Page 21 of Cruel Saint

ChapterEight

Gideon

“Who is he?” I barked out the second I stepped into the office of my oceanfront villa mere blocks away from Imogene’s townhouse.

I was lucky to find somewhere so close on such quick notice. That was another lesson I’d learned over the past year.

When you had money, people bent over backwards to give you what you wanted.

And I wanted this house, if for no other reason than because Liam had hoped to buy it for himself. Too bad the owner accepted a different offer — mine.

“Hello to you, too,” Henry snipped back, his tone dripping with sarcasm.

The glare I gave him let him know I wasn’t in a joking mood. Not after Imogene was attacked.

I’d been watching her since she walked into that club. I knew they’d be there. After all, I was the one who made sure Melanie received an invitation, the perks of holding a ten-percent stake in the company that owned the club.

But when I noticed Imogene follow someone out the back door, a sinking feeling formed in the pit of my stomach. Despite not wanting her to be aware of my presence, I knew I’d regret it if I didn’t follow her.

When I saw her on the ground with that asshole holding a knife to her throat, I saw red, the instincts I’d picked up after years of fighting for my life on a daily basis kicking in.

“What do you know?” I demanded, my patience already wearing thin from the night I’d had.

When I realized the guy whose neck I snapped hadn’t been the same one I observed approach Imogene in the club, I had Henry work his magic to get me a name, which he easily did, and then some.

“Name’s Benjamin Astor.” He handed me a folder.

I snatched it from him and headed toward the leather sofa, lowering myself onto it as I sifted through the extensive background report.

One thing was certain. I was damn glad I took a risk on Henry’s idea for a cyber security startup several years ago and invested in it. In the years that I was supposedly dead, his company went from making six figures a year to over ten. And because I’d given him the capital he needed to get his company off the ground, he’d made me an equal partner, with an equal share of the profits.

After I finally escaped the hell I’d been living in, only to learn the woman I fought to stay alive for was sleeping with the enemy, the first thing I did was pay a visit to the one person I felt I could trust.

The one person I knew would want revenge, too.

Henry Fontaine.

He was one of the many foster brothers I’d had throughout my years of being shuffled from home to home. Despite the instability of our childhoods, we never lost touch.

In fact, when I’d found success with my gaming platform and started my charity to help at-risk teens, he didn’t hesitate in agreeing to volunteer.

He’d once been one of those at-risk teens himself before he enlisted in the military at eighteen.

Like me, he’d formed a close bond with Jonah. Probably even more so. Much like Henry, he’d shown a keen interest in cyber security, even if his initial interest was more to learn how to hack into various computer systems.

Because Henry knew Jonah so well, he struggled to believe he would have killed me.

When I showed up on his doorstep and told him whatreallyhappened, Henry didn’t hesitate. If anything, he was eager to make them all pay, too.

To finally clear Jonah’s name.

Truthfully, none of this would have been possible without Henry’s ability to find any information I needed. While I’d studied engineering and computer science, thanks to a wrestling scholarship I’d been awarded, my knowledge of computer systems paled in comparison to Henry. It was why the NSA had hoped to recruit him after he left the military.

He almost worked for them.

Until I gave him the funding he needed to start his own firm.

“He’s another foster system success story.” Henry gave me a sarcastic look, his feelings about the foster system in this country matching my own.

---