Ian shook his head.
“And what tie did he have to MI-6? Was he an asset?” El asked.
“He killed one of my teammates. He didn’t have to, but he shot him and left him to bleed out.”
Tommy had been a new dad, and so excited about the future. It was one of the things that had him running from the service. That and he felt as if he was losing his soul. There were only so many jobs you could take before it started to seep into your personal life.
“Whereabouts are unknown, but there have been sightings here over the years. He has deep ties to China mainly because of the fentanyl, but he also launders a lot of crypto for them.”
“And the third?” his father asked.
“Hiroto Doi, aka HirDo online. Big in crypto early on, made his way up the ranks of Yakuza by helping them transfer a lot of their wealth into crypto. He owns several properties throughout the islands.”
El looked between the two of them. “And the connection to Ian?”
Lila looked at him, waiting. She would not reveal his secrets. Even here among friends, she gave him the lead on that. It shouldn’t have his chest warming, but it did.
“I may have something to do with his first lieutenant being dead.”
“And? There has to be more to the story.”
Ian sighed. “He was also his younger brother.”
“And an absolute bastard. He was running a lot of their human trafficking operations,” Lila said. “So those are the three that we have close connections to. Or at least, something connected to my mother and her work.”
“So, we get Em to start digging into these three men,” Jenner said,
“It won’t help. No offense to Emily, but if I couldn’t find it, then it isn’t there.”
Ian shared a look with his father. “We’ll work it out when we get back to Oahu.”
“And when is that?” she asked, turning to look at him.
He didn’t answer her for a long moment, once again mesmerized by her eyes.
“Ian?”
He blinked and ignored the knowing looks from his friends and father.
“El?”
“We’ll head out to the airport around seven tonight.”
He did glance at his friends then. “Who did you call in?”
“Devon Stryker.”
He wanted to groan. There was no way to call in a favor to anyone who wasn’t a billionaire, not when you needed a private plane and no questions asked.
“You don’t think it will alert people? He has ties to Dillon.”
El shook his head. “Devon was already coming over to the island for another meeting. He was planning on going home to Oahu tonight, so it works out. I thought about renting a plane.”
“But that would leave me open to a hit,” Lila said. “I take it Stryker probably owns his plane?”
“Of course he does,” El said, with a chuckle.
Devon Stryker was the tech billionaires all wanted to be but would never get to be. He had his fingers in a lot of pots, but he tended to stay out of the spotlight. He also worked behind the scenes with a lot of charities. There were rumors that Devon had a connection to the CIA.
