Page 80 of Desperate Needs

She was a part of me now. Woven into the fabric of my thoughts and dreams.

And no matter how hard I tried to fight it, I couldn’t shake the truth.

I needed her back, desperately.

Soon, Darlin’.

“You better have a good reason for showing up here, Callahan,” Josef Aziz sneered as he watched me stealthily from across the room.

“I do.”

“Good, because as far as I know you're a dead man walking on borrowed time.”

“Now, now. Is that any way to greet your future son-in-law and business partner?” I asked, goading the bastard.

“Over my dead fucking body,” Aziz snapped.

“If that's what it takes,” I assured him.

He narrowed his eyes, leaning back in his chair as he considered me.

I wasn’t there to shake him down or make threats. But I needed him to understand how serious this was. How serious I was, especially about Clementine.

“You got past my firewalls,” he grumbled.

I nodded. There was nothing to say about that.

“I could forgive that. But you played my daughter. My precious, innocent baby girl, and that I can’t forgive,” he snarled.

“First, I got past your firewalls because your guys got lazy. Second, I am not playing when it comes to Clementine. I have every intention of marrying her.”

“The fuck you will.”

“The fuck I won’t. I’m not asking your permission. That’s between me and her. Now, do you want to talk about this,” I growled, folding up my cell phone and flashing him the screen showing where I accessed Sigma’s innermost files.

“You know Callahan, maybe I misjudged you. Maybe you have enough balls to handle my little firebrand. Now, sit down and start at the beginning.”

I paused, recognizing his rumbling for what it was. This was a man who loved his family. His daughter was precious to him, and I understood the feeling.

Even if I was salty about how he’d let her get kidnapped when she was a kid.

But if my Darlin’ could forgive him and love him like she did, then I supposed it wasn’t for me to hold a grudge.

Besides, his wife had been in a bad place at the time, and that was something I also understood.

If anything happened to my little Darlin’, I’d—fuck, I hated even thinking about it—but I’d set the whole world on fire.

“What? You want to hear about my childhood?” I scoffed, goading him just because I was fucking giddy he didn’t just shoot me.

Plus, I had a thin Kevlar vest beneath my shirt and jacket. I wasn’t stupid.

“Fuck no. First, I wanna hear about what you did to send my Clementine asking me for help. She hasn't done that since she was 12 years old,” he said, one eyebrow raised.

“Yeah, I know all about that. I read the reports about how you let her get fucking kidnapped,” I growled, anger surging through me.

“Fuck you.”

“Fine. Let’s not talk about the shit job your team did then. But if you want, I will tell you how I managed to get this key card that let me all over your fucking place. As a matter of fact, Aziz, I have access to every fucking inch of your business and I did it all with this,” I said, and held the phone again.

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