Investigated Billionaire - The Complete Series Box Set (An Alpha Billionaire Romance)

by Claire Adams

  Gunner!

  My heart sank and my eyes fixated on him as I realized the man on the corner of the crowd was Gunner. He had helped me after Chris was shot and then he had helped Chris by picking me up and bringing me to the bed and breakfast. My eyes looked at him and I saw him shake his head back and forth slightly in a NO motion. I looked away.

  Surely if Gino had seen me look at Gunner the way I did, he would have known for sure that Gunner was the mole. I continued to look through the crowd of people and try and find Chris, if Gunner was there then Chris surely had to be nearby. My eyes continued through the crowd and I saw another man that I recognized, but it wasn’t Chris either. This man had been at the bed and breakfast the first day I arrived. He disappeared after that, but he certainly knew both Gunner and Chris. I remembered him sitting in the living room when I kissed Chris after first arriving at the bed and breakfast.

  I looked away from him also.

  I continued to search the crowd. How many men were part of Gino’s empire and actually worked for the government? Gino certainly didn’t know he had so many moles and I couldn’t be the person to break their cover.

  Chapter 52

  Gino’s two main guys walked behind the crowd of people and pushed them forward as Gino stood right in front of me. I could only see the people on the side of the crowd, but I had already identified two of them as being part of Chris’s team. My eyes continued to search the crowd for Chris.

  I couldn’t find him. I desperately needed to see Chris and feel like everything would be alright. I knew if I could just find him I would be safe. Chris would make sure I got out of this situation all-right. He would kill this Gino guy and rescue me, I was sure of it. Now I just had to find Chris.

  “You see this beautiful young woman…she doesn’t want to die a painful death. Do you sweetheart?” Gino stepped to the side and looked at me. I felt the hot stare of his gaze on my body. He stepped back toward me and placed his hand on my shoulder as he looked at the crowd of people who looked on. He squeezed my shoulder firmly and I felt compelled to answer his question with a head nod.

  I shook my head left and right and looked up at the man.

  “This sweet thing knows which one of you is the mole. You corrupted this sweet girl and brought her into this dirty world. Now her sweet little blond hair is going to be covered in your blood.”

  Gino looked at the crowd and walked toward them. He moved one by one through the group and looked into each of their eyes. Some of the men looked back at Gino and some of them quickly looked toward the ground. It was clear that all of them feared him though.

  “If you confess, I will not kill the girl. But if I have to torture her to get you to confess, she will wish for death.” My hands started to shake and more tears fell down my face. It took everything I had not to look at Gunner or the other man I knew. I didn’t even want to search the crowd for Chris anymore out of fear that I would make eye contact with him and Gino would know who he was.

  “So I will give you until the morning to come to me and confess. If you have not, I will start instilling horrible pain on this sweet girl right in front of you all until the mole confesses.”

  My thoughts raced as I imagined all the horrible things he had planned to hurt me in order to get the mole to confess. The problem was, Chris wasn’t even in the room. Had I been brought to this warehouse to get one of the other two men to confess? I didn’t know exactly what was going on, but I did know that I needed rescuing right at that moment.

  I felt a small sense of relief when he gave the time frame of the next morning. Surely Chris and his guys would be able to rescue me by that time. I didn’t know to what extent they had trained for situations like that, but surely they would be skilled to get me out. I felt a sense of confidence that they would get me out of the situation. I scanned the crowd and locked on to Gunner. He looked at me with such compassion as I cried; it was hard for me to look away.

  “Kyle, you seem to have quite the eye for the girl,” Gino said as he walked over to Gunner.

  “No sir,” Gunner said.

  Kyle must have been the name Gunner used while he was undercover. I made sure not to look at either of them as they had the conversation. Instead, I looked at the ground and hoped that Gino wasn’t about to kill Gunner.

  “Skinner, untie the girl and bring her here,” Gino said to one of his two main guys who had moved behind me now. The Skinner guy got on his knees and untied the ropes around my ankles and then stood up and untied the ones on my wrists. Then he looked at me. My heart fluttered and I tried not to react.

