“I doubt that.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Slade and Falco are making love to her right now in the cottage.”
“What the fuck were you doing, spying on her down there through surveillance?”
“We still had it set up from our last guest. I took a peek to observe her.”
“She isn’t like other women and she isn’t like that Swiss asshole who stayed in the cottage who we thought was our friend and wound up screwing us.”
“No, she isn’t, but by having that surveillance set up without him knowing, I saw things, so did you, that indicated he wasn’t being honest. That instinct caught him red-handed and also destroyed his life for fucking with us.”
“She isn’t a business deal, she’s a woman we all have strong feelings for and want for more than sex.”
“Hence, why I was watching her on video.”
“You’re trying to side track me here. Be honest and tell me what you haven’t told the others about all of this?” Rome said to him.
“I’m gathering proof, but I have a feeling that Hiatte worked out a deal with Molokai and set us up. Considering his reaction to Molokai at the event last night, I would say that Molokai didn’t come through on his end. Hiatte is pretending that he thinks Molokai is trying to steal from him and may have been responsible.”
“But you don’t think that?”
“Not when the cargo plane that brought the stolen items to Dubai was paid for by Hiatte and his company name.”
“Why the hell would he do that?”
“To help destroy our name, sabotage our company like we’ve been thinking, or to throw us off.”
“Throw us off?”
“Yeah, set these little fuck-ups up so we look bad and then when whatever it is they’re really taking from that government facility goes missing, we get blamed. Our company gets destroyed and we lose everything.”
“Holy fuck. It’s a hundred-million-dollar deal. We’ve been working on this with Hiatte for months now, and those two government officials as well.”
“That’s why I called Nicolai. I think Hiatte and Molokai are planning to steal that shipment, take our security out and then make it look like we screwed up or worse, that we took the stuff from the government. They’ll lock us up so fucking fast and throw away the key, we’ll never see freedom again.”
“How can you be sure about this?”
“I can’t be. I need Nicolai’s connections and his ability to get answers discretely. This is going to take time. We weren’t scheduled to do this job for months and I have several meetings with those government guys and Hiatte to bullshit through and try to come up with answers.”
“You can’t not tell the others. It will help them to understand your intensity with Rose. Shit, what about Rose and her doing business with Mulgoff, who may or may not be connected to Molokai and this operation?”
“I’ll handle it when he calls her.”
“She’s pretty upset with you and this instant control.”
“Tough shit,” Mercury said and stood up.
“Merk, it’s okay that she got to you. She fucking got to all of us.”
“I can’t lose focus here. There’s too much at stake. Too many responsibilities running the business and keeping the security details perfect for each new event we book. There are several tonight and tomorrow,” Mercury stated.
“We never talked about sharing one woman. We’ve seen its success with our friends and what a ménage entails. I think we’re more than ready to give this a try if we’re all on board.”
“I made love to Rose with all of you, did I not?”
Rome widened his eyes.
“You’re holding back.”
“I’m being smart.”
“You’re scared, just like I am. I don’t know shit about dating one woman. Hell, I’m going to piss her off and I know it, but it doesn’t make me say I’m not going to try a hundred percent to make her happy. I don’t want her with any other men but my brothers.”
“Hopefully she doesn’t stray. By keeping her close it makes it more difficult.”