Chapter 7

Adam's entire body was on fire. He was lit from within because of a simple kiss with the woman he wanted most in the world. It was always like this. They could never get enough of each other.

He felt Jin's fingers slip through the belt loops of his jeans, and he shuddered. He took that as a sign that she was okay with the kiss. Tracing the seam of her lips with his tongue, he waited until she opened her mouth to take full possession. Then, he dove inside.

His cock was so hard that he was sure the imprint of his zipper would be on it. He didn't care. Nothing mattered but this kiss. It was the only thing that mattered in the entire world to him. Fuck, she tasted just as good as she always did. Sweet, tart, and everything in between.

He slipped his hands down her body, reveling in the curves. Jin had always been curvy, with hips that were perfect to hold onto. God, he wanted her in every way that was possible. That desire started to overwhelm his better judgment. So, with much regret, he pulled back from the kiss. She moaned in irritation and sucked harder on his tongue, and of course, that brought up images of her on her knees, her mouth on his dick.

Fuck.

With every ounce of control he possessed, he stepped away from her. She was frowning when she opened her eyes.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing is wrong. I just want to take it slow."

"What? Why?"

He chuckled at Jin's agitated tone. "Last time, we went fast. We couldn't keep our hands off each other. I would rather take it slower this time."

She nibbled on her bottom lip. "It's not because you aren't interested?"

He shook his head as he reached out and brushed his thumb over her bottom lip.

"I'm positive you could tell that I was interested in more than just a kiss."

Her gaze dipped down, and her cheeks turned pink. It was so damned adorable.

"But, like I said, I want to take this slow. I want to take my time getting to know you better."

She cocked her head to the side, studying him. "Yeah?"

He nodded. "I really do."

The shy smile she offered him was one he hadn't seen before. Even during her recovery, she had never been this open with him, this vulnerable.

"I better get going. I have a few meetings I have to attend in Del's place tomorrow morning."

She nodded and walked him to the door. "Thank you for dinner."

"You're very welcome."

"And for believing in my theories."

"Hey, you've done your work, and while I'm not sure how all the pieces go together yet, we have more of the puzzle pieced together thanks to you."

Another sweet smile.

"Also, thank you for that kiss."

He slipped his shoes on. "No. The thanks are all for you. Taking a chance on me…you're amazing."

Her eyes filled with tears, and panic filled him. He might understand women a little better than most men because of living in a girl house, but Jin rarely cried.

She chuckled, albeit a watery one. "No, Adam, don't freak out. It's just…I wasn't sure you would ever be interested in me again. Not after everything I went through…and the way I treated you before."

He slid one arm around her and pulled her closer. He held her like that, feeling every curve of her body, but more importantly, feeling her heartbeat against his chest. Just as she had years ago, she fit perfectly against him.

"You should never doubt that I want you, Jin."

She raised her head and smacked his chin. "Ow."

They shared a smile. "Thank you."

He gave her another kiss, this one on the cheek, because Adam was sure if he touched her lips again, he would lose control.

"‘Night, Jin."

"Text me when you get home."

He smiled. "Sure."

He stepped out into the night happier than he had been in a very long time.

* * *

After his second long ass meeting of the morning, Adam ran into Elle as he was returning to TFH headquarters.

"Just getting to work?" she asked.

"No, I had some meetings to go to."

"Oh, what fun the boss always has, right?"

He chuckled. This is why he didn't want to take over TFH. Everyone was thinking he would, but the plan was that he would become the head of Team Alpha. Not everyone knew about that, though.

"And you're getting to work at ten in the morning because…?"

She sighed. "I went out to the scene of a probable homicide for HPD. They've been slammed, and with Tan out for another few days, they needed my help."

"Oh, I heard about that. I thought it was an overdose."

Her eyebrow rose. "Not sure, but they are bringing the body over here for me. I wanted to have it in my lab and not theirs. It feels wrong. So, how was your date with Jin?"

"That was blunt."

"Yeah, well, she's one of my best friends, as are you."

That made him smile. "Thanks, and it went well, although I'm not sure she saw it as a date."

"She did. I talked to her this morning. You did good, Adam." They stepped into the common room of TFH. Her husband turned to both of them with a glower. "Ignore that. He's just upset because he doesn't want me at work today. He wanted me to stay home."

