Chapter Fifteen

Zane yanked the last shard of glass from his hand and wrapped a T-shirt around it. It had taken him years, but he’d learned to control his temper. At least most of the time. Tonight it had been either put a bullet through Espanto’s skull or his fist through the glass cabinet door. Considering the blood soaking the T-shirt already, Zane wished he’d gone with the bullet to the asshole’s head.

When it comes to tracking people, he’s one of your best, he reminded himself again. It was the only reason the screwup was still breathing and not being weighted down and dumped in the Potomac River.

Grabbing the vodka, he twisted off the cap and took a long swig straight from the bottle. He’d given the guy specific, easy-to-follow instructions. Exactly what guys like Espanto needed. Not once since he’d come to work for him had Espanto ever not done exactly what he’d been ordered.

Until tonight.

Rather than follow orders, he’d tried using his brain and gone after Becca André. If he’d gotten her, Zane still would’ve ripped the asshole a new one for not following orders, but at least they’d finally have the bitch. He hadn’t given Espanto a chance to explain how she got away before knocking him unconscious and having his sorry ass dragged from the room. One of his best or not, there were consequences when you screwed up. Espanto and everyone else in the organization knew it.

And it didn’t matter to him how she managed it. What he cared about was she’d slipped through Espanto’s fingers, and no doubt contacted the fucking cops.

Damn it. Zane slammed the bottle down. Everyone in his organization played a specific role, and there was a reason he used guys like Hammer and not Espanto for grabs. No matter how many self-defense or karate classes a person had taken, they weren’t getting away from Hammer unless they shot him dead. Espanto didn’t have the same skill set. He was good at sticking to the shadows and being unseen, so he could report back.

Before tonight, his prey might have been nervous, but now, because of his boy’s screwup, she knew someone was after her. If she were smart, she’d never go anywhere alone again. She might even look into hiring round-the-clock personal protection. If he was Becca, he would, and she certainly had the resources to do it. Either action would make getting his hands on her so he could turn her over to Dale much more difficult.

He reached for the vodka and took another hit from the bottle. At least the asshole had followed one of his orders, and now Zane would be able to track most if not all of her movements.

As soon as Becca left her house, Espanto called in and let Zane know the house was empty. When he got the update, he’d reached out to his contact at the alarm monitoring company and had her turn off the system so one of his boys could go in. Shawn had slipped inside the house and planted a few nearly-impossible-to-find tracking devices on items she often took with her. Shawn had done similar jobs for the organization before, so he knew not to disturb anything else in the house. Even a book out of place could alert an individual that someone had been in a room.

While at it, Shawn also had just enough time to leave behind a few well-hidden listening devices in a couple areas of the house. He wouldn’t be able to see Becca and anyone else who visited, but he’d hear a lot of what she said. Then, as Zane arranged, the system went back on after Shawn left the house, leaving Becca none the wiser.

Zane took a final drink of vodka and screwed the cap back on. The combination of time and alcohol had defused his anger enough, so he was no longer thinking about having a 9mm bullet put through Espanto’s skull regardless of how useful he was.

Switching on the audio equipment Shawn left him, he sat with his feet up on the table and opened the app, which would track the GPS devices now hidden inside her belongings.

“Let’s see if you’re home.”