Page 15 of Papers Don't Lie

“I was thrilled to play this game with you, but now your clock is ticking, and you have to come back where you belong. Willingly or not, my precious.”

I sit up in bed, taking the blanket off me. This is clearly a threat, and whoever sent it isn’t even trying to say it in a subtleway. I trace a palm over my face, trying to wake up so I can think this through.

“Does it have a signature or anything?“

“No, sir.”

I release a breath. “I need your advice, Kendrick.”

“My advice?”

“Yes, your advice. Do you think we should get involved in this?” Truth be told, I don’t even know why I’m asking when deep down, I already know the answer.

He’s silent for a while, only quiet breaths going through the speaker. “As the man who’s part of your security team, no, we shouldn’t get involved. But as the man whose sister went through a similar thing, I’d help Esmeray with no second thoughts.”

Kendrick is the best man I have and the one I can always count on. He’s loyal and logical. He’s everything I need for my right hand to be.

“Alright. Give me her address.”

“We’re doing this?”

“Yes. Hope we can help her the same way we helped Liane.”

“Sending you her address now.”

“Alright.”

“And sir?” He stops me before I can end the call, his voice reluctant. I still don’t like he insists on calling me sir or Mr. Graves, but if that’s what he wants, I’m not the one to force him to do something against his will. “Thank you. I never forgot what you did for Liane.”

“No need to thank me, Kendrick. I’ll always be here if you need me,” I tell him before hanging up and getting to my feet.

And when I say that, I mean it. Liane, his sister, was in an abusive relationship for eight years until she decided enough was enough. The guy simply refused to leave her alone. Whenshe finally got close to someone else, he broke into her house and used her as a punching bag. She was unrecognizable.

Getting rid of him was what any rational man with a power like mine would’ve done.

Thankfully, she’s now happily married.

I’m not certain Esmeray Hamilton is going through the same thing, but if she is, I won’t back down from helping her. She might be a stranger, after all, and while that should have me second-guessing, I believe she was brought into my path for a reason—even if I didn’t see her in time and ran over her with my car.

It takes me twenty minutes to dress up and to be in Kendrick’s car on our way to Diamond Hotel, where the troublemaker is currently staying. It will be hard to make her believe we’re truly on her side, just like it was with Liane, but she’ll understand eventually that we’re the only chance she has. If she lets us, she can get out of whatever nightmare she’s in right now.

“So she never left the hotel, you say?” I ask Kendrick, who’s in the driver’s seat.

He looks at me through the rearview mirror. “No, sir. Not even for groceries. The only time she leaves is when she’s changing locations.”

“She must be really scared, then.”

Kendrick nods, looking at the road in front of him. I squint my eyes at the worry settled on his expression. He’s spending most of the time with her. It’s no wonder they grew close when she needed someone the most.

“You care about her, don’t you?”

“Yes, but not the way you’re thinking. When I look at her, everything I see is Liane.”

Liane and her husband live in London, far away from what she had to live with here in New York. It was hard for Kendrickto accept her decision to move out of the U.S., but he understood her reasoning after some time. Truth is, I wouldn’t want to live here either after everything she’d been through.

The car stops, and before I can get out, Kendrick talks. “You should take it easy on her, sir.”

A small laugh twists on my lips. I get out and walk inside the hotel, going directly for the lift. Two seconds later, I’m knocking at her door, but no one replies.

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