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“I’ve got just the shady deal that we’re walking away from to get the job done,” Eric continues. “We can offer it to Chance. If he runs with it, he’s just like his father.”
“And his father was not your father,” Grayson says. “That man was brutally cold-hearted.”
I think of that note he’d written to my mother and left inside the bottom of the hourglass, not to mention the way he cut Emma out of the family fortune. I didn’t have to have known the man well to know that’s true. “Emma is nothing like her father,” I say. “We all need to know which side of the line, Chance falls on—hers or her father’s.”
“Agreed,” Eric says.
“And if he proves he’s dirty,” Grayson adds, “we’ll force the merger with Emma in the driver’s seat as we promised back at the castle before I had to cut us short.”
Indeed, it had been a short meeting, just long enough for me to state the importance to me of Emma’s interest. I made that point, obviously, but I drive home her value. “Emma negotiated a potential truce and partnership with the Sawyer brand. Amerger would make it unnecessary but my point in this is that she did what me and her brother could not. She found a path to peace.”
“Partnerships not war,” Grayson says. “That’s what I want. That’s the kind of people I want aligned with us. And that’s not an easy task she achieved. Not with that man.”
“Which leads me back to war,” I say. “The ones you want to avoid and the ones I might not be able to avoid. You need to know that through his right-hand man, Randall, Chance is threatening to come after me if Emma doesn’t return to San Francisco in the next few days. Before you ask, how he plans to come at me, it would have to be with lies. The only dirt there is out there on me is the dirty boxing in the boxing ring, I used to fight, but that was a long time ago.”
“Do you have a plan to protect yourself?” Eric asks.
“Not one that doesn’t burn Emma, and that’s not acceptable. I’m open to suggestions.”
“Don’t get dirty because he gets dirty,” Grayson suggests. “He wants to be a part of the consortium. I’ll let him know his membership is going to vote and the decision must be unanimous. That means he needs your vote. I’ll let him know you’re willing to give it to him. You’re officially invited to join us, by the way, thus my assumption of your vote,” he adds. “I’ve looked through your portfolio. You’re a savvy investor, well-packaged beyond whiskey. You understand diversity equals success and security.”
I down the contents of my glass, thinking of the mother who taught me to never count on anything lasting. A philosophy that’s worked in my investment strategies. “I’m honored to join the consortium. As for that plan working with Chance, that might have the opposite planned effect. It might just motivate him to burn me before I can burn him.”
“Does he not give a shit about his sister?” Eric asks.
“Not that I’ve seen thus far,” I say. “Maybe she has a different father too because she really doesn’t fit that family at all.”
“Too?” Eric asks.
“Hunter wasn’t my father’s son. He washerfather’s son.”
That bomb earns me dropped jaws and a refilled glass. “Holy hell,” Eric says.
“Holy hell is right,” Grayson agrees.
Eric downs his whiskey. “And I thought my family was a soap opera.”
And I thought my family was perfect, I think, even after my mother left, right up until I found out it wasn’t. Obviously, I wasn’t looking hard enough at the truth. I wasn’t present enough inside my own life and family. It’s not a mistake I plan to make with Emma. I left her behind today when I felt like I shouldn’t have left her behind. “If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, I have a beautiful woman waiting on me, back at the castle. I need to be there now.”
A few minutes later, I’m in the back of a Walker-driven SUV when I dial Emma, and her cell goes straight to voicemail. I try again. And again. A bad feeling claws at me and I dial Savage. “Check on Emma now.”
“We have eyes and cameras—”
“No, Savage,” I snap. “Physicallygosee her now and call me back.Now.”
He doesn’t argue this time. He hangs up. I dial Emma again. Voicemail again. I text her:Call me. I’m worried. I need you to call me, baby.
No reply.
I wait five minutes and repeat with the same results. I then try Savage and end up with his voicemail. “Try Savage,” I call out to the driver, a guy named Nathan, who works for Savage.
He tries. He ends up with voicemail as well, giving me a grim shake of his head, after a few more tries.
The next fifteen minutes, in the back of that SUV, prove to be the most brutal ride of my life. By the time I’m at the castle, I’m coming undone, when I find my front door open. I walk into the foyer by the elevator and start shouting. “Emma! Emma!”
Savage is waiting for me at the top of the stairs. “She’s gone. Her purse. Her suitcase. Everything.”
A million knives stab me in the heart. “No. No, she wouldn’t leave. And how the hell would you not know she left?”
