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Dexter
The helicopter circles the ranch and I feel a pang of regret as we wave to Maisy and Jason, who stand watching us go. Every time I leave this place, I am already planning my return, but life always gets in the way.
This time I have Holly beside me and Sam beside the pilot and I can’t imagine this ever changing. I have it all, at least I think I do, and as much as I loved waking up in Holly’s arms this morning, I know I will not allow a repeat when we return to the city. I can’t because then I would be breaking my own rules and opening past wounds that have never really healed.
Holly is excited but nervous and just being in the helicopter is something I doubt she has ever experienced and so I spend the journey explaining the places we pass over and answer her questions. The more time I spend with her, the more I enjoy her company because she has a quick wit and is always asking intelligent questions.
As soon as we touch down on the helipad at Media Corp, I feel the pressure return and watch as everything happens like clockwork as we are met by Helen who is waiting with my two security guards.
Helen looks at Holly with interest, and I’m guessing she has many questions that will never receive a direct answer. Only Holly needs to know the details of our relationship and so I leave her to scramble after me as we leave the helicopter and deliver her to Helen to take under her wing.
If Holly’s surprised at my lack of attention, she hides it well and I don’t give her a backward glance as I head inside my empire and prepare to rule.
My head of security whispers in my ear and I feel the anticipation build as he fills me in.
My security team follow me and Helen and Holly bring up the rear with Sam walking a discreet distance in front.
My entourage. They always surround me and as I step into my private elevator that takes me straight to my executive suite of offices, I love the feeling this place gives me. It wraps me up in destiny and allows me to make the world a better place, or worse, depending if you’re on the receiving end of a very bad day at the office.
As soon as I step out of the elevator, I know he’s here. Easy enough to guess when I see the bastards he brought with him littering my visitor’s area. Dirty bikers with more tattoos than skin and a fuck-off attitude that scares the fuck out of my staff.
Leaving Sam to organize the chaos, I head into my office and say roughly, “Help yourself, why don’t you?”
Ryder is sitting in front of my desk with a shot of whiskey, studying his phone, and an arrogant grin breaks out across his face when he sees me enter the room.
“What time is this to come to work, man you’re losing your grip?
“Who says I haven’t been working?”
I drop into my seat and grin. “Good to see you, what’s the news?”
“I thought that was your speciality.”
“It is but as we know, you’re the one that makes it for me, so what’s the story with Holly’s stepbrother and who the fuck is trying to bring our organization down?”
I am excited to discover what he knows and he shrugs. “I know who it isn’t.”
“Seriously, Ryder, you’ve come all this way to tell me what I already know. Don’t make me hate you more than I already do.”
He laughs and raises his glass. “Turns out Colton was trained in ghosting our systems. He was an IT major and excelled at university. He was head-hunted for a rival organization to ours who have been ghosting us for months. Tapping into our phones, computers and records. All the time under an invisibility cloak that you can only find if you know it’s there. Impressive.”
“It sure is. So now?”
“It’s been ghosted right back. Colton bargained for his life by showing Brewer how it worked. He had the passwords necessary to divert the information to a different server. The person responsible doesn’t know the information we are now feeding them is what we put there with a specific purpose in mind. Our usual information has been filtered through a different server, one that this organization has no access to and so the hunter is now the hunted as we play a game of cat and mouse.”
I lean back and reach for the whiskey myself because this is serious shit. “And Holly’s parents. What do they know, does she need to pay them a visit?”
“I doubt it. Her father’s already back in the field and her stepmother is cheering herself up in the South of France. Caring bastards, aren’t they?”
I feel my insides twist with rage when I think of Holly being treated by her family as disposable. She has absolutely no one who cares for her and I don’t like how that makes me feel inside. Pushing that aside for later, I snarl, “So, who is behind it and don’t fucking tell me you don’t know.”
“I don’t know.”
Ryder grins as I throw up my hands and shout, “Are you fucking serious?”
“Like I said, I know who it isn’t, and that’s the four of us.”
My blood runs cold. “So, the fifth…?”
