Page 33 of Her Captivated Hero

6

It didn’t fallto shit until they hit Saudi Arabian soil. Getting through customs had been a breeze. Baker had performed like a rockstar. It turned out that the inside man at customs had two cousins who worked with him, so the three of them had combined forces to pass Gray and his team through while everyone else was concentrating on the fire on the bridge. It had been beautiful. By the time they reached the resort, Slokovich had notified Dex that Baker had made it safely back to land in Bahrain. But now they were here at the Al Khobar Beach Resort and not even the slightest bit of their intel had turned out to be correct.

“Dex?” Gray asked.

“I’m working on it.” His man’s eyes never left his computer. They were in the cramped mechanical room that was supposed to have housed the two women. Instead it was crammed full of boilers, air handlers and electrical generators. Two workers were hog-tied and blindfolded in the corner.

Gray so wanted to tell his communications expert to work faster, but that would be useless, because nobody worked faster on a computer than Dex.

Dalton and Griff were checking all of the Villas, while Hunter had the riskier job of checking out the rooms in the interior of the hotel. Gray had dispatched Aiden to check over the Royal Villa where the poisoning had taken place.

It was now four-thirty in the morning. His team knew that they only had fifteen more minutes before they had to reassemble back at the beach.

“Got something,” Aiden’s voice came over the team’s shared receiver.

Dex’s eyes never left his computer screen as he continued to search, but Gray knew he was listening to Aiden’s words.

Aiden continued, “There’s blood in the master bathroom. A lot of it. Rope’s hanging from the shower curtain.”

Gray’s blood ran cold. “So they questioned the women in there?”

“Looks like.” Aiden’s voice was flat.

“How much blood?” Hunter asked over the com. “Do you think they’re dead?”

“No,” Aiden answered. “One of them left a message behind the toilet. It’s small, but I can make out the world ‘gold’ and some kind of symbol.”

“Describe the symbol to me,” Dex said urgently. His fingers slammed the keyboard.

“It’s an upside down triangle with two lines in it, and a line coming down from the bottom.”

“Time’s up. All of you get your asses to the beach,” Gray ordered.

“Not me, I’ve almost got it,” Dex said. A bead of sweat dripped down his forehead. Gray went to the door and opened it a crack. The sky was beginning to lighten.

“Forget it, Dex. We’re leaving.”

“Aiden, you still there?” Dex demanded.

“Yep,” Aiden answered.

God fucking dammit.

“Aiden, I told you to get the hell out of there.” Gray was going to kill Aiden if he wasn’t killed by a bogey.

“What’s your question, Dex?” Aiden asked calmly.

“Could the symbol be a tulip? Could the whole thing be Golden Tulip?” Dex demanded.

Gray could actually hear his man’s hope. “Absolutely. Does it mean something?”

“You heard our boss. Get your asses to the beach,” Dex said as he crashed his computer shut and shoved it into his rucksack. He turned to Gray. “Let’s go.”

“What? Explain it to me.” Gray peered out the window of the cabana, then nodded to Dex when he saw the coast was clear. They kept to the shadows until they hit the high wall that separated the beach and the luxury resort. Gray gave Dex a leg up, then hauled his own ass up and over. They were the first to arrive at the rendezvous point.

“Status,” Gray demanded. Seconds seemed like hours as he waited for his team to answer. The flavor of the air changed and Gray turned to see Griff and Dalton coming up behind him.

“Goddammit—” Gray started.