Page 155 of Morally Black Betrothal
Instead, he just smirked.
He was baiting me, of course. That was his goal.
Well, that was his first mistake—letting me see any item on his agenda.
“Let me guess.” I crossed my arms. “The move into mortgage shorts was supposed to be a pleasant surprise for Daddy, but it didn’t quite go as planned. So now you’ve got to make up for the losses by blackmailing me. Have I got that right?”
He said nothing, but the coloring in his cheeks told me I was right on the money.
Typical.
I started to walk in a slow circle around him. It was almost too easy, throwing him off this way. Better men knew it for the power play it was—a move to center them as prey—and they’d almost immediately disrupt the circle, whether they knew it or not. Idiots like the one in front of me tended to freeze like a deer in headlights. Wait like fools for the invisible trap to be set.
Ezra turned with me but didn’t move out of the invisible circle, like he’d trapped himself. “You don’t know anything.”
“I know enough.” I let him sit with that for a bit while I walked. It was only after I’d completed the circle that I turned to him directly. “Where’s the kid?”
That smirk reemerged. “Oh, I think we have some other things to discuss before?—”
“Where?” I snapped just hard enough that he recoiled, hands up.
“Easy, Black, easy. What do you take me for?”
“I don’t know. Police might like the name kidnapper.”
He just snorted. “I’ll tell you when I get what I asked for.”
“You’re not going to get shit. You think this entire building isn’t already crawling with security? You think I didn’t have a fuckin’ manhunt out for this child and a tail on you the second I knew you were responsible?”
It was a bluff, sure. I’d tried to tail him last night, but Mac wasn’t able to find him with so little information.
Huntington rolled his eyes. “Big bad Brendan Black, threatening the world. You forget you’re not speaking to one of your lackeys. My family has just as many resources as yours. Maybe more, since we don’t act like Boy Scouts to get shit done.”
I snorted. This fucker had no idea what my family had done to get where we were today. All that I’d take to the grave.
“Ultimately, it’s our story versus your pathetic future sister-in-law,” he said. “Do you know anything about the family you’re marrying into, Black? I went to high school in that bumfuck town. My father’s last attempt at turning me into something ‘respectable.’ He didn’t realize that the only thing to do in Woodstock, Vermont, was getting high and fucking milkmaids.”
It took me four seconds to lug him against a steel pole running from the ceiling to the floor and land a punch to his gut before dropping him again.
“Goddamn it!” he choked out.
“Keep talking like that, and you’ll get worse than a half-assed undercut.” I straightened my collar. “Where’s the girl?”
To my surprise, he leered. “Oh, she’s here.”
“Then make the call.”
He spat. A bit of blood hit the floor. “Not without my due. You know the terms.”
I shook my head. “You fuckin’ moron. Did you really think I was going to hand over whole parts of my company? You don’t think you’re gonna get nailed for trafficking and extortion and a whole bunch of other shit?”
“Based on what? This little girl found us. My assistant found her wandering around outside some dump in Rhode Island alone and unsupervised. We tried to take her home, but it was not a place fit for a child. Her criminal of a mother missing, drugs present, open containers of alcohol, not to mention theplace was covered in filth. We were only holding onto her until CPS called us back.”
The pieces of his story hit me like bricks—hard, then sliding into place. Ezra was stupid, but not enough to make such a claim without evidence. And one night with Selena Bishop in my house had told me the woman wasn’t worth the gum on Simone’s shoe. Conveying the message verbally through Selena, wherever they had found her, was yet another way to maintain plausible deniability.
I could easily see how they’d set it up. That shithole where Simone had lived could be broken into with a toothpick. Even if Selena didn’t actually do the things he was suggesting, what little Simone had told me meant that most judges wouldn’t be predisposed to side with her in a trial.
The unfortunate reality was that Ezra was right. I wasn’t the only person in town with money to buy people off. Even if that was the laziest way of doing things.
