“And exactly who have you been talking to, asking about how she and the others who were rescued? What concern is it of yours?” Bull asked him.
“We may have parted ways, but I still care about what happens to her. After all, we loved each other once,” he said with a smirk on his face. I felt Demon stiffen. I couldn’t stay quiet.
“Actually, Nathan, we were never in love. I realize that now. See, I know what real love is with Demon. You and I had an infatuation that we thought was love, which became obvious when you cheated on me. I have no idea who rescued us, only that I’m thankful they did.” I stopped when I felt Demon squeeze my hand. He didn’t want me to say too much.
“Come on, Zara. Let’s go have a cup of coffee and talk. I promise I’m not here to cause trouble,” he cajoled.
“She’s not going anywhere with you. Not now or ever. Your time is up. We’ll see you off the property. And Nathan, don’t come back. I recommend you leave town. There’s nothing here for you,” Demon warned him. Nathan tried to protest, but Payne just yanked him by the arm and marched him out of Bull’s office and I presumed out of the compound.
“I’m sorry, honey. I know you told me not to speak, but he was trying to needle you. I couldn’t let that happen.”
“That’s alright, babe. We need to figure out what his game is. He has no reason to care how you were rescued, or to try that bullshit line of you two reminiscing about Ted. I don’t like this. Let me talk with the guys and see what we can come up with. I’ll find you later and let you know what we figure out.”
I really wanted to stay but knew they wouldn’t allow that. I had to be content with the fact he was going to at least let me know what they figured out. I gave him a kiss and left. I had some thinking of my own to do. Nathan was up to something, and I was determined to figure out what it was.
Demon:
Once I had Zara out of Bull’s office and Payne came back, we got down to business. Payne was the one to voice what we were all thinking. “That smarmy bastard is fishing. The only thing is, why? According to you, Zara hasn’t seen or spoken to him in over four years. They parted on really bad terms. He might have known this Ted, but it doesn’t sound like they were close. Not like him and Zara. And why is he so interested in who rescued her in Mexico?”
“You don’t think he might have some kind of involvement, do you?” Tank mused out loud.
“At this point, anything is possible. I know you guys talked to Anderson, but I want to get his take on this. We need someone to keep an eye on this Nathan. I have the feeling he’s not going to leave like you told him,” Bull added.
I nodded. I had the same feeling. Bull looked up Anderson’s number and clicked the send button. It rang a few times. We thought we were going to have to leave a message when he picked up. You could hear he was pissed off in his voice. “What’s happened now?”
“We had a visitor just a few minutes ago,” I told him.
“Who?” His voice was now registering more urgent than pissed.
“Her ex-fiancé, Nathan. Apparently, he heard about Ted and knew of the incident in Mexico. He came to reminisce with her and to offer his condolences. He seemed awfully insistent they go have coffee somewhere, alone. And he wanted to know who rescued her.”
“Son of a bitch! How did he even know where to find her? It wasn’t given out on the news. I made sure of it. Their names weren’t either. It’s possible someone they both knew was at the funeral told him, but no one knows she lives in Hunters Creek except for Leslie. And she wouldn’t tell anyone.”
“Why all the secrecy about where Zara lives?”
“Partially, so if someone connected us, she’d be harder to track, but mainly so Nathan would leave her alone.”
I stiffened at his statement. “What do you mean, so he’d leave her alone? Did he cause problems after they broke up?” I heard Anderson sigh.
“I don’t know all the details, but after she caught him in bed with that woman and she broke the engagement, he tried everything to get back together. He called and stopped by all the time. Sent her flowers and gifts. Made a regular nuisance of himself. She moved a couple of times but stayed local. Finally, she made the move to Hunters Creek a couple of years ago. No one knew where she was going except for me, Ted, and Leslie, and she had no visits from Nathan until now.”
“Does he have any contacts or friends that could be into something shady? I mean, how would he be involved with a Mexican cartel unless he’s dealing their shit out of his offices?” Tank half-joked.
“Maybe he does, or they have something over him. Let me see if I can dig into the dear doctor a little and find anything. Just make sure she doesn’t go anywhere near him,” Anderson growled.
“Like I’d let that happen. The little fucker is on notice. You dig and we’ll see if Outlaw can find anything. We’re going to put eyes on him too. Anything new on your end with Nunez?”
“There are unconfirmed sightings of him all over Mexico. We’re checking into every single one we get, but if he’s been there, he’s already gone by the time we get there. I can’t stress how much danger she’s in, Demon. I need you to keep her safe. She’s all the family I have left.” I could tell he was worried and meant every word.
“I will. She means everything to me, too. We’ll let you go. Talk soon. Good luck.”
“Same to you.” He clicked off the phone. I looked at my brothers.
“We have some snakes in the grass. We need to bring them out in the open.”
“I hate to say this and don’t kill me, but using Zara to bait them into coming out in the open would do the trick,” Payne said. I could see the idea didn’t sit well with him.
“Screw that! No way am I using her as bait. And while we’re talking about keeping her safe, we need to have Smoke send us more of those trackers. I want her to get one, just in case.”
“I’ll call him and have him do it stat,” Bull assured me.
“Is there anything else we can do short of using her that way? I hate to sit around waiting for something to happen. Maybe Anderson will find out something about our friend Nathan, but it’s a longshot,” I told them.
“Let’s get a tail on him. We’ll have Outlaw look into him. We’ll work on the tracker. Then we can talk about it with the rest of the guys in church. How does that sound?” Bull asked. I didn’t have a better idea, so I nodded in agreement. It was decided to put Alex on Nathan and then we’d have the other prospects take turns watching him.
We all left Bull’s office to go our separate ways. I went to find Zara. I had to fill her in on what we’d found out, which wasn’t much, and what we were doing when it came to following Nathan. The rest we’d keep to ourselves. It was club business on who we were investigating.