Exposed: Book 2 MAC Security Series (9 page)

Was it childish? Probably. It was better than burning it though, which is what I really wanted to do.

I carried on reading her file, noting all of the charities that she had worked for since Ty had left her. She’d been all around the world helping these charities and I kind of hated her for that.

The more I read, the more I started to doubt myself. Maybe I had imagined the look in her eyes?

Maybe it was jealously.

My thoughts were whirling in my head, and it didn’t ease up any by the time Ty came back.

“Kay?” he asked, coming to stand next to me. “What are you doing?”

I tilted my head right back and looked at him upside down. “Just looking through these. Seeing if I can find something that we might have missed.”

He nodded and held his hand out to me. “Ready for the meeting?”

I turned around, pushing all the papers back a little and making sure that I didn’t step on any of them. Placing my hand in his so he could help me up.

He wrapped his arms around me, a soft smile on his face. His brown eyes swirled with so many emotions that I couldn’t pick one, he looked torn, like something was really bothering him.

“Ty?” I lifted my hand to his face, the scruff rough on the pads of my fingers. “You okay?”

Dipping down, he pressed his lips to mine. His tongue swiped along my bottom lip and I opened up, leaning closer as his tongue caressed mine. His arms tightened around me as he deepened the kiss, our chests bouncing off each other as our breathing deepened.

Pulling away, he leaned his forehead against mine. “Yeah, I’m good now.” Chuckling, I pulled back and tapped him on the chest.

Grabbing my hand, he led me into the main part of the warehouse and pulled my chair out for me.

Once we were sat down, he told us everything that he had heard, none of it meaning much apart from Daley’s phone call when Serena had left the room.

“Why has he got protection?” Kitty frowned. “He must think something is about to go down.”

Ty nodded and blew out a big breath.

“We need to look into Daley more. I want him watched every hour of the day.” Looking to Luke and Kitty, he said, “You two are on night duty. I want to know everything that goes on with him, phone calls, where he goes. Everything.”

“When do you want us to start?” Luke asked.

“Tonight.” They nodded at him in reply.

“Me and Kay will take the day shift.” Ty looked at me, asking me with his eyes if that was okay.

“How long will the shifts be?” I asked. However, as much as I wanted to do a full shift, I still needed to think of Eli.

I wanted to be a part of the team and I wanted to be doing the same thing as everyone else, but I still had to think about Eli. Sure, things were much better now that we lived at the compound but that didn’t mean I was going to be any less of a mom. I still wanted us to have time, just me and him. It was too easy to have one of the guys watch over him.

I had to make sure that I didn’t get too caught up in work or Ty.

“Ah, shit.” He hung his head, tapping his fingers on the table, realizing what I meant without having to say anything.

“Does it need to be two at a time?” Kitty asked. “If we’re just watching and waiting, then we could split it into four shifts.”

“No, Kay can’t be on her own-”

“Good idea,” I said, interrupting Ty before he said what I thought he was about to. There was no way that he was going to make special precautions just for me.

“Kay,” he said, reaching over and placing his hand on top of mine. “It was only a few weeks back that you wouldn’t go out on your own. What makes you think that this will be any different?”

My nostrils flared as I listened to him. I couldn’t believe that he’d said that in front of everyone.

I wasn’t stupid, I knew that they had suspicions about me not going off the compound but they didn’t know for sure, at least they didn’t until this moment.

“Tyson.” I gritted out. His eyes widened at the use of his full name. “Have you trained me in self-defense?”

“Ye-”

“Do I have a radio and weapons?”

“Yeah but-”

“No buts. I can do this. You need to trust me.” I kept my eyes connected to his, trying to get my point across. I needed to do this, he had to let me be me again. The me I was becoming before everything happened.

He blew out a big breath and watched me, his eyes scanning my face. I knew he could see it in my eyes, I was practically screaming it at him. Was I scared to go out on my own? Damn straight I was but if I didn’t start now, then when would I?

Before I knew it, it would be ten years down the line and I still wouldn’t be able to go anywhere without one of them with me.

I didn’t want to live like that.

“Fine,” he conceded. “You’ll do nine until three, then one of us will take over from you. Six hour rotations,” he said the last part to everyone, waiting for their nods of confirmation.

Putting a plan in place, I wrote down everything that he said and planned the routes in my head. I didn’t allow myself to feel the fear that desperately wanted to overtake me. Instead, I got stuck in with what I needed to look out for and what photos I might need to take.

