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“That’s it!” Abigail shouts, giving her a hug. “Maybe I should leave the baking to you.”
Cole smiles at the interaction between Savannah and Abigail and leaves the kitchen to head to the conference room.
“How’s the…?” Mark points to his side as he takes a seat at a large table in a conference room downstairs.
“Annoying,” Cole grunts, feeling the burn from within his deep cut.
“I bet it is.” He winks. Classic Mark. He’s always thinking about food or getting laid.
Guess that’s not such a bad obsession.
Daniel, Keith, Paul, and John take their seats around the table while Cole fires up his laptop and gets Frank on the conference call. His face flashes on the large screen on the wall, and Cole centers the microphone between them.
“Logan, good to have you back.” Frank nods as he rustles some papers on his desk.
“Good to be back. How is Mills doing?”
“All things considered, he’ll be just fine. Has a long road to recovery, though.”
Cole spends the next hour going over every detail of what happened. Meanwhile, Frank is emailing his snapshots of the two main men who were helping The American, and one recent one of Luka Donavan, still in Mexico.
“Strange that he’s still there,” Cole says, leaning back in his seat. “I would have thought he’d be hightailing it back to New York to warn the mayor I’m gone. They know they screwed up by telling their dirty little secret.” All the men look at Cole, clearly wondering what he’s referring to. “Luka and Lynn,” he explains, “her best friend and family friend, are the two who are behind this whole shit storm.”
“What?” Mark nearly chokes on his coffee. “You mean to tell me that Savannah’s only real family, the woman she talks about all the time, is behind her kidnapping?”
“Yes.” Cole nods. “Not only was she behind it, but she hired a guy to pose as a potential client for the company to take Savannah out and to get her home at the right time for those savages to take her.”
“What about her father?” Frank asks, fishing for a lead. “Anything there?”
“According to Donavan, when her father got word she had been kidnapped and Luka was behind it, he decided his little pistol was better off staying withLos Sirvientes Del Diablothan to be there with him getting in his way.” Cole makes a face. “He is up for reelection, and with his daughter being kidnapped, his votes skyrocketed. He knew she was eventually going to be killed, and dear old Dad did nothing about it. He completely wrote her off.”
“This is insane,” Keith mutters, getting up from his chair. “How do you tell her something like this?”
“You don’t,” Frank says, moving toward the camera. “Until we have proof of this, Savannah is not going to hear about it. She’s been through enough already.”
Cole glances at his father, who is watching him. His father shakes his head, agreeing with Frank’s decision.
Shit.
Cole drops his gaze, knowing it’s best right now to keep quiet. She’s been through too much.
Mark turns to Frank. “Okay, so what now?”
“Now, we start to dig.”
Savannah
I lie down on the floor and shimmy myself under the branches of the Christmas tree. It was something I always did as a child, looking up at the lights and enjoying how they lit up the needles and made it look so pretty. It is a peaceful thing I haven’t done in a long time.
Scoot finds me in a matter of seconds and jams up next to my side, purring for affection. His big brown eyes close as I rub his belly.
I take a deep breath through my nose and let the smell take me away to a childhood memory where my mother and I chopped off a few branches to make a door to the snow fort we had worked on all afternoon. Dad came out with a tray of hot chocolates with marshmallows, and we all crammed into the fort and enjoyed our snack.
I hear a click and bend my head to see who it is. I find Keith holding a camera and grinning at me. He kneels and turns the camera around so I can see the picture. I laugh when I see Scoot’s and my legs sticking out from the bottom of the tree.
“Now, that’s funny.” He offers me a hand to stand. “Cole asked if I could find you to see if you’d join him for lunch. He’s just finishing up some paperwork in his office.”
“The man never stops, does he?”
