by Sharon Sala
She hit Send and then waited.
Drug the kid to keep it quiet. I’ll have to disarm the alarm at the gate. I’ll text you when it’s done.
She sent back a thumbs-up emoji and stowed the cell back in her pocket beneath the chef’s jacket and went back to prepping vegetables, but her thoughts were already locked into what she needed to do to get them off premises. She’d need to put the silencer on her weapon. There were at least three guards at all times between the house and the back of the property. She would have to take them out just to reach the gate.
* * *
Anton left to go to his casino just before 7:00 p.m., which was his habit. Since it was the Fourth of July, Las Vegas was packed with people on holidays. He got all the way to his office before it dawned on him that he hadn’t told Star or Sammy goodbye, and then dismissed it as of no concern. It wouldn’t be long before she would be gone, Sammy would be with a live-in nanny, and he would be giving full attention to the business of making money, again.
An hour passed and then another before the fireworks began. He got up and walked to the windows overlooking Vegas just as a shower of fireworks spread across the sky.
Entertainment.
That’s what Vegas was all about.
He was still watching when his cell phone rang. He went back to the desk to get it.
“Hello.”
“Boss, this is Ian. The security alarm just went off at the house. We found three guards dead in the back garden, and Star and the baby are gone.”
Anton staggered.
“Gone? How? Who was supposed to be watching them?”
“I don’t know, but it wasn’t me.”
“You and Dev know how to track runaways. Star has a chip as well and doesn’t know it. Send out as many men as you need. I’m on my way home.”
“Yes, sir,” Ian said, and disconnected.
Anton rang for his driver and then took the back way out of Lucky Joe’s. He rode home in silence, mentally going over everything Star had said and done over the past week and couldn’t find one instance where he’d doubted he had lost control. He had enemies. It occurred to him that this might be the case, but whatever the reason, he wasn’t too worried about getting her back. All of the procurers who worked for him, including Darren Vail, had one last duty before they turned the girls over to the men who took them out of state. They shot a tiny tracking chip just under the skin on the back of every girl’s neck. It was done while they were unconscious, and they didn’t even know it was there. It’s also why no one ever got away.
[Outro:]
Don’t miss
RACE AGAINST TIME
by New York Times bestselling author
Sharon Sala,
Coming July 2017.
www.Harlequin.com
ISBN-13: 9781488032295
Rider on Fire
Copyright © 2005 by Sharon Sala.
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