31. Tulsa

31

"Ican handle this."

Five feet eleven—not six feet as he claimed—of pissed-off Italian American glared at me, and I glared right back. The only worthwhile part of Romeo Serafini was his cock, a fact that annoyed me intensely.

As did the man himself.

"Oh, really? Let's recap how you've done so far… One, your security protocols were poor enough that your big star got kidnapped from her hotel room with her dog. Two, you still don't know how it happened because your control centre is fritzed. Three, there's a good chance a member of your not-so-carefully vetted team was involved. Four, the media are gonna be all over this in a couple of hours, no matter how many reporters you threaten. Oh, and this place will be crawling with cops." I took a step toward the door of Luna's suite. "Have fun handling it."

"Fuck." He ran a hand through already tousled hair. "Why do you have to be such a bitch?"

"You just bring out the worst in me, sweetie."

"That's what you said the last two times, Juliet. And yet here you are again."

"Don't call me that, stronzo."

"If you told me your name, I wouldn't have to."

He knew Tulsa was a nickname, probably because he'd tried to background-check me and failed miserably. But I refused to give him even a hint about my real identity, which annoyed him to no end.

In short, we couldn't stand each other.

Priest knew this, but he'd still sent me to assist with the hunt for Luna, the sadist. Although I did feel sorry for the woman. I'd always felt sorry for her, ever since we crossed paths on the pageant circuit—albeit in different age categories—and I saw the way her mother ordered her around.

I didn't feel sorry for Romeo Serafini. He was a scheming prick who'd brought this on himself.

"Only my friends know my name, and you definitely don't fall into that category."

"Really? The last time you were underneath me, you told me you loved my cock."

"Your cock. Not you."

He stepped into my space, our chests nearly touching. "We're one and the same, Jules."

"Come any closer, and I'll chop it off and throw the rest of you in the trash."

I considered kneeing him in the balls but ultimately decided against it. The man did have a magic cock, and as sure as the sun rose in the morning, I'd end up riding it again. I'd slap him, he'd tear off my panties. I'd spit in his face, he'd slam me against the nearest wall. I'd leave bite marks all over his body, he'd make sure I couldn't walk properly for days.

Damn, I hated this man.

And worse, I hated my lack of self-control around him.

"You won't do that," he told me.

"Are you sure?"

"You like my tongue too much."

To demonstrate, he ran the tip along my jaw, and it took me a full three seconds to shove him so hard he fell onto the couch. Fuck, what was wrong with me?

"We're looking for Luna, asshole. And if you don't give us access to everything we need, I'll personally round up every reporter in Las Vegas and lead them to your doorstep. I'm sure they'd love to hear about your shitty security protocols."

"There's confidential information on our network."

"You think if we wanted that, we wouldn't have it already? Consider the fact that we don't a courtesy."

Footsteps sounded in the hallway outside, and Frank appeared with Derek Monroe in tow.

"Did you find anything?" Frank glanced at his son. "Why are you sitting around? We got work to do."

Romeo scrambled to his feet, and I tried not to smirk.

"There was no struggle here," I told them. "Either Luna walked out of the room, or she was incapacitated and carried. What's happening in the control centre?"

"Someone would have seen an unconscious woman being carried through the hotel," Romeo said.

"Yeah, you'd think, wouldn't you?"

"There was a problem with the eye in the sky," Monroe confirmed.

"No kidding. What kind of problem?"

"Our data retention policy specifies that we keep recordings for fourteen days. After that, the software deletes the footage. Somebody altered the settings and changed the days to minutes."

"So instead of fourteen days of footage, you have fourteen minutes?"

"Exactly."

Fuck.

"And nobody noticed? How long ago did this happen?"

"There are four separate systems. Two that cover the casino floor, one for the public areas, and another for back of house. The casino floor wasn't affected, and the last time we had to replay from the front-of-house system was three days ago."

"So this happened recently." Two out of four systems affected; it wasn't an accident. And as for the timing, I didn't believe in coincidences like that. "Who has access?"

"Half a dozen people."

"I'm going to need their names. And make sure nothing else is written to that hard disk."

Echo was the cyber expert, but I knew enough about computers to know that deleted didn't always mean gone for good. Only the directory entry was removed. The data was still sitting there in no man's land until it got overwritten with something new.

"I'll get onto that."

"Is your name on the list?"

He hesitated. "Yes, it will be."

"Then I'll let Romeo handle it. No offence."

Monroe's gaze clouded, but after a long moment, he shrugged. "Look, are we sure this isn't a publicity stunt?"

"The people who know Luna best say not." I'd only met Emmy Black once or twice, wasn't even sure I liked her, but Priest was well acquainted with the folks at Blackwood, and he said she wouldn't overreact.

"Then I'll carry on helping your team with the search of the hotel."

By "your team," Monroe actually meant Blackwood's team. Emmy had sent every available body from their Las Vegas office to assist.

"We'll also need a clear path to the control centre for our cyber specialist. She isn't a fan of people."

