Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 72543 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 363(@200wpm)___ 290(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72543 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 363(@200wpm)___ 290(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
“The best things in life are, man. What’s got you on the phone with me? Some sort of stalker situation?”
I laugh without humor and glance around, ensuring there are no nearby ears. “Somehow calling my father a stalker is ridiculously accurate.”
“Your father? What kind of shit show are you in right now?”
“Yeah, I’m just going to shoot straight. He wants the company to strive on destroying others. I do not, and I’m influencing the board to find a better way. I’ve crossed my father. He will take revenge, and that means Alana.”
“Would your father really go after your woman?”
“Our families lived next door for years. There’s personal history there and a whole lot of baggage. He always felt they were beneath us and that Alana was a distraction.”
“A familiar story.”
“Until I tell you my father’s fucking her mother, which is supposedly her way of paying off money Alana’s father borrowed from my father to pay off a gambling debt. Then Alana’s father found out they were sleeping together and tried to dig up dirt on my father to turn in to the police. That’s why I came home. To protect Alana and her family.”
“So, you really think he’d go after your woman?”
“I know he would.”
“All right then. Noted. And for the record, it’s not as crazy a story as you might think–I’ve heard a lot of crazy—but it’s one ripe for something rotten.”
“Which is why I stayed away from Alana. I thought she’d grow up, move away, and be happy. But our families didn’t let that happen, and at this point, I’m done walking away from her. She’s with me. She’s moving in with me. It’s time to defuse the threat.”
“There are a lot of ways I might be able to help with that,” he says. “For instance, giving your father a reason to stand down, and that can be done in a great many ways. But first things first, we need to get protection in place for Alana and her family. I can get a man on Alana this afternoon, but it’s going to be next week before I can support her parents.”
“As long as Alana’s protected.”
“I have a guy who just got back to the States I have in mind. This is well-timed for him. He needs a break—not that this job is easy—but compared to what he just came off, it’s a walk in the park.”
“Which was what?”
“Extracted a hostage from a hostile, at great peril to himself. The hostage is safe.”
“And who’s dead?” I ask, wanting to know more about the man who will protect the woman I love.
“Who the fuck do you think is dead?” Blake asks. “The bad guys. Adam’s one of the good guys, Damion. He’s former SEAL Team Six and, as a bonus, master of disguises. I’m telling you, this man is a giant, and he can still disappear anywhere. It’s totally fucking nuts.”
I’m reasonably comforted, though on edge, where Alana is concerned, for about ten thousand and one reasons, those reasons ranging from her safety to all the ways I could lose her. “He’s going to need those skills and more,” I say, forcing my focus on what I can change, which is how Alana’s protected, not what I can’t change in my past. “There’s a guy on my father’s payroll. Caleb Ross. He’s a former CIA agent, and I believe he’d kill for the right payday and probably has. He and I get along, and he’s shown signs of a conscience, but I don’t know that he’s truly loyal to anyone or anything that is not his bank account.”
“What’s making you bring him up right now?”
“He warned me my father is fucking Alana’s mother again—”
“Again?” he interrupts.
“I thought it had ended, and Alana’s mother claimed it had, but obviously it has not. I’m not sure she doesn’t want to be with Alana’s father. Maybe they were together when we were growing up. I don’t know the real picture.”
“I’ll find out,” he assures me. “But go on.”
“At one point, Caleb was following Alana’s father on alert to act if necessary, and no, I don’t know what that means, but I can guess. He was pulled off, and the heat seemed to shift. Now, he’s back on.”
“Did he give you details?”
“He told me to protect Alana and her family, but he’s the kind of guy who’d tell me that and then take the job to end them.”
There’s pounding on his keyboard before he says, “His file’s classified, but I can get to it. We’ll handle him. I’ll have Rick Savage join Adam next week. He’s an ex-mercenary and he’ll do what needs to be done.”
“And Adam won’t?”
“Adam will force Savage to think twice before he acts, and if Savage still wants to do it, he’ll help him. Caleb will never survive him, let alone him and Adam together. What else do I need to know?”