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Allegra’s heart stuttered to a stop.
CHAPTER17
The meneach pulled out semi-automatic weapons and Xavier’s pulse ticked up. He hadn’t had time to stop Graham from opening the door. By the time he realized the guy wasn’t leaving it was too late. Now he was going to have to find a way to get Allegra out of this somehow.
His Ranger training kicked in as he forced his shoulders down and remained motionless against the wall. He’d have a clearer understanding of how this would go if he stayed still and off their radar. A moment would come, a chance, when he could act. He just had to wait for it. Damn hard to do with his desire to protect Allegra drowning out any logic. He wanted to tear the men with guns apart with his bare hands. He took a deep breath and forced himself to stay still. In his ear, it was as though Jamie was speaking to him.Focus, brother.
The guy on the left was the shorter of the two and barrel-chested with blond hair. The one on the right was taller with broader shoulders. He also recognized him as the man he’d knocked out at the crash site.Great.Now they knew he was more than just the pilot for sure. He should’ve killed the guy when he had the chance.
* * *
Allegra’s heartraced after skipping way too many beats. She blinked to clear the lightheaded rush.
“Graham, what’s the meaning of this?” Damon demanded. “Are you working with these men?”
Graham had moved to the side of the room by the fireplace. “I have no choice.”
“What do you mean you have no choice? Call these men off. This is ridiculous.” Damon stood.
“Sit down, Damon,” said a voice she recognized all too well.
Haywood Adanne entered the room. He had a gun in his hand. “I said sit.”
“Haywood,” Allegra murmured. The lightheaded sensation returned as blood drained from her face. Her mentor? The one she’d called and told everything to.Shit.
“I’m sorry, my dear. You really are too smart for your own good. When you called me, I have to say I was shocked you were still alive. It would have been much better if you’d died in the airplane crash.”
Her eyes got big. “You organized the whole thing?” Disbelief coursed through her chest.
He smiled. Gone was the grandfatherly gentleman she’d always known, and in his place was a hard man. One with blackness behind his eyes where she was sure there used to be a heart.
“I told Graham to buy ApexMed in the first place. I knew, knew Cytoxine could be the drug of the future. You argued against it,” he snarled and gestured toward her with the gun. “As did you, Damon, being wishy-washy about the purchase. I made Graham force the deal. Told him it would be okay. Just make the deal and he did. It was a good deal.”
“I disagree,” Damon said. “I still think it was a bad deal. One drug that is now useless and a bunch of other smaller drugs for hundreds of millions? It was stupid but you have your word and Graham made the deal so I had to stick by it.”
“That’s why you left?” Allegra directed her question to Haywood.
“Yes, I had to go away like a good little boy. But Damon had to eat his words. Even came to me and apologized when the data came back so strong on Cytoxine. You never should have doubted me,” he said to the CEO.
“But wait. How could Graham force the deal. He could only say there was a deal, he would need legal to draw up the contracts…” She turned to Connie. “You were in on it too?”
The lawyer got a hang-dog expression on his face. His complexion had turned a distinct shade of gray. “The divorce. I knew it was coming. She wanted to take me for every penny. I needed some way to make money again.” He shrugged.
“So Graham did the negotiations and you wrote the contracts and presented Damon with afait accompli.
“Yes.” Connie nodded. “But I swear I didn’t know they planned to kill you on the flight until after it had crashed. I thought you were dead. They didn’t tell me otherwise.”
Graham snickered. “He doesn’t have the strong constitution that was needed for this.”
“So,” Damon said, “Allegra has the real data. Cytoxine doesn’t work.”
“Bullshit. It works. It just kills a few more than we’d like. It’s still by far the best lung cancer treatment drug out there. Once we launch it, we’ll keep playing with the dosage until we get something that works. But we can’t wait any longer. We need to get it to market now.”
Allegra’s stomach rolled. “The other drug. Marxten Medical. They’re getting their new lung cancer drug to market in the first quarter next year.” Allegra swore. “You rushed everything so you could beat them to market.”
Haywood glared at Damon. “I have a lot of money tied up in this one. This deal will make me a very rich man. When Damon forced me out, I lost a lot of shares. This will make it up to me.”
“What the hell are you going to do now, Haywood?” Damon demanded. “We all know the whole story. Are you going to kill us all?”
