Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 91452 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91452 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
I swallowed down my surprise, not letting him see it. This was news to me, but apparently Owen had been walking around, understanding everything about his life, and me, for a very long time.
“He has hundreds of pictures of you on his phone. I would know you anywhere, sir. May I say, you’re a very handsome man.”
I suspected I was when I was looking at Owen. I always smiled when I was gazing at him.
“Mr. Colter?”
“Sorry. So what happened?”
“When I met again with the men who wanted me to sleep with Owen, I explained that it wouldn’t be possible to seduce him as he was in love, and not the kind of man who would entertain a dalliance.”
Of course he wouldn’t. Not Owen.
“So they ordered me to lure him where he could be abducted, and I refused. They were very insistent. When they couldn’t convince me, they killed my mother.”
My heart hurt for the man as his voice shook and he struggled to keep control of his emotions and not break down. I waited quietly for him to get a hold of himself and continue his story.
“But you see,” he croaked out, taking a breath, “after she passed, I spoke to her doctor and asked how she was murdered. You should have seen the look on his face. He had no clue where I was getting such wild ideas, and assured me that my mother had died of natural causes.”
The news had to have come as a shock.
“When I asked the doctor if he was certain she hadn’t been killed, he was adamant that whoever gave me such vile information was a liar. My mother, he told me, had died of heart disease, nothing more sinister than that.”
I nodded.
“If they approached me again, I was going to tell them off for making up such gross, disgusting lies, but almost immediately, I started getting text messages from an unknown number, showing pictures of my sister and her daughter. They must have been watching her apartment. They said she and my niece would meet with a horrible accident if I didn’t cooperate. They’re all the family I have left, so I did as I was ordered.”
“Okay.”
“Owen thought we were friends, so he met me, and they took him.”
“Do you know who they were?”
“No, I’m sorry. I only knew them to be military.”
“Because of how they were dressed or the vehicle they drove?”
“Neither. I believed them to be military because they told me they were.”
I didn’t think he was lying to me. I didn’t detect any pretense in the man. His sorrow over what he’d been forced to do seemed real.
“They gave me a cover story,” Nam continued, “and warned me not to tell anyone. They said they could get to my sister at any time and threatened to torture her and my niece to death if I disobeyed. Again, I had no choice but to trade Owen for them.”
I understood. I would trade a stranger for Owen if the roles were reversed.
After a few seconds of silence, he asked, “Is Owen still alive?”
“I don’t know,” I replied honestly.
“I have his laptop.”
I nearly jolted but squashed the instinct.
“They were looking for it, but I didn’t let on I had it.”
“Where is it?”
“At my flat. It’s close by.” He gave me the address. “You should know, his laptop is a brick. I tried to bypass its security, but the level of encryption on it is far beyond my skills.”
“Why would you try and break into it?” I asked pointedly.
“To see if there was anything there I could use to help Owen, now that my sister and niece are no longer in danger.”
“What makes you think they’re no longer in danger?”
He gasped. “I was told my part was done and the three of us were safe.”
But that was a lie, or why would he have a tail? “Listen, I think you’re still in a great deal of danger, and you’re going to need to trust me to help you.”
His lips parted as he stared at me. “Whyever would you do that? I’m the one who put Owen into their hands.”
“Because you were used, Mr. Nam, and that’s not fair or something I tolerate. Now, I need you to get up and come with me.”
We rose but never cleared the table.
Suddenly a man appeared behind Nam. I saw the knife and instinctively grabbed a fistful of the young man’s T-shirt and yanked him forward, off his feet and up against my chest. Before the stranger took another step, there was the crack of a high-powered shot. The round struck Nam’s shadow behind the ear, punching a hole through his neck. Scarlet jutted out the exit wound in an arc, drenching his face as he fell.
Someone had fired a kill shot, and it wasn’t one of my guys. Chris or George, as they were Army snipers, would have gone for the head. I shoved the table over, yanking Nam down beside me.