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Every nerve within him fired as he got closer. His throat tightened. That was the only thing stopping him from blurting something he wasn’t ready to voice yet. To her or himself.
“Claude.”
Her husky whisper made his groin tighten. Damn, her sultry tone made him feel like a kid again.
She cleared her throat and dropped her hand from Jazmi’s arm and clasped them together as she faced him. “Oh, hello, Claude. How are you?”
He stepped close enough to inhale her alluring scent. Floral, spicy, all musky woman. He took another deep breath.
Before he responded, she turned to Jazmi. “Thank you for everything. I’ll be on my way now.” She straightened and gave him a regal, curt nod. “Claude.”
“Wait, Amata…” He moved to follow her when a firm grip on his upper arm stopped him.
“Claude.”
He turned to Jazmi with his eyebrows raised.
“We have a lot to do here and can’t afford for you to lose focus.” Steel laced Jazmi’s tone as she nodded at the boisterous room.
If he wasn’t mistaken, the volume had increased.
She released her grip on him. “You’re needed here.”
Claude clenched his jaw as he watched Amata walk away. An argument broke out behind him. He pressed his lips together as one man took a swing at another. Motherfuckers acted like little kids who weren’t getting their way. He rushed and jumped into the middle of the fight between two middle-aged, unfit bozos who had no business pulling punches. With his experience, it took little to yank them apart.
“Assholes. Knock it off!” He shook them both by the back of their thick necks.
After they grumbled, “Sorry”, Claude shoved them away with a snort of disgust.
By the time a semblance of normality came back into the room, Amata was long gone.
Well, sitting here in his bedroom thinking about the past was a complete waste of time. He pulled his cell phone out of his back pocket and flipped through his contacts. If anyone knew where Amata was, it’d be his former director.
“I’m sorry. The number you have reached is no longer in service.”
What the hell?
He then called one of his former colleagues at the CIA to see if they had any forwarding information on her. The answer he got back shocked him.
The guy had never heard of a Director Obsidian, much less of an employee called Jazmi Tiamat.
What surprised Claude even more was that the colleague he spoke to had been a big part of the FEAR team, but insisted he’d never heard of that division.
The guy laughed and said it sounded like an old TV series.
To avoid any suspicion, Claude backtracked and said he was just checking to make sure his friend was keeping on his toes. With promises to keep in touch, he ended the call.
Dammit! Jazmi must’ve used her psychic mojo to erase her existence from the CIA. A sense of dread made his mouth sour. He had a bad feeling things were only going to go downhill from there. Going into his home office, he fired up his laptop, poked a key to wake it up, and got to work.
It didn’t take long to discover not only had Jazmi disappeared, but so had her sisters. In each case, there was no record of them owning property or working at the businesses where he’d first met them.
Julienne King never worked for Sierra State Bank, Jena McFarlane never owned a veterinary clinic in South Lake Tahoe, and Sierra Silver Casino insisted they never had a female general manager, much less having a person by the name of Jordyn Lamont working for them.
And worst of all, when he searched for Amata, it was like she never existed.
Her home was listed in the name of a small family and, according to the record of deeds, had been for the last five years.
When he searched for her full name of Amata Aya, he came up blank. He could kick himself for not getting more personal information from her or from someone else over the last six months. He was such an arrogant ass—thinking he had plenty of time to decide whether to pursue her or not. He should’ve trusted his instincts to grab her and never let go.