Worry threaded through him. Elle had seemed overworked lately, a little lethargic. "Is everything okay?"

"Everything is fine. Don't worry. That big Scotsman, he has an issue with me working when I'm not one hundred percent."

"Understandable."

"Oh, so when he's been injured and insists on coming in, that's okay?"

He said nothing because he knew that tone. He'd heard it more than once with his mother and sisters in the past. It never ended well for him.

"Exactly," the doctor said as she tossed her husband a nasty look. Without another word, she turned toward the elevators.

Graeme's frown turned darker as he started towards Elle, following her into the lift. Knowing them, they would argue halfway down to her lab and then make out the rest of the way. And while he thought they were insane, Adam found himself being strangely envious. To have someone you could argue with, laugh with, love with…he wanted that.

For years, he thought he wanted that but never knew exactly what that would look like or who it would be with. Now, though, he seemed to be settled on one woman in particular. Or maybe it was because he thought she wasn't interested before last night.

"Hey, boss," Tamilya called out.

Adam looked behind him for Del, then realized she was talking to him. Rolling his eyes, he headed over to her.

"Don't call me that."

Her mouth twitched. "Sure thing. Anyway, I was searching for info on Dylan being on Hawai'i leading up to his disappearance. It's difficult because it was over a decade ago."

"Yeah, I thought that it might be impossible."

She gave him a look of disdain. "Please. It was difficult but not impossible, thanks to Autumn."

He glanced over to the woman in question. Her concentration was on their big screen. It took him a second to figure out what he was seeing.

"Are those from the cult?"

"Yeah," she said as they walked over. "Autumn put out a call to some survivor groups for pics, and she's been sent a lot of pics. It's amazing how many sites there are for these people to connect."

"There are a few on the dark web," Autumn said as she clicked through to another screen. "But those people won't help us. They're still waiting for Joseph to come back."

Disdain dripped from every word in that last sentence. He also noticed that she referred to her father by his first name once again.

"Hot damn, weirdos for the win!" Autumn danced in her seat. "There he is. And he's wearing the same shirt as in that one pic, so that must be the same day."

Adam's eyes widened. "When was that?"

She started tapping on her tablet and making a few noises. "Ah, here. It was the week before Alana was found dead, and he disappeared."

"Damn."

"Yeah. That isn't a good thing. That brings up a whole lot of questions," Tamilya said. "Like, was he going to join the cult?"

"Joseph didn't have people there all the time to join the cult. Don't get me wrong. Joseph would have taken him for all his money if he could. Other than power, Joseph loved money—which gave him more power, so that's probably why he loved it so much."

"The money is important?"

"To join, yeah. You either had to buy your way in or basically sign a contract to work. It made a whole group of people indentured servants."

"And your mother?"

"Bought in. She was loaded at one time."

Adam nodded. "If he wasn't joining, what other reason would bring him to the compound?"

"Drugs."

He crossed his arms over his chest. "Drugs?"

She nodded. "The one thing that got the ATF, DEA, and FBI interested to begin with was the report of drugs. Guns followed a close second, but they knew they would have more public support for a raid if they said they had drugs."

"I read over the reports. They never said anything about the drugs."

"I know, but they were there. It was one thing that Joseph used to control the masses, and he would fund his stupid little cult with it."

"But none were found."

"Nope," she said, popping the "p."

"But either way, we have another confirmation that he was over there the week before."

He nodded. "His father said he didn't know about it. Tamilya, get working on the financials. We'll need a search warrant to look through all of his money. No way his father will give us access."

"Even to find out how his son was murdered?" Tamilya asked. "I mean, I get it that normally someone like Brewer might not want to hand things over to any agency, but this was over a decade ago."

Before he could answer, Autumn did. "Rich people hide everything, especially when dealing with their money. They definitely don't want anyone else to find out about what they have hidden in their bank accounts."

Autumn worked with the DEA, so she probably had a lot of experience with people hiding their money.

"Like I said, Tamilya, you keep digging into that. Get the search warrants for the bank records. Autumn, do you have more photos to go through?"

She nodded as she started clicking on her tablet again. "I have a few feelers out there to the DEA, too. They had Joyous Wave under surveillance for months, so if Dylan had made a visit before this, it would have been noted. His father had defense contracts at the time."

"And they wouldn't have stepped up when Alana disappeared?"

