Page 72 of Alpha Bait

My plane landed and I exited the first with the rest of the first-class passengers.

"I hope you had a wonderful trip, Mrs. Gregory," the first-class flight attendant said to me.

I smiled and nodded, leaving the plane with my new passport clutched in my hands.

International travel always has far greater security than domestic, so all Ames could arrange for me on such short notice, and without detection, was a trip into Los Angeles. The city was far enough away, and I could assume a new identity without anyone tracking me down. Ever.

I'd be free. Phase 2 would go into effect a few days after my departure to make detection more difficult.

I had wanted to go to Italy, ideally, to have a chance of being with Richard again, but Ames assured me the risk was too great. He promised to help but I had to do everything he asked, including forfeit my dreams of hiding out abroad.

I shed my identity easily. It was the life I thought I would have that I had the hardest time letting go of. As far as everyone in New York was concerned, I was dead. At least, that's what they would think in a few days.

If Rich asked, if he looked and tried to find me, he would find out that Indie Holloway had been killed in a horrible car accident. Ames had even manufactured evidence, something that had only cost me a few snips of hair, blood and a bit of cash.

We had no choice. If I reached out to anyone from my old life, I would risk being found by my brother and thus having violated the contract between me and Will, we would have to give up 75% of our family wealth to that bastard, Will.

There's always an escape clause. My brother never expected I'd choose death.

My brother had never guessed that I would go to such extremes to avoid this arranged marriage, but he had been wrong about me. My allegiance to my brother had died the moment he pulled away from that old country colonial in his Mercedes with a smile on his face. I realized how much I had kept doing what was best for the family and ignoring what was best for myself.

I'd lost Richard for them, and Jamal attempted to sell me off like a shank of lamb meat.

I could start over in the City of Angels, living my new life as Patsy Gregory. I had appointments with doctors and plastic surgeons who could help me to alter my appearance enough so that I would not be as easily recognizable as Indie Holloway the heiress who was supposed to be dead. I'd have to stay out of the public forever, but I could at least work once the surgeries were done.

Until surgery, all I had to do was lay low. Ames might not have been able to secure me billions of dollars like I would have been assured by my family, but he gave me enough to settle down on. He considered the generous gift to be a token of good faith, a promise that if this all died down there could truly be peace between our two families again.

If I'd had my way, there would have been. The deeper I fell for Rich, the more I realized we were more different than alike.

I didn't hold onto such hopes that the feud would die down soon, but I appreciated Ames' sentiment. This new city represented escape, escape from my duty, escape from my brother, and an escape from the powerful grip the Holloway family feud had always had on my life. For once, I was making a decision based off of what was good for me. That feeling was hard to beat.

Ames had replicated similar credentials for me to my real ones, fudging realistic degrees and records so bulletproof that he promised even trained police officers would have trouble proving that I wasn't really Patsy Gregory, the Middlesex school graduate who had then attended Stanford and then UCLA.

Neither my mother nor my brother knew where I had gone. I expected I would see the news of my death on the television when Ames' work was complete. For now, my only job was to get settled and live out my new life as Patsy.

It was easy lying to the people in my building. The apartments were luxurious, and this meant that the residents were none too interested in my business. They were far too busy with their own lives to notice the single black woman who had moved in.

Even my contact with Ames dropped to a minimum the moment I boarded my flight. I would receive no more updates, no more communication. All I had was my trust in him and my trust that he would not screw me over or betray my location to anyone. My brother had made it clear he would go to great lengths to satisfy his ambitions, stepping on anyone who got in his way including me.

After only a day or two, my curiosity began to surge. What was happening in New York? How is everyone coping without me? Had my brother gone to new lengths figure out where I hid?

Despite my desperation to find out more, the television and the Internet would provide me with the no answers. There wasn't even the slightest clue as to what everyone back home thought happened to me. I prayed Ames wasn't harmed before he could complete his work.

The hardest part, even harder than letting go of Rich, had been letting go of my mother. The last time I had spoken to her, I could sense she was suspicious but she did nothing to stop me from leaving without telling her the truth about where I would be going. While she had talked tough, Jamal had proved through his actions that any of mama's threats would be rendered useless.

Part of me realized that she had grown to fear him in the weeks since my father's passing. He had grown colder, more stern, and more justified in exacting his cruel ideas without a second thought for others' opinions.

He hadn't always been so authoritarian.

At the time, I had believed that I could plead with my mother to stop Jamal from marrying me off like I was chattel. Her response indicated her powerlessness and that was what had ultimately pushed me over the edge, and given me the strength to run away to the west coast.

My heart burned with the desire to tell her the truth, but I couldn't.

Reaching out to Richard would have been even more dangerous. All I could do in California was wait, wait, wait.

To keep myself company, I decided to go down to the local animal shelter and adopt a pet. In our childhood, we had always had dogs. Our dogs were bred for fighting. Each one was a thick, muscled Rottweiler that my mother had been terrified to let me near. I had always wanted a dog of my own, one that was far from purebred with a free spirit and a loud yapping bark.

At the shelter, I disguised myself with a cheap wig I bought from a costume store, large black sunglasses, and a thrifted sundress. There was no chance of recognition, but I was still paranoid. Essentially, I wore clothing that Indie Holloway would never get caught dead in.

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