Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 73043 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73043 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
I had a ton of information…and none of it made any fucking sense.
Yet, Layton apparently thought I knew something.
And maybe I did, and I just didn’t know it.
I did know that I didn’t have his money, though.
“You’re going to use this computer, and you’re going to get my money back to me. Now,” he said. And, before I could so much as flinch, he sliced me from eye to chin. “Or I’m going to slice you up and make it hurt.”
I felt the blood start to well on my face, and drip down my neck in a steady stream.
“I need my hands to do that,” I told him honestly.
“One,” he said, then walked around me while keeping the computer on the table, facing me.
The computer wasn’t my computer. It was Janie’s.
Thank God she didn’t know about the program that I’d installed on here. Otherwise, I just knew she’d be watching what was about to happen next.
Because I wasn’t going to find that money.
There was just no way around it. I couldn’t. Not if I didn’t know where it was.
And it wasn’t like I could just give him that kind of money. I had a hundred thousand in the bank, sure, but not thousands and thousands.
My hand came free from the bindings behind my back, and I brought it forward.
A door slammed, and I lazily pulled my eyes up to see Elspeth standing there.
“Hey, y’all!”
Layton jolted.
I didn’t. I’d seen her enter the room. Her eyes were taking in absolutely everything in one quick glance.
“What are you doing in here?” he barked, his eyes warily going to me and then Trace. “Who let you down here?”
“Oh, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.” Elspeth came swaggering into the room. “You don’t think that I was going to allow you to get away with all this, did you?”
Layton looked stunned speechless.
“Your men aren’t yours any longer. They’re mine.”
I blinked, unsure of what to do.
“What?” Layton said. “You’re being ridiculous. Get out.”
Elspeth smiled then. “I guess you could always try to kick me out.”
Layton stalked toward her, and the man that had taken me stepped in front of her, blocking his way.
“No.” He said a single word.
Layton didn’t stop.
He kept coming.
And then his face was filled with a bullet from the man’s gun.
“Bummer,” Elspeth said as she watched her father fall. “I really had plans for him, you know. Seriously, Stav. I told you not to shoot him until I was finished.”
“You’re finished,” Stav said.
Elspeth sighed.
Then she stepped over her father’s rapidly cooling body and wrapped her arms around Stavros. “Give me a kiss. Then go let the feds know what’s up.”
Stav did what she said, and I watched it all with stunned disbelief.
The moment the man was out of the room, Elspeth turned those eyes to me.
“You’ll have to thank your girlfriend for me. I really, really didn’t want to do anything with you that might hurt mine and Stavros’ relationship,” Elspeth said. “And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I never intended to do those things, but we were having to stall for time. It was either that, or what I found for the Feds wasn’t going to be good enough to put him away.”
I opened my mouth and then closed it, unsure of what to say.
“I guess had I known that you were who you were a long time ago, I might’ve been able to work with you.” She sighed. “I still feel like you have no clue how much you helped me. When Daddy saw that I was being ‘pursued’ by another man, he started to let his guard down.”
That was true.
Had I known that she was a willing informant, this could’ve gone a whole lot smoother.
But I hadn’t.
“I…I don’t know what to say,” I admitted.
She smiled. It was a different smile than the one she used to give me.
“Just say that whatever you found you’ll give over to the Feds when they ask for it,” she said as she wiped her hands off. “And ask your girl to forgive me.”
I nodded.
“My father was an asshole.”
I agreed. “He was.”
“We really are a lot alike, you know. We both have daddy issues.” She bared her teeth. “When I was twenty, I met Stavros. He was a new bodyguard for me.” She smiled. “I didn’t know why I needed one, but I never complained. I thought I was just a military brat who might’ve caught the attention of one of my father’s enemies. It never occurred to me that it was my father who was bad. Not until mine and Stavros’ relationship turned into something more, and my father nearly killed him.”
I grunted.
Yeah, sounded like we both had daddy issues.
“One day, Stavros and I were wonderful. The next, Stavros and I were no longer an item. I couldn’t understand why. Not until years later when I finally got Stavros to tell me the truth…which was round about the time I started to get curious about some of my observations about my father and his military career.”