Standing, he shoved his phone in his pocket and made his way upstairs. He hoped Lily thought to look in his room for her luggage—he’d forgotten to tell her he put it in there when she went upstairs earlier.
He passed the room she’d used before, satisfied she’d made it to the right room when he saw the door was open, the room dark and empty. He opened his door and there she was, sitting on his bed with her laptop and the one
she snatched both open in front of her.
Looking up, she smiled at him as he came in and kicked the door shut. “So… a chicken shifter, huh?”
“Weird, right,” he replied with a half-smile. “Skylar’s the only one I’ve ever heard of. He’s an odd one—in animal and personality.”
“He wants to be an Enforcer?”
Exhaling, he sat on the bed to take his shoes off. “Yeah, but none of us think he’s a good fit. We have to be good fighters, in human and animal form. He might be a good human fighter, but can you imagine a chicken battling a tiger or grizzly? Not just that, but the main requirement is having a good gift, something that will help on missions. He won’t even tell us what his is.”
“I feel bad for him. He seemed to really want to be one of you.”
“I feel bad for him, too, I really do. Cock jokes aside, he’s a good guy. But our job is important, and it’s dangerous. We can’t be screwing up because we’re too focused on making sure he doesn’t get hurt.”
“I get it. Too bad there’s not another way you can use him, to make him feel like a part of you. I was just about to come find you, so good timing.”
Turning to look at her, he met her unique blue eyes. “Did you find something on their stuff?”
“Not yet. The phones were burners with zero information except for one phone number each—which was for the other phone. And the laptop’s files are encrypted, so it might take me a while to break into them.”
“So what’s up?”
“I traced each ticket buyer’s info back to their prospective banks. I set up an alert for each account whenever large sums are withdrawn.”
Frowning, he cocked his head as he studied her. “Was that safe? You won’t be caught by the banks, will you?”
She waved her hand as she shook her head. “Nope. Getting into banks is fairly easy. I could be a millionaire if I didn’t mind being a criminal,” she said with a laugh. “Getting into the website was harder than the banks, actually. But I’ve been alerted that four of the attendees withdrew large sums of money at the exact same time tonight. More might make purchases later, but I know four have now.”
“Liam called just a few minutes ago. He said the auction’s over and all the attendees left—alone. And Fernandez and his crew are in the process of leaving. They got Damara ready to leave, too.”
Her brow twitched. “That was fast.”
Nodding, he adjusted his ballcap, uneasiness filling him as he thought about the mission. “He said it started earlier than expected and only lasted about an hour.”
“They must have changed the times,” she mused, biting her bottom lip as she thought, her eyes far away. “Maybe they kept the women at a different location. Men who run the kind of organization Fernandez does would be expecting someone to try to steal the merchandise. Especially when they were auctioned off for the prices the girls went for. One of them was just under a million.”
His eyebrows rose. “A million dollars?”
She nodded, the look in her eyes grim. “Yep. Based on what was paid, I can possibly work up guesses on which women were bought. Some of them sold for less than others’ starting bids.”
“Yeah, see if you can work up possible matches, that way we can try to narrow it down. I’ll call Blake and let him know what you found. And you should probably have those laptops put up by the time I’m done.”
Her eyebrow arched. “Why is that?”
“Because I’m about to have my way with you, and I’d hate to damage one of them in the process.”
Chapter Fourteen
Lily glanced up as the door to the clubhouse opened the next morning and Blake and Luke walked in. They were rumpled and looked like they hadn’t gotten much sleep, and her eyebrows twitched with concern as she looked at them.
The dragon case was wearing on each of the Enforcers, in different ways. Damara was undercover, in the hands of the enemy. According to Liam, Dmitri was about to lose his mind with his sister in danger, and Noah said Liam didn’t sound all that stable at the moment, either.
Noah was stuck at the clubhouse doing pretty much nothing except making sure Lily had what she needed, because he wouldn’t leave her alone, and she wouldn’t be any help anywhere else, anyway. The most she could do to help was work on getting into the files on the stolen laptop. And she could see how much it bothered him to not be actively participating, but nothing she said would make him leave.
He said what she was doing was dangerous, and he wasn’t leaving her alone because Fernandez could find out and come for her. She assured him the stolen laptop couldn’t be traced, but he wasn’t willing to take the risk.