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He seemed to realize what he was doing, releasing me after his vengeful look finally faded. Then he rubbed his palms against his trousers. “You need to stay away from Madden.”
“Why? Because he’s a womanizer like you are? The only difference is that he came outright and pretty much asked me to be his whore and in exchange, he’d fill my life with riches. The offer for the rig was stupidly high. I wonder. Do you work for him? Is that how you have all these nice things?” Now I was just fishing. While I’d always considered Declan a philanderer and a basic chauvinist, he’d also been a hard worker. I sensed an odd desperation, as if Madden was putting a gun to his head.
“I have a trust fund from my grandfather,” he stated as if I already knew. “Don’t be a fool, Rylee. The man is a murderer. He’ll kill you if he doesn’t get that rig. He always gets what he wants. You need to listen to me.” He advanced again and I took a decided step backwards. There was an even crazier look in his eyes.
“Why?”
“I…” He acted as if he was going to answer then sucked it back, exhaling instead. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me. If you know something, tell me.”
Snorting, he rubbed his jaw. “Why should I do that, Rylee? You just fired me. However, I will share this last thing with you. Watch your back. You have no idea who might be ready to stab you.”
He didn’t allow me to get in my usual retort, slamming the door in my face.
Another icy chill skated down my spine.
Foxx
Thirty million dollars. Offshore rigs were costly, but usually those considered state of the art, not ones built forty years ago. And not one the size noted on the schematics I’d already glanced at. Now my gut screamed something was way off.
And that my father had an inkling of what that was.
“You don’t know anything about Madden Byrne,” I stated to my father after getting him on the phone. I still couldn’t get it off my mind Sean had asked us to look at his rig. He’d given me some of his financials, schematics of the rig, the past contracts, and a list of the maintenance needs. The Irishman must have been led to believe I was a miracle worker. And I’d only had the opportunity to do a cursory glance at this point.
“I’ve heard of him, son, but I don’t deal with mafia freaks. You know that.” My father was his usual gruff self, which I’d expected.
“But you keep your ear to the ground.”
“Not like I used to. I don’t care about the man.”
My father’s insistence brought nothing but red flags in my mind.
“Then you have no idea why Sean would consider selling to the man? I heard you had a long and frank conversation, even telling him I didn’t want to be in this business any longer.”
I knew when my father was surprised but it didn’t seem as if he was at this point. “Well, you don’t. I ain’t no fool, son. I’m going to be forced into selling off my family legacy just like Sean needs to. However, I don’t know the man any longer or what’s on his mind.”
Bull fucking shit.
“Yet you felt compelled to send me all the way to another freaking country for an extended period of time, possibly taking away from our business in the process.”
“Don’t you sass me, boy.” He got the country twang to his voice when he was chastising me.
Jack already seemed amused as he listened to my side of the conversation, but he knew my pops too well. Meanwhile, Hudson was too busy fuming over the terse conversation we’d had with Rylee, tearing through the employee records a second time as if he’d find something magical in them.
“Madden Byrne is dangerous, Pops. I don’t need to tell you that. And Mr. O’Rourke managed to put himself in the hot seat. He’s got a daughter with a mouth on her. She might have put the business in worse jeopardy. Or worse. She might have placed her life at risk.”
“Well, then I guess it’s up to you boys to dig her out of the mess she put herself into. I gotta go. I have a card game calling my name.”
My father wasn’t the warmest of men, but he usually didn’t hang up on me. He couldn’t have gotten off the call any faster. I held my cellphone to my forehead, trying to see if any of the pieces fit together. They didn’t. Nope. My dad was keeping one or more of Sean’s secrets. Hell, it was something I’d do if it involved Hudson or Jack.
“Good convo, bud,” Jack teased. “Did you learn anything or just trade barbs back and forth?”
“Fuck you. What I learned is that there’s more to this story, but we’ll need to discover it ourselves.” I shoved the phone in my back pocket. “And we better figure it out sooner versus later.”
“What the hell does that mean?” he asked, lifting his eyebrows.
“It means I have a bad feeling we’ve stepped into some kind of shit. The kind that could turn to blood.” I absolutely loathed not being in full control of a situation. My instinct was telling me either Sean had lied to my father, or the man was in worse financial shape than he purported to be in. Financials could be doctored.
