Page 63 of Recruited By the Billionaire

“What is it?”

“She’s had a visitor before you called, sir. One of her girlfriends. But we have a guard inside strictly as a precaution.”

“Okay good,” Robert said, the gate opened, and he drove on through.

“Nice digs for a twenty-year-old,” Frankie said as she looked over the beautiful home and grounds.

“She’s twenty-one,” Robert said, “but I get your point.” It was more evidence of how he wrecked his own children.

Robert parked along the horseshoe driveway, opened the door for Frankie, and then they both hurried to the entrance. Robert walked in without knocking. Which wasn’t his style at all. He gave his children their autonomy. But what she had done ended that privilege.

But when Robert and Frankie entered the well-appointed home, they saw the guard inside the home at the door. But when they entered the living room area and saw Everly seated on the sofa with a young white girl not that much older than she was, with a suitcase by her side, Frankie stopped in her tracks.

“Britney?” Frankie said, shocked. “Britney Zackery? What are you doing here?”

Britney rose to her feet as if she was panicking. Everly rose too. “What are you doing here, Daddy?” Everly asked.

“You know her?” Robert asked Frankie about Britney.

“Yes I know her. She was on my copyediting staff when I worked for Druce-McMillan Publishing. You two know each other?” she asked Everly and Britney.

Then he realized what Frankie had said. “Zackery?” he asked. He looked at Britney. “Your father is Parker Zackery?”

Britney looked at Everly. “You said he’d never know,” she said in a voice of panic. “You said--”

“Just shut up!” Everly yelled. “You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

Robert stared at his daughter. “We have it on film,” he said to her.

“You think Britney’s father bankrolled the attack?” Frankie asked Robert.

“That’s exactly what I’m thinking.”

“But why?”

“Because he wanted that NFL expansion team as bad as I did. He was a part of one of the forty different major conglomerates the NFL was considering. But I was selected.”

“Not because you deserved it!” Britney spate out. “My father worked hard his whole life to get what he had. You never worked a day in your life except in a bedroom and they just gave it to you.”

“Bullshit!” Robert yelled. “I wasn’t born rich, are you joking?” Then he dismissed her, and looked at his daughter. He couldn’t begin to understand his children. “Why would you even think to do something like that?”

“I didn’t. But I overheard RJ plotting it with those Arabs or whatever they were. When he backed down, I told Britney about it. And she told her father. And that’s when the plan was hatched. Only it was the same plan as RJ’s. But only with Americans doing the dirty work.”

“And my daughter,” said Robert.

“That too,” said Britney. “But a lady that works for you helped us. Laine Peters.”

“Daddy, I had nothing to do with it,” said Everly. “They forced me,” she also said. “I was a hostage!”

“That’s a lie!” said Britney. “Nobody forced you! My dad agreed to pay you ten million dollars if you did it. I have the money in this very suitcase right here!”

Robert exhaled. “The police and the Feds will figure it out. I’m done,” he said. Then he looked at the guard. “Call 911.”

But Britney grabbed Everly and pulled out a gun of her own. She placed it at Everly’s head and yelled. “You call 911 and she’s dead!”

Robert and Frankie both motioned for the guard to not continue. The guard sat his phone on the side table.

“Britney, don’t do it,” Frankie said as Britney began walking backwards with Everly as her hostage.

---