Total pages in book: 213
Estimated words: 202770 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1014(@200wpm)___ 811(@250wpm)___ 676(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 202770 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1014(@200wpm)___ 811(@250wpm)___ 676(@300wpm)
By the time I’m there, she’s holding up an accordion file and the journal. “I’m house sitting at my parents’ house, or my mother’s house now. I went through my father’s desk and I found the journal but there was more. There was this file. Everything, and everyone, in that file is some sort of target he went after.”
My gaze narrows. “Went after meaning what?”
“It looks like he had each one investigated.” She reaches inside and hands me a sheet of paper. “I wrote down a list of everyone he went after. Your brother’s name isn’t on the list.”
I take the sheet of paper and scan the names, my lips thinning. “But North Whiskey has done business with every name on this list.”
Emma’s face pales. “So much for me thinking this debunked your brother as a target. You think this list is a list of people to use against your brother?”
“I think that’s exactly what it is.”
My cellphone buzzes with a text and I glance down to find a message from Savage: I’ve arrived. I’m in the bar drinking because you haven’t hired me yet, but for the record, a drunk Savage is a dangerous Savage. I’m the big guy with a beautiful scar down my cheek, but don’t mention it. I’m highly sensitive that way.
I might be put off by this if I didn’t know his type. He’s one of those guys that hide behind humor but will cut your throat out. And considering my brother is dead and in the ground, that works for me right now. I flip to my camera and take a picture of the list of names before handing the paper back to Emma. “I have a security person meeting me downstairs.”
“You really think we need security?”
“After that incident at your building, I’m not taking any chances.”
“Have him come up here.”
“I’m not even sure we’re hiring the guy. I’m not having him up to the room.”
“And you want to talk to him frankly about my family.” She folds her arms in front of her. “Got it.”
I settle my hands on her arms. “If I hire him, I’m going to have his team look into this list and more.”
“Good,” she says tightly. “I think we both need answers.” She doesn’t even think about unfolding her arms.
“If I hire him—”
“Go talk to him, Jax,” she says, her tone still just as tight as seconds before. “Like you said, we both need answers.”
She’s right. We do, but I’m not sure either one of us is going to like what we discover. I lean into her and kiss her, but I say nothing and with reason. I’m pretty damn sure that if I tell her that I believe her family had my brother murdered, she’d leave. And since I don’t want her to leave, that’s a problem I’ll solve only one way. I leave the room without her, hoping like hell this Rick Savage character can get me an answer that doesn’t turn Emma into an enemy but I feel every step that separates us like a mile. I know I’ll pay for doing this without her, but it’s necessary.
I step into the elevator and I swear I can still smell Emma’s perfume on my clothes, a sweet, flowery scent that drives me just a little wild. She’s on my skin, under my skin. She’s driving me crazy.
The car stops at the lobby level and I head to the hotel bar where it’s not hard to find Savage. He’s the only one there and he’s not only leaning on the bar, he has a shot glass in his hand. He glances my direction, his dark eyes sharp, a brutality in their depths that stretches across marble tables and leather chairs to meet mine. He lifts the glass in salute and then downs the contents.
Cutting between tables, I walk a carpeted path to join him at the long end of the bar where the stools don’t clutter up standing space.
“Another,” Savage tells the bartender, and looks at me, that scar he’d warned me about jutting down his cheek, just outside the line of his neatly trimmed goatee, his thick dark hair neatly managed. No matter how unhinged he might act, he’s not. He’s a man of control. “You want one?” he asks.
I wave off the bartender. Savage smirks. “Got enough of that at home, I suppose.” The bartender hands him the new shot. He lifts it pausing by his mouth. “Down the hole,” he says and grimaces as he sets the glass down. “I have to tell you, I have a love-hate relationship with North Whiskey. Sometimes it loves me up and sometimes it loves me down. Those down moments come with some real hate.”
“Try drinking less.”
“I’m a more is less kind of guy.” He straightens and more is right. I’m six-foot-two and two hundred and twenty pounds of hard work in the gym. He has to be six-foot-four and two-forty and it’s all muscle. He salutes. “Tell me how I can serve you.”