Page 59 of Recruited By the Billionaire

As Robert began to move toward his son, the agents decided to wait and see if he could get him to tell all. “What do you mean?” Robert asked RJ. “You told who it was off?”

RJ had tears in his eyes. “I told them it was off,” he said. “I couldn’t go through with it. I ghosted them, Dad.”

But Robert, like everybody else, was dumbstruck. “You ghosted who?”

“The terrorists! Nelso Trabelsi and Ahmed Cherif.”

“Where are they from?” the FBI agent quickly asked. “Here?”

“No. From Tunisia.”

As soon as they heard it, the CIA agent ran out of the room into the foyer, to make secure phone calls to his team in North Africa.

But Robert was still puzzled. “What would you be doing with terrorists, RJ?”

“They needed an inside man. They were willing to pay half a billion dollars if I agreed to do it. When the agent said the tape had an override from midnight to four this morning, I don’t know how that was possible. I called it off. I didn’t return any of their calls and beefed up my security. I heard they went back to Tunisia.”

“You heard it from whom?” asked the FBI agent.

RJ didn’t respond to that question. And Robert’s anger unleashed. He grabbed his son by the neck and ran with him until he slammed him against the side of the fireplace. “Who told you they left the States? Who was in it with you?”

“She wasn’t in it with me. She introduced me to them, but she wasn’t in it with me.”

“Who introduced you?”

RJ started shaking his head. “Why does that matter? I’m the one responsible. Blame me!”

Robert slammed him against that fireplace again. “Who told you they left the States? You tell me and you tell me now boy!”

“Laine!” RJ yelled out and Frankie, Everly, and Jerry were all floored.

“Laine?” said Jerry.

“Laine?” said Frankie.

“She introduced me to them. She said I could be almost as rich as you if I helped them. But she had nothing to do with it.”

Robert looked around the room. “Laine!” he yelled in unbearable pain when he didn’t see her.

“Where is she?” asked the FBI agent.

Robert removed his grip on RJ and began running toward the front door. The ATF agent hurried to RJ, to put him under arrest, while everybody else ran behind Robert.

Robert hurried past the CIA agent in his foyer, bumping him aside, and flung open his front door. “Where’s Laine?” he asked the bodyguard at the door.

“She just left, sir,” the bodyguard responded.

“Which way?” asked the FBI agent.

“West,” said the guard. “She left out of the gate and headed west.”

“What kind of car?” the agent asked.

“A red Mustang,” said the bodyguard as the FBI and CIA agents began running down the steps talking in their wrists.

“Where do you think she’s going?” Jerry asked them.

“Where they always go. Home,” said the FBI agent.

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