  It was the first time I had been able to clearly see either of Gino’s two main guys. It was Chris!

  He only looked for a second and then roughly grabbed me and brought me over to Gino. As roughly as he had grabbed me, I thought for a second I had been mistaken that it was Chris. I had just been drugged; perhaps I hadn’t seen him right? Maybe it was just a guy that looked a lot like Chris.

  “Don’t look at me and don’t respond,” Chris whispered in my ear as we walked over toward Gino and Gunner. Yep, it was Chris for sure. I could tell by his voice. I felt better knowing he was there, but still scared to death that I was in the situation. At any moment Gino could turn his gun on me and it all could be over.

  “Young lady, do you know this man?” Gino asked me. I looked at Gino and shook my head no. I tried not to look at Gunner and instead looked toward the ground as the situation unfolded.

  “Kyle seems to like you at the very least. Perhaps I should let him have his way with you right here, just to prove that he’s not the mole.” I tried not to respond, but my eyes darted at Gunner and something in the way I looked at him must have given Gino some concern.

  “On your knees!” Gino screamed as he put a handgun to Gunner’s head. Gunner instantly went to his knees. He responded like any of the other employees would have responded, by doing exactly as he was told. I looked up at Chris, in the hopes that he would do something to stop the situation. But he didn’t even look at me, instead he intently watched the situation between Gino and Gunner.

  “Do you know this girl?” Gino asked Gunner.

  “No sir, but she is fine as hell. That’s why I looked at her like that. I’m sorry sir.”

  Gino looked at me. He took some extra time to look up and down my body. Our eyes made contact with each other and then his gazed moved down to my breasts.

  “Mmmm baby girl is fine,” Gino said. “Stand up then,” he yelled at Gunner. Gunner stood up and didn’t look at me. Only straight at Gino, who had now moved down the line to some other guy in the group.

  “You want to fuck her?” Gino said to the next guy.

  “Not my type. I like girls with some ass,” the guy joked.

  All the people laughed awkwardly. It was the best they could do with such a dangerous man. None of them were free to say much and Gino continued to move down the line of people and see if he could notice a reaction that would warn him that someone was the mole.

  What Gino didn’t know was that he had at least three moles within his group. I didn’t know everyone that Chris worked with and it was highly possible there were even more men who had infiltrated this group. I thought back to what Chris had said about his work and how long he had been on this case. He certainly must have been working with Gino for many years for Gino to trust him as one of his right hand guys. I was a little in awe of how dedicated to his work that Chris was.

  When I first met him as my shirtless neighbor, I felt like he was probably a meathead. My instinct was that he was one of those police officers who spent all their time working out and picking up women, but not very much of their time taking their work seriously. I certainly had been wrong about Chris.

  Chapter 53

  Gino continued on for what seemed like hours. He went from person to person throughout the crowd and asked them questions to try and find his mole. His determination was somewhat admirable, although I felt like there were a lot of shady characters in
the room and any number of them could be the mole. Although, I clearly knew who the real mole was. Chris held onto me tightly and pushed me around behind Gino just as he was commanded to. At one point, Gino wanted me on my knees.

  “Get on your knees bitch,” Chris yelled as his hand pressed my shoulder firmly and forced me to the ground. It surprised me and I fell hard to the ground. Chris certainly was very good at his job and appeared to be the man that Gino thought he was.

  “No need to call the sweet thing names, Skinner,” Gino said. “She deserves to be treated nicely. Until I have to torture her.”

  I looked at the ground as I kneeled and Gino asked another person something about knowing me. My body shook with fear and I couldn’t hear Gino talk anymore because my own heartbeat took over in my eardrums. I was scared, really scared and my body started to shut down as the fear took over. But soon Chris had yanked me up from the ground and had me standing again.

  My knees were weak and I started to fall over. The fear that I had felt for the last couple hours was too much for me. I just couldn’t stand anymore. Chris let go of me and let me fall to the floor.

