Page 58 of Alpha Bait

"What kind of personal question," I replied heavily.

My brother cleared his throat, "It's about Indie Holloway"

"That's beyond personal."

"I know you're still seeing her.”

"I am," I confirmed.

I had no desire to go deeper into this with my brother. He already knew more than enough as it was. I had been all right with exposing the truth to him thinking that I would be leaving New York City with Indie.

I felt compelled not to leave the city and even more compelled not to bring up Indie again. Thinking about her only made making decisions more complicated.

My brother replied adamantly, "I don't think it's worth the risk."

It had been a long time since my brother had been so emphatically opposed to one of my decisions for the company. We both remained on the line in a sort of stunned silence until I gain the courage to speak.

"Don't think what is worth the risk?"

"You remaining. Indie will understand that you have to leave without her."

"Leave without her?" I grumbled, "You seem to have it all planned out for me."

"We do," my brother replied.

Ah, there it was. The last bit of bad news.

My brother replied, "we intend for you to leave tonight. You have no choice. The lawyer signed the documents and we need to get you out of here."

I chuckled. There was no way he could've planned for this to happen so urgently. Didn't the lawyer say we had time?

"What's the rush?"

My brother had been busy since Selena's funeral. That had been clear.

He replied, telling me that they had reason to suspect that Gail Holloway might act next.

"If she has any reason to make good on her threat, she should start with her own family."

"I know. But it's been agreed upon that Selena was the aggressor. Donnie acted in self-defense, which means that we were the ones who stepped out of the line and breached the agreement."

I realized that this wasn't about the law after all. My brother was concerned, not for the legal ramifications I might face but the ones on my life. Gail Holloway's threat had been quite clear. If you go against her wishes and desires for peace, she would consider you a fair target.

Ruining my social life in New York would be easy. She could expose secrets about me, events from my past or my present that I wished to keep private. I run a multi-billion-dollar company so those are bound to exist.

I clenched my jaw thinking of the sort of dirt that Gail could come up with. There was no shortage of it. And to make it worse, it wasn't all of New York I cared about. It was Indie. What would she think if she knew about some of the raging parties my fraternity had thrown? What would she think about my teen summers partying in Brussels? And what would she think about all the women I had dated... All of them.

Indie didn't know much about my past but when it came to dating there wasn't much to be proud of. I've been with a lot of women. She likely suspected that, but when she knew the extent of my deviant ways as a young man, perhaps she would see me in a different light.

Some of these women were in New York royalty--people Indie would probably despise. I wasn't ready for her to know my past... Not like this. She deserved a conversation, not the tabloids.

That wasn't the only dirty laundry I was afraid of airing. Gail could find out things about me that I might not have even remembered. I wasn't sure that she was above leaking false info either. Fake tabloid articles had as much potential to damage my current standing as anything else.

"How far do you think she will go?"

"From what I've heard, she's furious."

I questioned my brother again on where he had received his information. Again, he refused to disclose.

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