Page 60 of Indecent Secrets

There, staring up at me on the phone, was a photo of Leigh. She was out cold, with finger-shaped bruises on her throat. Duct tape was over her mouth and bound her hands and feet together. She’d been placed in a bathtub, arranged so that her head rested on the bottom of it.

The implication was clear. If I didn’t do as I was told, that bathtub would fill with water, and she’d drown.

My entire body went cold, and then hot with rage. This was nothing like when I’d seen Bill trying to ask her out. That was a candle flame, and this was an inferno. I was going to tear this man limb from fucking limb for this.

My fingers twitched and I almost reached across the table to wrap my hand around a chunk of his hair and bash his head into the—

I took a deep breath.

He couldn’t know who I really was. I had to play the part of Jack Lawton for just a little while longer until Leigh was safe and sound. I wouldn’t be able to manage that if I lost my temper now.

“You son of a bitch,” I said, keeping my voice a low, startled growl.

David pulled his phone back. “You really shouldn’t have let anyone figure out what she meant to you. But that’s all right. You’re new to all of this.”

“I wasn’t aware that kidnapping was a regular part of the corporate world,” I snapped.

“Your uncle wouldn’t see reason, either,” David said, his tone impatient. “I worked on him for years. And finally when I thought he’d put me in the will and trusted me… it turns out he’d chosen you. A nephew he hadn’t seen in, what, twenty years? It was insanity. But that was your uncle for you. The man was an asshole.”

David continued on. “But I’m not going to let stupidity get in my way. My father has worked for this company and kept it going for decades. He deserves it. And I deserve it, too. Either you stand down, and you give the company to me, or I finish off your girl.” The prick smiled. “Let me guess. You bought into her little spiel about the environment and the little guy and all that, didn’t you?”

I looked away, as if it pained me to have him guess correctly. But under the table, I clenched my hand so hard around my knee I felt a knuckle pop.

This man wasn’t going to make it through the night if I had anything to say about it.

“What do you want me to do?” I asked, far more calmly than I felt.

I pulled my phone out, as if waiting for instructions, but instead sent a prepared ABORT text to Jack.

My original plan had been for the real Jack to show up, startling David into a confession. It was the only way to get him arrested. But our plans had changed. I wasn’t going to give him the luxury of a cushy white-collar jail upstate.

Now, Jack would know that the mission was aborted and he was to stay away until I contacted him again with different instructions.

David chuckled. “Put that away. I have everything drawn up for you.”

He pulled out a file from his briefcase and passed it over to me along with a pen. “Just sign on the various dotted lines, they’re all marked out for you. I’ve made it easy.”

I had to hold in a snort. I took the pen with acted reluctance and signed all the various places, knowing my signature meant jack shit on the papers. “And what about Leigh?”

“If you can behave yourself during the entire transaction of the company over to the board, specifically my father, then she’ll be returned to you safe and sound.”

I handed the papers back over, knowing that David had just lied. He had no intention of letting Leigh go free. I wasn’t sure why—unless he was aware that she knew he’d killed once before. Which meant, she knew too much.

In fact, he probably thought I knew too much and he had plans to arrange for something to happen to me, too. Or rather ‘Jack’.

“As long as she’s safe,” I said. “Look, she’s not—it’s not as serious as you think. I don’t know why you think that, but we haven’t known each other that long. But she’s a good person. She doesn’t deserve this. So please, let her go.”

“Don’t worry. It’ll all be taken care of,” David assured me. He waved our server down to get the check.

It fucking boiled my blood to have to pretend to grovel to this man. But I did what had to be done. And soon… soon he would get what he deserved.

When I arrived back to my hotel room, I didn’t waste any time. David was probably smart enough not to keep Leigh at his own place in case I called the police, but he wouldn’t be able to take her to just any hotel.

That left one place he could go.

I strapped up with blades but left the guns in my hotel safe. Ballistics were annoyingly easy to track. Then I slipped on a pair of leather gloves to conceal my fingerprints and headed out.

Breaking into the place was as easy as I’d suspected. Older people like David’s father had a hard time upgrading their security to fit the opulence of their residence and much of what they had was preventative—it was to alert the police or other emergency services rather than protect against, say, actual violence against the property. Once the alarms were disabled, it was easy to slip into his house.

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