Chapter 497 Chapter 497
Tripp sent the chip number and message to the clean-up team. He’d told them two bags and a chair, to let them know there were two bodies and one prisoner for pick up. He knew from experience the chips got signal damn near anywhere. Why they couldn’t make their phones the same was way beyond his knowledge of electronic stuff.
Blowing out a breath, he looked down at himself. Nothing strange about a naked man standing in the middle of the snow-covered bush using his phone. He still couldn’t believe he’d been so distracted by her that he hadn’t put his pants in his run pack. She was probably laughing her ass off about it right now.
Shaking his head, he brought up Kenzo’s number and sent 123!!! He needed him to call as soon as possible, Tripp didn’t care if he was in the middle of wrestling some guy to the floor, he needed him to call him. Looking down at the ground, he realized he could only stand here and wait, sitting was out of the question. This was completely ridiculous. Nothing usually got to him, he was rock steady. A little hot-headed from time to time, but things didn’t rattle him the way Amari Hughes seemed to be. He didn’t know what was going on, but it needed to stop. Now.
His phone rang, and he answered it before a full ring could finish. “Carson.”
“You good?”
It was Kenzo. He nodded, “I found her, last night.”
“I knew you would.”
He sounded out of breath, “is this a bad time?”
“No. No, we’re just taking out some trash.”
Tripp grinned, “everything went well?” He was having issues, but the operation always came first. He glanced up the mountain, or it normally came first.
“Like a well-oiled machine.” Kenzo sounded happy, that was good. “Konner’s Flores’ clan has just increased in size, and we found a few extras we’ll have to rehome.”
“That’s great.”
“How is Amari?”
Tripp scowled at the ground, he knew he was asking about health-wise, “she’s uh, good, no complications. I just sent clean up the number to come and pick up a few bodies and one live one.”
“Bodies? Things get messy?”
Tripp pushed his hair back from his face and then rested his hand on top of his head, “she was tied to a tree one second and then stabbing one of them in the neck the next, Kenzo, I-I didn’t even have a chance to react.” He hadn’t meant to say any of that, but well, the cat was out of the bag now.
Kenzo laughed. Laughed. “Sounds like Amari.”
“That’s not all, she took a taser,” shit, he’d left that up there with her, “to one of the guy’s balls…”
“Fuck, tell me you shot him and put him out of his misery.”
“I did, well, not right that second, I was too busy worrying about it sparking off the gas they’d poured on her and her going up in flames…”
“They did what? Were they planning to burn her?”
He dropped his hand, “she bit half an ear off, and the guy was a bit pissed before I got there,” he felt like he needed to clarify that he hadn’t let that happen. There was a long silence, “Kenzo?”
“Yeah,” he sounded like he was laughing, “hang on, Jesse is here, I’m going to put it on speaker.” He heard voices in the background, “seems your girl bit one of their ears half off before Tripp got there. Then he poured gas on her as payback.”
“Shit, is he alive?”
“No.” Tripp said louder than necessary, “she’s uh,” he frowned, not knowing how to even word it, “unpredictable, Jesse.”
Now he could hear more than one of them chuckling.
“That’s one way to say it.” Jesse answered, “she can look after herself. I’m glad she’s all right.”
He blinked, almost forgetting, “they know about our new tracking. The unit was ripped out of the wiring unit on her van, and she said they’d been following her for a while…” he stopped when he heard cursing.
“I’ll go tell Devin and Illias,” Jesse said.
He heard Kenzo shifting the phone around.
“Sounds like you’re having all the fun.” That was what he said to him.
Tripp raised his eyebrows and looked down the mountain, “she is not what I expected in an Alpha’s daughter, Ken, like,” he waved his hand around, “she’s refusing to get a lift back to her family and says she’s staying here to get the last one.”
“Tell me about that.”
That was it, just okay, next? “The fourth one went down the mountain to make contact with the buyer I guess, he should be heading back up today sometime,” he turned around and looked up in the direction he knew she’d be, “I was planning to ambush him on the way back up and see who he was contacting…”
“That sounds good, Amari will likely help with that.”
“I don’t think I have a choice. She won’t leave.”
“I’ve never heard you this rattled, if it helps Amari does that to everyone,” he chuckled again. When the hell did Kenzo become such a jovial man? “First time our paths crossed, I feared for my own life, never mind the ones we were tracking.”
“Tracking? She’s on the co-ord team…”
“I’d welcome her on this team if that’s what she wanted, Tripp, she’s good, she just prefers to be alone and not work close to others,” another goddamned chuckle, “sound familiar?”
Tripp glared at the phone for a second and then put it back to his ear. “Fine, she stays, but know I have no problem tranq’ing her if she puts herself in danger…”
“Good luck with that.” He said something with his hand over the mouthpiece, “if you can find out who was planning to purchase the feral female, I think you should follow up on it…”
“You want me to stay and meet up with them? I imagine they’d be coming to get her because no one would want to transport an Alpha family member, it’s too risky.”
“You’re probably right, if they’re coming to meet up with your mark, then stay and get them too.”
Tripp nodded, that was more like it, an objective that he could sink his teeth into. “If there’s anyone remotely close to this damn mountain, you should send them this way and they can pick up the driver once we’re done with him.” The scary princess too, he thought.
“I would prefer it if he was alive when he was picked up.”
Tripp rolled his eyes, “I’ll see what I can do.” He was starting to get cold standing still, “what’s next for the team?” He would never admit he’d forgotten his clothes to anyone.
“We’ve got a hit list about the length of my leg now, so it’s been decided we’re doing multiple breaches at the same time for about the next week—bouncing directions so it’s not predictable.”
Tripp rolled his shoulders, “I’ll finish up here asap so I can come to play too.”
“The more the merrier, and Tripp?”
“Yeah?”
“Be careful around Amari, she’s a bit quirky sometimes. Oh, and she has a knife in the back of her belt, both boots, and probably her pack too—thought you should know so she doesn’t kill anyone she shouldn’t.” The line went quiet.
As he was jamming his phone back into his run pack, he paused, how the hell did Kenzo know where she kept all her concealed weapons? Belt? That’s where she’d gotten it that she’d used on the one guy with half an ear. Quirky? What the hell did that mean? Quirky, how?
His cat took control as soon as he shifted, starting back in the direction she was. Tripp let him go for a few minutes, trying to sense if he’d picked up on something he’d missed, when he couldn’t smell anything but trees and the odd wild creature, he slowed him down and took the lead again.
Still, how did Kenzo know about her knives? It could have come up in conversation if they’d worked together. He picked up the pace, it was still strange that he knew. Quirky, he still had no idea what the hell that meant. What was he some kind of dictionary? How was he supposed to know what a stupid word like quirky actually meant?