Strike ( Book 4: Stronger Series )

30. Under Control

It only took thirty minutes for my men to locate the asshole who almost decimated Jaden in the water. After they grabbed Jaden's abandoned jet ski, they took off after him, carefully following until he finally docked somewhere near the coast of Marseille. Three French men and two women, all in their late forties, were already passed out from the various empty liquor bottles splayed all over the floor. The sun wasn't even setting yet, and they were already done for the day. Jesus fuck.

As much as I wanted to slowly rip them all limb from limb, I was short on time, and our location wasn't the most discreet. I had to settle for my silencer and quick bullets to their heads. Unsatisfactory, but at least I didn't have to worry about them causing any more trouble in this fucking area.

I left Scott to finish dousing the bodies with their remaining booze and set the C4 charge. Reaching for my phone in my pocket, I pulled it out to notice I had ten missed calls from Clive before it started ringing again.

"What the fuck happened now?" I answered, knowing something had gone wrong.

"Sir. We believe Jaden may have ingested X," Clive said quickly.

I swore I heard him incorrectly. "Excuse me?"

Clive sighed. "She took what she thought was aspirin, but it's very clear it wasn't."

"How the fuck is that even possible?" I growled. Drugs were not allowed on my yacht, and if one of my staff disobeyed that rule, they would be meeting a very ugly end.

"We don't know, sir. She said she found them in one of her overnight bags."

"Motherfucker. How much did she take?"

"Luckily, she only took one pill, so judging by the size of them, likely about eighty milligrams."

"Fuck! She could have fucking died if she'd taken two! Jesus!"

"What happened?" Scott asked as he walked toward the car from the docks.

"Somehow, my wife managed to ingest X while I'm not even there to enjoy it," I muttered to him, keeping the phone to my ear as I opened the door to the front passenger seat. If Jaden's infectious excitement came just from sightseeing, I couldn't imagine how hilarious she'd be on ecstasy. But still, it wasn't exactly on my list of things to experience with my wife.

"What the fuck? How?" Scott asked as he settled into the driver's seat, pulled out the detonator, and activated it. The boat behind us exploded, the loud boom giving rise to the flames that enveloped the vessel before the hull began to sink into the water.

"I don't know. She thought it was aspirin," I answered and then went back to my phone. "Tell me you're keeping her hydrated," I said to Clive as Scott started the car.

"She's gotten one bottle of water down, but all she wants to do is run on the treadmill, so getting her to drink more has been a little difficult without trying to force her."

"I fucking bet," I growled as Scott drove us off. "Get her off the treadmill. I don't want her to overheat, and I expect another entire bottle of water gone by the time we get back. We're on our way now." I hung up the phone, nearly crushing it in my hand as I turned to Scott. "When we get back, go through the security footage at the country estate and the yacht and see if anyone went into Jaden's bags. Someone had to have put the bottle in there. I want to know who."

The ten-minute drive back to the helicopter was annoying as fuck, the tension in my body pushing me far too close to the edge. After exchanging the car with the large team I had following us on land, we boarded the helicopter for another twenty-minute ride back to the yacht. Once Scott landed the helicopter on the landing pad, we split off. The site that I returned to on the second deck was not the one I expected to find at all.