“Isaac—”
“I don’t need to know her secrets, Cormack. I just need to make sure I’m not walking down the same path.”
As much as this kills me to admit, he was right when he said Col can read me like a book. He threatened Isabelle because he knew I wouldn’t hold back, that come hell or highwater, I would protect Isabelle no matter what. That’s why I need to be smarter than him. You can’t play games with a man like Col and not expect him to cheat. It is all he knows, but for once, I’ve finally realized I don’t need to dumb myself down to make sure he copies my answers wrong.
I merely need to be ten steps ahead of him.
Well, that was the plan until I mimic Cormack’s slip into his car. My cell phone is ringing off the hook. It isn’t the one jammed into the drink holder in the middle console. It is the one Hunter only uses in emergencies, my burner phone he switches out every couple of weeks.
“What is it?” I ask after flipping up the screen and squashing it to my ear.
Before Isabelle, there was only ever one name that popped into my head when this phone rang. Tonight, there are many, and the confirmation on who it is about is like a kick to the stomach.
“It’s Izzy,” Hunter breathes out with an uneasy sigh. “Col knows who she is.”
When my heart overrules my head, I throw the gearstick into first gear, then tear onto the street like a madman. My speed is so fast, even with Cormack’s vehicle being an old race car, it struggles to keep up with me. I make it to the warehouse in under eight minutes, and I’m inside of it in under eight seconds.
Unsurprisingly, it’s empty as Hunter warned during my race. There are clues Col was here, though. A crumpled invoice for a recently chartered flight to Las Vegas sits just left of an ashtray with a half-smoked cigar balancing on its edge. The air also has an aura of arrogance associated with it.
When I spin to face Cormack, who’s entering the warehouse red-faced and out of breath, my eye catches something in the corner of the room. “I thought you shut surveillance down?”
Hunter curses before his fingers work at a million miles an hour. “I did. That isn’t me.” When I pace closer to the blinking red contraption seemingly floating in thin air, he grunts out, “Don’t engage until I find a way to infiltrate their network.”
I ignore his suggestion. That isn’t uncommon. When it comes to my safety, nobody gets to tell me who I should or should not approach. I should have remembered that when I let Cormack blindside me ten minutes ago, then I wouldn’t be worrying about Isabelle’s true identity being exposed by a man willing to sell out anyone for a profit. Instead, nothing but tasting her for the second time would be on my mind.
Just as I recognize the unidentifiable object is a drone, it whizzes over my head and darts out the door Cormack burst through only seconds ago. Its speed only slows when it reaches a dark van with tinted windows half a block up.
“Government plates,” Hunter growls down my cell phone, his fingers still moving at the speed of light. “I can’t get an image of the occupant’s face. The tint is too dark.”
“There!” Hugo shouts just as the side door of the van pops open so they can yank the drone in with a hook. “Did you get him?”
“No!” When the van takes off like a bat out of hell, Hunter’s keystrokes sound more like he’s working them over with his fists instead of his fingertips.
I want to join him when Hugo murmurs, “As much as you don’t want to hear this, boss, I’m going to say it. You need to stay away from Isabelle until the heat dies down.”
“I can protect her from Col,” I spit out with no uncertainty.
“No one doubts that. But who’s going to protect Callie when they think you’re only purchasing her because you want to get into her sister’s panties?” When I can’t find an answer to his question, Hugo adds, “Get Izzy off Col’s radar,theneat your cake. It is so much sweeter than the alternative.”
“No cake at all,” we say at the same time.
30
After collecting evidence from the warehouse for Hunter and assuring Hugo I’d give his idea some thought, Cormack and I travel back toMummo Koti.My mood is already sour from the information Hunter disclosed during the hour drive, but it deteriorates further when I receive a text message partway down the long, gated driveway. It contains footage I’ve seen before but never from this angle. It’s from when campus police arrived at my dorm to inform me Ophelia had been in a traffic accident. Although they never said she had passed, the blank expression on my face exposes I knew that was the case. I’m staring straight at the police officer’s bodycam, unblinking and unmoving. I didn’t ask to see her body or to be taken to her. I just stood there like a statue. Like a man without a heart.
My response was so callous, Cormack assumed I was still in the dumps about our fight. He promised again that with some time, Ophelia would understand that I had no choice but to fight CJ and that she’d forgive me within a nanosecond before begging me for forgiveness. It was only when I muttered that there was no chance of that ever occurring did reality dawn for Cormack. The woman I was in a relationship with for over six months died hating me.
That isn’t something you simply get over. Even now, fully aware Isabelle is not responsible for what happened, I can’t stop hearing the words Ophelia screamed at me that night to truly comprehend that. I’m mad and grief-stricken, my volatile temperament as obvious as the moon hanging in the sky. So, instead of granting Isabelle permission to run into my arms as she so desperately craves when I enter one of the many sitting areas inMummo Koti, I shake my head before stalking into Cormack’s downstairs office, certain I need more than a hot shower to wash off the funk the last part my video message coated me in.
There were no people in the brief montage that followed the video footage. No stunned twenty-one-year-olds with no clue how drastically their lives are about to change. Just two short words.
Unknown number:Who’s next?
By the time Maximus, Head of Security for Attwood Electric, joins Cormack and me in a back office, I have eight double shots of whiskey under my belt and a sealed guarantee of a lonely, miserable life. I couldn’t respond to Col’s threat this time around even if I wanted to. Not only is he nowhere nearMummo Koti, but Cormack has also been babysitting me like he did the weeks following Ophelia’s death. He knows I won’t hurt myself. He’s more afraid of who my grief will once again trap than me self-harming.
Back when Ophelia passed, I didn’t have access to the capital that funds my empire now, but I had enough to set wheels in motion to take Col down. His entity took massive hit after massive hit the six months following Ophelia’s death, and we’ve been at war ever since.
That’s how I know the threatful message is from him. I don’t have many enemies, but the rare few I do have leave no stone unturned when they wrongly believe vengeance is fueling their motives. When Maximus shakes his head in response to the silent questions streaming from my eyes, I drop my feet from Cormack’s gigantic wooden desk.
