants Ana for his wife.”
“His wife?” Jordan said as she jumped into the conversation.