I’d hardly slept at all last night. I couldn’t stop thinking of Kay being out of the compound on her own. Rationally, I knew that she would be fine, I had trackers on her and on the cars, but I couldn’t quieten that little voice in my head that told me this wasn’t a good idea.

That she was going to get hurt.

When Kay left to take Eli to preschool on her own, I headed straight for the warehouse and to my desk. I switched the computer on and tracked her all the way there, then to Daley’s house. I’d toyed with the idea of following her there and watching her as she watched him. Then I remembered that Charlie was coming in this morning so I had no choice but to let her do it on her own.

I knew it sounded stupid but I just had this feeling in the pit of my stomach. I’d never worried about anyone the way that I worried about Kay. Maybe it was because I’d seen her get hurt and couldn’t bear to see her like that again.

Whatever it was, I couldn’t stop worrying about her. I knew Eli was safe. I had all the security measures in place at the preschool that I could possibly have. But Kay? She had no protection around her whatsoever.

I was going out of my mind.

It wasn’t that I didn’t trust her because I did, I really did. I just hated the thoughts that ran through my head; all the possibilities of what could happen to her if I wasn’t there.

“Boss! Charlie’s here!” Evan shouted through the warehouse. Shaking the thoughts from my head and looking at the screen one last time, I shoved my chair back.

They were all sat around the meeting table waiting for me when I walked out of the office. My eyes flicked to Kay’s seat and my stomach dipped. It didn’t feel right, her not being here.

“Hey,” Charlie greeted when I sat down.

“Hey,” I huffed, slumping down in my seat.

“Whoa, little bro, what’s with all the enthusiasm?”

“He’s stressing out,” Kitty spoke up. “Kay’s gone out on her own.”

“Holy Fuck.” I lifted my eyes to Charlie. “Never thought you’d let her out on her own, on the account of…you know.”

“Let’s get this over with,” I growled, I wasn’t in the mood to hear all of his sarcastic remarks. “What have you found out?”

“Nothing much.” He shrugged. “Serena has been doing charity work since she moved out of the state. Nothing suspicious so I think she’s just caught up in the cross hairs with whatever is going on here.”

“Yeah, that’s what we’re thinking,” I said, leaning forward. “I listened in on their meeting yesterday. Daley had two bodyguards and there was a suspicious phone call. We’re gonna have eyes on him twenty-four-seven from now on.”

“Good, good. I think we need it. We’ve found out he’s got some contacts that are known cartel members.”

“Yeah?” Luke asked. “Which ones?”

Charlie pushed five folders into the middle of the table, pointing at them and saying. “There’s one for each of you, all the information we could find on Daley and his contacts.”

Reaching forward, I pulled one towards me and opened it up. It was full of his contacts and had information on each of them. My lips lifted in a small smile, this was it. This was how we would catch him. If one of them was in on it, then we could get to him through them.

“Another missing girl was reported missing last night.” Charlie said into the silence.

“Didn’t you say Daley was talking about a package being delivered, boss?” Kitty said, lifting her head and placing the folder on the table.

“He did?” Charlie looked from her then back to me.

“Yeah,” I said, nodding my head. “Now it makes sense, he must have been talking about the girl.” I pulled my hat off, running my hand through my hair.

This wasn’t good. Why hadn’t I put it together? Now that I thought about it, it was obvious. How he got so angry over not having the ‘package’ when he wanted it. That package must have been the girl.

“One of the top girls in her class.” Charlie shook his head, looking at me, fire blazing in his eyes. “Only five miles from here.”

“They’re getting closer,” Evan said, turning his laptop around to face us with a map on the screen. “The bigger the dots, the more recent they’ve been.”

The map had loads of dots on and they were all getting closer and closer to the compound. There was no mistaking it.

“How did you get that?” Charlie asked, leaning forward in his seat to see it better.

“I’ve got contacts.” Evan shrugged and smirked at Charlie.

Shaking my head at him, I squinted at the screen. He was right, they were getting closer.

“What is their end game?” I mumbled. What were they trying to achieve?

“I don’t know,” Charlie said, standing up. “But we need to find out, and fast.”

We did need to find out fast; not knowing where those girls were, not being any closer to finding out, was frustrating the hell out of me. I needed to run. I needed to think.

Charlie stood up and looked at his phone. “I’ll be in touch,” he said, making his way to the door.

“Later.” I nodded.

We all stayed silent for a while, each of us looking through all of the information we’d just been given.

“Luke, keep track of Kay. I need to run.”

“On it,” he answered, not lifting his head from the folder.

Huffing, I walked out of the warehouse and straight to the house to get changed into my gym clothes. A good run and some exercise on the equipment in the clearing is what I needed.