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)
Guilt stabs at me over his messages. “He knows. He texted me after the story posted and asked me out again. I told him I’m with you.”
His eyes burn with anger and a hint of something I cannot name. “He’d be smart to back off.” He cuts his eyes and then fixes me in a turbulent stare. “You’re the only person I’d willingly kill for, Alana. Don’t forget that.” Suddenly I’m not sure we’re talking about Dierk anymore.
Before I can question him, he kisses me soundly on the lips and says, “See you soon, baby.” And then he’s opening the door for me to climb back in the SUV. I want to argue and push him for clarification, but Adam is already in view, and we have no privacy. I cave to the demands of the moment and climb back in the vehicle and Damion is quick to shut me inside.
Adam motions to the driver we’re a go and already we’re pulling away from the curb.
I’m bothered about what he just said to me and when my eyes meet Adam’s I lean in closer and say, “This is what he just said to me. You’re the only person I’d willingly kill for, Alana. Don’t forget that. What is he going to do?”
“No one is killing anyone,” he says. “We’ll come up with another solution.”
“Another solution? Are you telling me killing his father is actually an option?”
“No,” he says, and that’s all he says, despite me glaring at him.
I sink back into my seat and press my fingers to my temples. I need a way to end this war with his father. He has to be removed from the picture, but there has to be a way to do that doesn’t include murder.
Chapter forty-seven
Damion
Blake Walker is waiting on me when I arrive at the Walker Security office, greeting me with a hand offered at the door. I shake his damn hand and say, “All formal and shit, as if we don’t know each other. What’s up with that?”
He laughs low and deep. “Habit, man,” he says, motioning for me to follow him.
He starts walking and I follow him briefly sizing up the operation. The offices are high class, in a hot zip code, but still just as no nonsense as Blake who doesn’t waste time with small talk.
We quickly land in a private room, where we sit at the far end of a rectangular conference table with Blake at the endcap and me and Savage on either side of him. “Obviously you know,” Blake says, “killing him is not the right option.”
I don’t miss the way he doesn’t say his name, ever the cautious one, this man, which I respect.
I eye Savage and say, “As I expressed to Savage last night, give me another path, and to be clear, walking away as Caleb suggested, isn’t it. As Alana pointed out with accuracy this morning, because she’s been around my family and my father, the minute I’m stripped of stock, and I’m out, he’ll use Alana as leverage to get me back in and make me his little bitch.”
“Agreed,” Blake replies. “The only way you do this, and do it right, is if he chooses to walk away.”
“The only way that happens is if I make him believe he’s saving himself and destroying me.”
“Great minds think alike is not bullshit,” Savage says dryly, eyeing Blake.
“And to that point,” Blake says, sliding a MacBook my direction, “here’s how you do just that. “There’s a million sins committed by your father in the data I’ve set-up for you to read through. And you need to read through it. Because you need to make sure you want to be the man cleaning it up.”
“I’m not worried about cleanup,” I state.
“Read the data. If you still feel the same way, I’ll have a buddy at the FBI pay him a visit and make him want to get the hell out of dodge, before it’s too late.”
I don’t even reach for the MacBook. “Too late?”
“Again,” he repeats. “Read the file.”
“I will, but you're making this sound too easy and easy never works with my father.”
“I actually find that sometimes the right solutions are so easy, they’re overlooked.”
“Whatever the plan,” Savage says, “I vote I taunt Caleb and let him give me a reason to kill him. The world will be a better place.”
Leave it to Savage to bring the topic back to murder. “Which brings me to, what about the hitmen he’s hired?”
“Why kill off the people you want to suffer in the hell you created?” Blake asks. “He’ll call them off, if they even exist.”
“My father doesn’t bluff.”
“Caleb does,” Savage assures me. “He’s all about the bullshit.”
“And there’s no communication about these supposed hits on the dark web,” Blake adds, “and that feels off. I can always pick up some kind of chatter about these types of things, even if it’s coded. But bottom line, nothing I’m saying will make sense to you until you read that data and it’s a lot. I’ll bring you coffee or whiskey. You might need the latter, more than the former.”