  “Jesus Christ Skinner, you could have caught the sweet little thing,” Gino said as he came to my side. “Are you alright?” he asked kindly, for a man who planned to torture and kill me. I just stared at him. My body did not seem to be in my own control anymore and the fear had made me unable to stand or even talk. My eyes just looked at Gino and I wasn’t able to get my mouth to word anything as an answer to him.

  “Skinner, take the girl over there to that room and let her rest,” Gino said as he pointed to an old office in the corner of the warehouse. Chris roughly grabbed me and practically dragged me over to the office. He didn’t gently try to support me, he didn’t kindly put his hand on my back to guide me; instead he grabbed my upper arm and walked swiftly to the room. When my legs gave out under me, he just pulled me up with his hand that was on my arm.

  “Ouch!” I let out as he pulled my arm.

  “Skinner,” Gino said, “try to be nice.”

  “Yes sir,” Chris said to Gino.

  Chris threw me into the room and I fell against the old metal table that was in the room. Chris banged his hand hard against the metal desk and it made a loud noise that echoed throughout the warehouse.

  “Skinner, that didn’t sound nice,” Gino yelled from the other side of the warehouse.

  “Sorry boss,” Chris said.

  I just stayed there sitting on the floor up against the metal desk. I couldn’t move. My body was overcome with the fear and adrenaline of the situation and I was just slightly relieved to be in a different room than Gino. Chris walked out of the room and shut the door behind him. I let my head lay up against the desk and I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths. I wanted to be in control of my body again. I just had to figure out a way to get control over the fear that pulsed through me. I needed to relax.

  Gino and his group of workers stayed out in the main warehouse for another thirty minutes or so. Then I heard the crowd disperse and Gino’s voice outside the door to the office I was in.

  “Can I trust you to watch over the girl and not kill her?” Gino asked the man next to him.

  “I won’t kill her if she doesn’t try to escape,” Chris said in response. “I don’t have to feed her or anything like that do I?”

  “That’s a good idea actually, no don’t feed her. She can drink water and there’s a toilet over there, but that’s it. I’m going downstairs to talk with a few of these assholes and see if I can figure out who it might be. In the morning, I’ll bring a couple of them up and you can help me give that sweet thing some pain and see if we can get a confession from someone.”

  “I’d love to help with the pain,” Chris said. His voice sounded different and he actually sounded like he enjoyed inflicting pain. I had chills as he said it. Chris was very convincing as the right-hand man to Gino, I could see why he was able to get so far in Gino’s organization.

  “Ok, but leave the girl alone tonight. No torture until morning, understood?” Gino said firmly.

  “Yes, sir.”

  I sat there and anticipated Chris coming through the door as I heard Gino walk away. Any second Chris would come in and help me escape. I looked at the door intently as I waited for him. My mind raced with thoughts of how Chris and I could make our escape without being heard. We could climb out the window and make our way down a drain pipe, or maybe sneak quietly down the stairwell and make a run for it. I thought about every mob movie I had ever seen and how people escaped from their murderers. Surely, Chris and I would be able to make a swift escape.

  After a few minutes, it became apparent that Chris did not intend to come into the office at all. I saw him pull a chair close to the office door and he sat down. I didn’t want to yell at him or say anything for fear that there was someone else out there with him. The door was closed so I couldn’t see what was going on. For all I knew there could have been other people still out in that room with him. As the night wore on I could feel myself as I became extremely tired and finally grabbed a work coat that was on a nearby chair and used it to curl up on the floor and go to sleep. My body was exhausted from the fear and stress from the day. I felt my eyes as they got heavy and I closed them in hopes that I would be able to get some sleep.

  I took a couple deep breaths and said a little prayer that everything would work out in the morning. I didn’t want Chris or any of his men to get shot and I certainly didn’t want to be tortured by Chris or anyone else on Gino’s team of killers. I hoped that Chris would find a way to save me and we would both make it out of the situation unharmed.

  Chapter 54

  “Are you alright?” Chris said in my ear quietly.

