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choice, considering that he liked fishing expeditions. Perhaps Tucci wasn’t available.
    Vega said from the rear of the jet, “Your driver is at the runway.”
    “Good. Did he say anything?”
    “Excuse me?”
    “Are there any problems down below?”
    “No. Nothing. He’s been there since eleven-thirty, like you asked.”
    His driver doubled as a bodyguard. Xavier liked Chuck. He was quiet, punctual, and lethal, all appreciable qualities. He was beginning to think maybe Chuck could replace Vega—if a replacement was necessary. He hoped not. It would be messy, since Vega had been with him for many years and the other men took orders from him as well. Xavier didn’t want dissension, but sometimes it became unavoidable.
    He could always make it look like an accident.
    If
it was necessary.
    The Learjet descended and touched down at the private airstrip outside Jackson. As they taxied to the waiting Escalade, Xavier called his favorite information broker.
    “Darla, it’s me. I need you to find everything you can on Dean Hooper, an FBI agent currently in Sacramento.”
    “Do you have anything else on him?”
    “He arrested Smitty.”
    “Good place to start. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
    “Sooner, Darla. I’ll make it worth your time.”
    The rumors were wrong: Sonia Knight wasn’t just pretty, she was a knockout. Long, long legs packaged seductively in jeans that hugged round hips; a masculine black T-shirt that couldn’t hide her feminine attributes; and functional black boots that only added to her allure. Hell, Sonia would look good in a burlap sack.
    To avoid looking at the sexy ICE agent, Dean Hooper pulled out his notepad and scrawled notes he didn’t need to write. He still saw her hazel cat eyes watchingwith the quiet intensity of a feline predator deciding when to pounce on a mouse. Any other woman with looks like Sonia Knight and Dean would suspect—rightfully from his experience—that she’d obtained her position on her back. But Sonia was not a woman to compromise, either a case or her principles. In that, her reputation was dead-on. Fiery, dedicated, smart, and a marksman. He’d seen the first three in short order; he looked forward to seeing her in action as well.
    No warm-blooded male could ignore the passionate and notorious ICE agent, but Dean put his physical reaction on the back burner. He had a more immediate concern: Jones wasn’t home. He should have been here an hour ago. Dean had planned the raid to coincide with his return. Had someone talked? Alerted Jones while he was still in the air that the FBI was coming? Dean didn’t see how—he’d gone to the judge at the same time Jones was scheduled to land.
    There could have been delays, Dean knew, but he didn’t have anyone inside the organization to give him up-to-the-minute status reports, and he feared Jones would flee if he knew the FBI was on his ass. He had enough money to make it extremely difficult for anyone to find him. Especially since Dean didn’t have an arrest warrant and not enough evidence for the U.S. attorney to take over the case.
    He’d already taken a huge risk going to Barnhardt and pushing for a full-on search-and-arrest warrant without actually wanting it. He’d played a delicate game, but in the end got exactly what he wanted: a limited and specific subpoena for Xavier Jones’s personal and professional tax records at his home. He didn’t expect to find anything, but he couldn’t tell that to Barnhardt.A man like Jones wouldn’t leave incriminating documentation lying around where it could be easily seized. What Dean needed to complete his analysis were the unconnected details, but those innocuous items wouldn’t give him enough cause for a warrant. He had to use Jones’s link to a known criminal to make the case to Barnhardt.
    All Dean wanted to do was rattle Jones’s cage. Make him nervous. Force him to make bad decisions. But men like Xavier Jones didn’t rattle easily. The subpoena was just the