Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 54589 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 273(@200wpm)___ 218(@250wpm)___ 182(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 54589 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 273(@200wpm)___ 218(@250wpm)___ 182(@300wpm)
“Did Bella grow up in a place like this?” I ask, glancing over at Dash.
His voice is tight, the thick muscles of his neck bunched up. He’s worried. Really damn worried and that does not sit well. “Her parents were both famous in their own right,” he replies. “She lived at a luxurious estate with a lot of security at all times.”
“Did she like it?”
“Ask her when you see her, Tyler. We’re getting her back.”
The house comes into view, a white mansion with tall pillars at either side of the entrance. It’s a place that fits that fairy tale façade and more so, reads like money. The people who live here have plenty of cash and clout they’re obviously willing to throw around. I’m familiar with these types of power whores, experienced in negotiations that work their ego, and those skills need to shine today. They don’t want the press or the scandal that Bella going missing would deliver. The very point in today’s events is to protect their security and reputation. But as I know, and evidently, they do as well—a bluff can go a long way in a negotiation.
Dash pulls us up to the front of the entrance, right between those pillars, the path to the door at least twenty steps high, with two guys in suits at the top waiting on us. Guards. Security. Goons. Whatever you want to call them. They don’t represent a willingness and expectation of violence, but rather a desire to avoid those things.
“I’m going to go in there and negotiate like this is a corporate meeting, but let’s make a pact,” I say, my teeth gritting, my gaze flicking his direction. “If we go down, we’re taking as many of them with us as we can.”
“You won’t get an argument from me,” he agrees, and in unison, we exit the car.
A minute later, we come back together at the bottom of the stairs and without looking at each other, we begin the walk up. Once we’re at the top, the two assholes guarding the entrance offer us dead-eyed stares they must think make them look tough. Instead, they look like brainless puppets. The one closest to Dash says, “Just him. Not you.”
Dash snorts out a laugh. “Think again. I’m coming in.”
“It’s him only or it’s nobody,” the same puppet states.
I cut Dash a look. “I’ll go in. If I’m not out in twenty minutes, you know the plan.”
His lips quirk, his eyes alight with approval. “Kill them and have my FBI friends cover it up. I approve.” His attention slides back to puppet one. “He’s first. I’ll stand right here and wait.”
The puppet on my side of the door punches in a code, and the door opens for my entry. I glance back to find Dash doing exactly what he declared his next move to be, which is no move at all. He’s standing in front of puppet one just staring at him, but the impact is lost when the guy says, “Why are you familiar? Did I see you on TV?”
I leave Dash to his fan club and walk inside a rather sterile foyer, with shiny white tiles beneath my feet and, of course, a dramatic chandelier above. There always has to be a dramatic chandelier in these money mansions. A man in a suit with what I can only call a smashed-in face, steps in front of me. “We’ll need to ask you to leave all weapons on the center table, Mr. Hawk.”
It’s an expected request and I remove the handgun under my jacket and set it on the table, holding out my hands. “Happy?”
He studies me several beats, a smirk forming on his naturally twisted mouth that says he’s about to search me, but he does not. “I’m peachy,” he replies, as if he’s trying to be funny, but somehow that face just can’t be laughed at. It’s a face that has been beaten and brutalized, but he’s still standing. I have a feeling the other guy is not. “Right this way,” he adds, and he motions me down a long hallway.
And so, the negotiations begin, and I’m quite certain the next fifteen minutes will define my life in a way that might well be irreparable.
Chapter Thirty
Tyler
The hallway I’m presently traveling is just more of the same shiny tiles and high-end molding, I’d noted in the foyer of the Allen home—flashy, but not much more. The sterile effect of a house that is for show versus a home decorated with love is something I could not understand until I spent time with Bella, intimate time in her personal space.
I’m a better man because of her, but if anyone in the Allen family thinks that makes me weaker, they’re strategically challenged. I won’t kill over a contract or even a seat at the head of the table that is my own birthright, but I will for Bella. But then, death might be too gentle. Sometimes being forced to live and suffer is a far better punishment. I’m not sure Bella really knows how dark I can get—how dark my family, maybe my genetics made me—and I don’t want her to either. But these people today will know.