Did that mean he’d be bugging out to find Laila shortly? Trees hoped so, but the colonel didn’t elaborate.
After the brothers waved and headed out the door, Caleb turned to him. “That was Javier and Xander—”
“Santiago. S.I. Industries, right?”
“Yes.”
Trees knew of the military contractors. Nearly everyone in this line of work did. After some recent bumps in their corporate road, they had rectified their problems and were now on their way to being the best out there. And they were wealthy as fuck. “How do you know them?”
“Logan and Xander have been friends forever.”
That explained how his bosses had gotten their hands on some awesome toys security companies usually couldn’t. It helped to have friends in high places. But that wasn’t Trees’s first concern. “Am I taking a trip on their jet to find Laila?”
“Possibly. Follow me.”
Trees trailed the colonel down a hallway before ducking into the lone office filled with an old iron desk and a fuck-ton of surveillance equipment. In the room’s only chair, Joaquin sat, furiously scanning a screen. Whatever he’d been watching ended. The guy sighed and plucked out a pair of earbuds, sat back, then gave the two of them his attention.
“If none of us know, why would he?” Muñoz pointed a thumb in his direction.
“He’s talked to Laila more than anyone else. Maybe she told him something…”
Joaquin shrugged and stood. “Unlikely, but worth a shot. That’s why you brought him here?”
“Yeah. Set up the clip again,” Caleb insisted of his stepson, then turned to him. “Sit.”
As Trees settled in the office chair and fixed his gaze on the blank computer screen, the door to the office burst open. A guy he’d seen around EM’s office, One-Mile Walker’s buddy Matt Montgomery, burst in. “There’s a new development to all this. A couple of them, actually. If you want to come see…”
Joaquin dashed out immediately. The colonel looked torn, then finally sighed. “We just got our hands on this footage. It happened less than two hours ago. Barring whatever new developments Matt has, this is all we know. Maybe you can fill in some blanks, mostly why.”
Whatever it was didn’t sound good. Apprehension gripped Trees. Had something happened to Laila? The colonel was gone before he could ask, and Trees figured it was better this way. Whatever was on this video—which must have something to do with the woman he loved—he wanted to see it alone.
As if the earbuds were a snake, he reached for them carefully, blowing out a breath and bracing himself. It was possible she was being harmed. Tortured or raped. Frowning, he shoved the buds in his ears, started the video, and gripped the computer, every muscle in his body taut.
Montilla’s classic fifty-million-dollar Ferrari, parked in a garage, immediately filled the screen. If Laila had something to do with this vehicle, did that mean the drug lord had taken her? Though Trees had known that was possible, it still filled him with a whole pile of oh, fuck. But he refused to lose his shit—or his hope. No matter what it took, he would save Laila. Because in the last twenty-four hours he’d come to one conclusion: she might have walked out of his house without a fight, but that didn’t mean she had actually been willing. If she had been, why had she taken a pair of his guns? She would do anything for her family, and almost everyone knew it.
Ten more seconds of footage later, the garage door opened to reveal night. The light inside the garage flashed on. A pair of armed men walked in, one a scruffy punk with dirty blond hair and a chin-pube beard, the other a beefy black dude in a wifebeater. He scowled. Who the hell were they?
A moment later, Laila entered the garage behind them. No, she swayed, swinging her hips in those goddamn short denim shorts that somehow looked even shorter. Her tank covered less skin than he remembered, and she wasn’t wearing a goddamn bra. What she was doing? Flirting her ass off.
What the actual fuck?
“Que carro más lindo,” she said, all but feeling up her tits to draw attention to them.
The dirty blond guy certainly stared there—and seemed to get lost. “Huh?”
“What a beautiful car,” she translated as she sashayed closer to him. “The more I look at it, the more I become”—she licked her lips, then bit the bottom one provocatively—“wet. Who will help me with that?”
She was inviting them to touch her? To fuck her? Why?
But he knew the answer. She was manipulating them. It was the same reason she’d awakened him once upon a time with her mouth around his dick. Because her life was in danger? Because she’d been threatened? Or was there something else going on here?
“I will.” The slouchy delinquent was embarrassingly eager.
The bigger man elbowed him. “Don’t you have a girlfriend? Besides, she’s too much woman for you. I got her.”
Laila laid her fingers on the guy’s wifebeater and flashed him an inviting smile. Then she did the same to the blond man. “I am feeling…adventurous. There is enough of me to go around.”
She couldn’t be fucking serious. She was dangling her body in front of them and blinding them with lust for a reason, right?
The exact reason she did the same to you?
The punk’s eyes bugged out. “You think you can take us both?”
“I want to try.” She ran her graceful fingers along the side of Montilla’s car, caressing it like a lover. Then she bent over the hood and stuck her ass in the air, wriggling suggestively. “I think I would like it.”
“Hmm, baby.” The big one sidled up behind her, gripped her hips, and began dry-humping her backside.
Then Trees saw it. Laila grimaced before she blanked her expression.