  I opened my eyes to find Chris kneeled down next to me on the floor. I sat up quickly and looked at him. He held a finger to his lips in a motion to be quiet.

  “I’m fine,” I whispered. “Where is everyone?”

  “They are all downstairs.”

  “Can we get out of here?” I said, desperate to leave that warehouse and get to safety. I sat up and started to stand, but Chris put his hand on my leg and held me in place.

  “Not yet. We have to wait until morning for backup to arrive.”

  I felt my heart sink at his words. My whole hope had been on him to rescue me. The idea of sticking around all night long and waiting to be tortured in the morning did not sit well with me. We had to leave, we had to get out of the building before Gino and his men woke up and started to torture me, or kill people. Didn’t Chris understand the gravity of the situation? Surely he knew this could all end very badly for me.

  “We could just sneak out now,” I said hopefully.

  “Babe, we can’t. I have three guys in the group downstairs and I’ve worked for years to catch Gino. This has to end with him in jail and I’m going to be the person responsible.”

  I shook my head in understanding as I looked at Chris. He seemed intent on staying for the night and I couldn’t argue. I didn’t have enough energy to move on my own so I was going to be at his mercy. I had to trust that he knew what he was doing.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked as he handed me a sandwich. I looked around to see if anyone was coming since I had heard Gino tell him not to give me anything to eat.

  “Don’t worry, I checked. Everyone is asleep downstairs, even Gino.”

  I ate the sandwich quickly and then drank the bottle of water that Chris gave me. I was starving and it felt great to get some food.

  “So what’s the plan?” I asked Chris as I finished drinking.

  “Well, there is a large swat team coming to raid this place in a couple hours. They should get here just before dawn, so we just have to tough it out and sit quietly for a couple hours. Should be easy, everyone is asleep and the raid will wake them up and Gino can be taken into custody before he knows what happened.”

  Chris seemed so calm and at ease about the situation. It was hard for me to fathom
being able to control my body and calm myself as well as he was able to do. I leaned in and let my head rest against his chest. I felt safe there. At that moment, with his arms wrapped around me, I felt safe. Even though there were dozens of people just a few hundred yards away that would easily kill us both, in that room and at that moment, I felt safe.

  Chris moved to sit down next to me and pulled me up next to him. He looked at my arm which was black and blue from him dragging me into the room earlier. His lips moved down and kissed the bruise. I could tell he felt horrible about it as his lips gently moved across my skin. I wanted to tell him it was alright, I wanted to tell him I understood he had to play the role that Gino expected from him. Instead, I leaned down and grabbed his chin and pulled it up to meet my lips.

  Our lips moved together in passion and I let my hands hold onto the scruff of his beard. Chris grabbed my hips and placed me on his lap. One leg sat on each side of him as I straddled his hard body. I felt at home next to him. It had only been a few short months before that I had been overwhelmed by the wealth of muscles he had. Now, I felt more comfortable there in his lap than anywhere else in the room. My hands moved down to stroke his chest as we continued to move our mouths in unison. His soft lips were such a contrast to the rough fir of his beard. I felt my body reacting to the passion in his hands as they moved up and down my back.

  His long fingers cupped my ass in his hand as he played with my jean shorts. I felt his hands go up my back and then try to slide down the back of my shorts, but the tightness of them prevented him. I continued to enjoy his tongue as his hands made their way around to the front of my shorts and unbuttoned them. Then I felt him unbutton his own pants and heard the zipper as he lowered it.

  My lips separated from his as I stood up and took off my shorts and watched as he pulled his throbbing cock out of his pants and pushed them down to his knees. I couldn’t help but lick my lips as I looked at his pulsing organ and his desire for me. With my legs on either side of him, I lowered my body over him and let my lips meet his again as I continued to lower onto his throbbing cock. A moan left my mouth as he filled me up completely and I moved slowly against him. His hands returned to my ass and spread my cheeks as he played with me and forced me to rock back and forth on his cock as I bounced up and down. The intensity of his body as it pressed inside of me felt like heaven.