She glanced over at him. "No. I don't know exactly who was working the cult, but they had one or two people undercover. I like to think they would have done something if they knew ahead of time, but after working with them, I'm not sure."

"You're kidding?"

She shook her head. "Those bastards hate to have an op screwed up. They keep everything under wraps as best as possible."

"Sounds like they would be fun to work with."

Autumn glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. "There's a reason I'm with TFH now."

He nodded. He knew an op had gone bad, and she blamed the DEA. Whatever she had been working on was still an ongoing operation, so they wouldn't divulge the info to just anyone.

"Get on those things. I'm going to check in with Del."

"I thought he was on vacay this week," Tamilya said with a chuckle.

"I got a text from Emma telling me he was going a little crazy and driving them up the wall. I thought I would give her a break."

He had just put his hand on the doorknob of his office when Autumn called him back.

"Uh, I think we have a drug sale here."

He walked back over, his gaze zeroed in on the screen. In the pic, Dylan is standing with Alana, handing over an envelope and taking another one. "Who is that?"

"Dickson. Believe me, he lives up to his name. He was the right-hand man to Joseph. Basically, he did all the dirty work Joseph didn't want to do."

"Apparently, that includes selling drugs. Doesn't that seem kind of beneath him if he was your father's right-hand man?"

She shrugged. "Not if they were hoping for more than just one sale. They had a lot of synthetics."

His eyebrows rose up. "Synthetic drugs?"

She turned toward him. "Yeah. Joseph has a background in chemicals and pharmaceutical development. He can build a designer drug like no one's business."

"I never saw that in the reports."

He had been reading them ever since they had found out Dylan had been over to the cult compound.

"Well, it isn't in the public records. I knew about it and did digging when I was at the DEA. They knew he was developing some kind of new drug when everything went to shit."

"Real piece of work."

"Tell me about it. I'm going to put out some feelers online, and then I am going to meet up with a survivor group here in Honolulu. They meet every other week, so I want to hit their meeting today."

He nodded. "Good work."

She smiled at him before heading off to her office. He did the same thing, wondering what the hell did all of this have to do with a sixteen-year-old murder.

* * *

In a sunny mansion, the two of them met. They were old friends, both with more skeletons in their closets than most ordinary people, but that's what happened when you had money and power.

"They identified Dylan," he said, disbelief threading his voice. "I thought you took care of him and made sure he wouldn't embarrass me ever again."

His friend's face paled. Good. He should be scared.

"Not my fault. Some asshole tourist found the bones."

He sighed, once again disappointed in the one man he could trust with his secrets. At least he wouldn't have to answer questions about Dylan anymore. If the press found out and then came after him, it would be easy to dismiss. Grief was something that was easy to hide behind, and he was so good at it.

"I guess it can't be helped."

His friend nodded. "His body was further in…some animal must have dragged it out."

That's why he'd told him to dump him in the ocean. No one finds the bodies in the ocean if you do it right. But this idiot probably would have done it right off Honolulu Harbor, and the Coast Guard would have picked up Dylan's body within twenty-four hours.

"So, what should we do now?"

He sighed and walked over to the massive window that overlooked the ocean. "We wait. They have nothing, really, other than Dylan died at the same time."

"We do have one more person we have to worry about."

"She won't be a problem."

"I'm not talking about Summer."

That wasn't her name anymore, but he didn't correct his friend. Everyone who knew her before still called her by that name.

"What is it?"

"Remember that Raymond Reynolds?"

He frowned. "Photographer?"

He nodded.

"What about him?"

"He was making noise about going to the police." He didn't tell him that Ray had posed as a tourist and called the police.

"Was?"

"I took care of him. Made it look like an overdose."

"It's a miracle that something was done right."

The asshole smiled and preened. He waited to roll his eyes when his friend wasn't looking. Everything seemed to be bubbling beneath the surface. He had hidden all that time just for things to start falling apart, thanks to Dylan. Again. That dumbass never did anything right in his fucking life…and now his death was causing him more issues.

He refused to fail now, and he wouldn't let anyone stand in his way.

"The podcast?"

"Still trying to find out who does it. I found out that the PA who helps run the show lives on the mainland."

"We need to find her."

"I know. We're working on it."

"I don't care what it takes. Find those women and eliminate the threat."