Romeo rolled his eyes.

"Shut up."

"I didn't say anything."

"The thought was enough."

Echo arrived ten minutes later, escorted by Chase, her Man Friday, who travelled with her most of the time. For years, the two of them had gallivanted around the world, but now she spent half the year in California with side trips to Vegas. She'd flown in for the Nevada Food Festival this month, and Marcel kept bitching when she got in his way in the kitchen.

She was a tiny woman, no bigger than Luna, but she packed a cyber punch that could rival the NSA. They'd tried to poach her often enough.

Romeo looked down at her. "Should I get a cushion?"

I kicked him in the shin, but Echo just smiled sweetly.

"Insult me one more time, and all you'll get back is a smoking motherboard."

"Priority is the feeds from the twelfth-floor cameras, today and yesterday."

"Okay." She flicked a wrist at Romeo. "Find me a sandwich."

Sin

Look at this.

I squinted at the picture she'd sent to our group chat, then squeaked and dropped the phone. It bounced off my foot and came to rest beside an eight-foot-tall statue of Anubis.

"Bitch."

Romeo picked up the phone. "Is that a snake?"

"Give that back." I snatched it from him and texted a middle-finger emoji to Sin. "Don't touch my stuff."

"You don't like snakes?"

"None of your damn business."

But no, I didn't much like snakes. Not since a cottonmouth killed my cat right in front of me when I was six years old. That had been my first taste of death, but certainly not my last. The phone buzzed again, this time with a laughing emoji and a longer message.

Sin

It's a king cobra, six feet long. Animal Control just caught it in Julius Whitlow's home movie theatre.

Guess that answered one question about his death—it wasn't accidental. King cobras weren't native to Nevada, thank fuck.

Me

What was it watching? Snakes on a Plane?

Sin

Cobra Kai was right there.

Dice

Do y'all realise there's literally a movie called Cobra?

Storm

Neither of those cobra movies have any snakes in them.

Me

So we're back to Snakes on a Plane?

Storm

I have to fly this afternoon. Can we not mention snakes on planes?

Me

Does anyone have anything constructive to add? We need to find Luna Maara so I can get the hell away from the Nile Palace.

Echo

Give me five mins.

Spider

Is that long enough for a quickie with the Italian stallion?

Boy, this middle-finger emoji was getting a lot of use today.

Jezebel

Don't you mean the baloney pony?

Me

Hello? We're in the middle of a missing persons investigation?

Dusk

Don't say you haven't thought about it.

Okay, I had, but only for half a second. Getting naked with Romeo Serafini—again—was a bad idea.

Me

If we're discussing our sex lives, I note you didn't volunteer to call Marc di Gregorio when Emmy Black was looking for a celeb to borrow.

Dusk

I haven't spoken with Marc in almost a DECADE. Aren't we meant to be looking for Luna?

Me

Yes, exactly. Any news on the reporters?

Dusk

Connor Lowes just "sneaked" into the Black Diamond with a woman who isn't his wife. We tipped off the paparazzi.

"We" being Priest and Dusk. Priest had been here earlier, but now the two of them were handling the paparazzi angle while Blackwood helped with the hotel search. I'd spoken with the staff. The guard from the twelfth floor swore blind he hadn't left his post or lost concentration, and the housekeeper said Luna hadn't shown any signs of being upset after she ate breakfast—three croissants and a pot of coffee. The girl had an appetite. Both members of staff had been nervous. Fearful of losing their jobs, or something more? Blackwood was running the list of names from the hotel, with a focus on those working in the control centre.

Me

Who is she?

Sin

A starlet from his next movie. Free publicity. The Blackwood team sent a list of the photographers that have been following Luna, so we're cross-referencing and eliminating as the assholes show up.

Me

Anyone notable missing so far?

Sin

Guy named Danny Wells. Apparently Luna hated his guts.

Me

Can Blackwood focus in on him?

Sin

They already are.

Luna had been missing for at least six and a half hours, possibly as much as eight and a half. Frank was about to cancel the show, and once he did that, all hell would let loose. At least the cops might finally sit up and take notice, although whether they'd help or hinder was debatable. Four other young women had gone missing in Vegas in the past month, and they'd only found two of them. And of those two, one had shown up at home when she returned from a drunken trip to Reno, and the other had been scattered beside the highway in small pieces.

Courtesy of Romeo, we had a list of sixty-six team members who were regularly assigned to the control centre. The centre ran twenty-four-seven, and twelve operatives plus a supervisor worked each shift. Monroe had called all sixty-six employees in—it was the fastest way to find out who was AWOL—and Blackwood's team had corralled them in an empty conference room. Eleven people were unaccounted for. Romeo had provided a separate list of seven users with admin access to the system. Only one of the names appeared on both lists, a deputy manager named Jenny Bakewell, and she was in the hospital having knee surgery.

We were clearly missing something.

But what?

Echo

I have video footage.

Me

On my way.