The Billionaire Deal

by Lori Ryan

  Frustrated, Chad rubbed a hand over his face. “You need to stop this, Mom. Jack loves Kelly. They’re married. It’s over. But more importantly, you have to listen to me. I don’t want to be the CEO of the company. I love you, but I also love what I do for a living. I need you to hear that, Mom. I need you to respect it. Respect me.”

  His mother’s face fell.

  “I love you, Mom, but I don’t love what you’ve been doing lately, and I don’t love the person you’ve become. You can’t do this anymore. If you can’t stop, you’re going to lose me. I know you’ve been angry since Dad left and you took that anger out on Jack’s parents, and lately on Jack. It needs to stop.” He walked out, leaving Mabry alone again.

  Mabry sank back into the armchair and sat quietly for a long time. She tried to feel indignant. Or angry. Or righteous. But she suddenly couldn’t feel any of those things.

  As she replayed her son’s words in her head, she knew he was right. Chad was right. When did I become this person? The changes in her had started when her husband walked out on her.

  As she sat there and thought about what Chad had said, Mabry realized she didn’t like herself much either. Ten years later and she was still allowing him to hurt all of them, through her.

  Oh God, what power I gave him. I let him do so much more damage than he deserved to be able to inflict.

  It was as if she was waking up from a deep sleep and was finally able to see what was truly happening around her. The tears began to fall, and she cried for a long time before pulling herself together.

  Mabry was ashamed as she sat in Jack and Kelly’s living room thinking about what she had been doing. But she also knew she needed to go make it right. With a sigh, she pulled herself up and went up to her room. She packed up her bag and drove the half-hour to Jack’s office to do just that.

  Chapter 52

  Jack’s intercom buzzed, and his secretary announced that his Aunt Mabry wanted to see him. Jack groaned, wondering what on earth she had up her sleeve now.

  He didn’t know how much more of her intrusion he could take, and there was no way he’d let her chase Kelly off now that he’d figured out how he felt about his wife.

  “Send her in,” he told his secretary as he closed the file he had been reading.

  Mabry didn’t come sweeping through the door with the grand presence she usually cultivated.

  Instead, she walked in as any normal person would. He looked at her for a minute and realized that, at that moment, she looked more like the aunt he remembered from his childhood.

  He had missed the way she used to be.

  “Is everything okay, Aunt Mabry?” Jack asked as he eyed her warily from behind his desk.

  “No, Jack. I’m afraid it’s not.”

  He looked at her face and realized she’d been crying.

  “I owe you and Kelly an apology,” she said, and she let out a whoosh of breath with the confession. She looked down at her hands as she twisted them in her lap, and Jack saw tears welling up in her eyes.

  “I’m so ashamed, Jack. I’ve been awful to you and Kelly and before that, to your parents.” Tears began to fall down her cheeks and she swiped at them with the backs of her hands.

  Jack was stunned as he watched the transformation before him.

  “I don’t know how things got this bad. Somehow, you went from being the nephew I loved to being…well, I don’t know, Jack. There’s nothing I can say to make this right. But, I can see that you and Kelly love each other,” she continued and Jack burst with happiness inside when she spoke of Kelly’s love for him. Now he wanted to hear it from Kelly herself to be sure. He wanted to see if they could share a life together.

  “It’s all right, Aunt Mabry,” he started to say, but she cut him off.

  “No, it’s not, Jack,” she said firmly again, with a shake of her head. “I know that now. I want you to know I’m going to get help with this. I got so lost after Dan left me, and I’ve been angry and hateful ever since. It was like a poison washing through me. And I let it change the way I saw everything and everyone around me. Chad tried to tell me so many times what he wants and I never listened. I never saw how much my hatred and anger was hurting all of you, because I never wanted to see it.

  “I want my life back. I want my family back. It’s too late with your mom and dad, and I’ll never forgive myself for that—for how awful I was to them—but I still have you and Chad and now Kelly, and I don’t want to lose you.”

  Jack watched her cautiously while she continued.

  “I know it’ll take time to earn back your trust, and I won’t ever be able to make everything up to you, but I’m going to try. I packed my things and I’m headed back over to my place. I’ll get out of your hair so you and that sweet new wife of yours can enjoy yourselves without your old aunt getting in your way.”

  Jack laughed and came around his desk to hug his aunt, and hoped that this truly was a genuine change for her and a chance for him to have his old aunt back.

  “But, I do expect invitations to dinner from time to time. And, Chad should come too. I don’t see my own son often enough,” Mabry insisted.

  “Does this mean you’ll call off your private investigator?” Jack asked and he laughed, relieved to be able to put all of this behind them.

  Mabry pulled out of his arms and looked at him quizzically. “I didn’t hire an investigator, Jack,” she said.

  Chapter 53

  Jack felt his blood run cold and the air being sucked from the room. He gripped his aunt by the shoulders. “You didn’t have Kelly followed, Aunt Mabry?”

  She shook her head, pain and fear as the situation dawned on her evident on her face. “No, Jack. Oh my God. No, I didn’t.”

  He grabbed his cell phone and dialed Kelly’s number, but it went straight to voicemail.

  Panic swept through him, but he pushed that down and tried to stay focused. She was probably busy at the clinic or out shopping and couldn’t pick up the phone. He tossed the phone to his aunt.

  “Keep hitting redial.” Jack picked up his desk phone and dialed Chad.

  “Chad, I need you right away. Kelly’s in danger.”

  He hung up and looked to his aunt who was repeatedly hitting redial.

  She shook her head at him—Kelly wasn’t answering.

  While he waited for Chad, Jack called the legal aid clinic, all the while chanting in his head. She’s fine, she’s fine, she’s fine.

  They told him she had left an hour ago and they hadn’t heard from her since.

  Chad arrived in Jack’s office in a matter of seconds and Jack gave him an update.

  Chad looked somber as he dialed the man assigned to Kelly. He spoke briefly into the phone then hung up to update Jack.

  “She hasn’t hit her panic button at all, but he’s been parked on the street out front and he never saw her leave the clinic. He’s headed into the clinic right now to check it out.”

  “I called there. They said she left already,” Jack said.

  “Let him check it out, see if he finds anything. In the meantime, let me get one of my tech people to your house to set up a trace, in case we get a call.”

  While Chad and Jack talked, Mabry stepped out the door and asked Jack’s secretary to get Andrew right away. Minutes later, as Jack paced back and forth, knowing in his gut that Kelly was in danger because of him, Andrew slipped into the office and got a quick update from Chad.

  Jack was cursing himself for putting Kelly in danger because the only explanation now, if someone had her…was they were after his money. If he hadn’t married her, she wouldn’t have been a target connected to him; there would be no reason for anyone to take her.

  And, if he had taken this threat more seriously, like he should have in the beginning, she would have had a bodyguard right next to her instead of down the street. Jack wouldn’t forgive himself if something happened to the woman he loved.

  Chad’s phone rang, and he answered it to get a report from his man in the fie
ld. His face was grim when he hung up the phone.

  “He found Kelly’s purse in the dumpster at the back of the clinic, and her car is still parked out front. Her phone and alarm are still in her purse,” Chad reported.

  “Then no GPS to track her,” Jack added.

  “One of the staff at the clinic said that Kelly and another volunteer named Denise took the garbage out to the dumpster on their way out this afternoon, so she left by the back door. She should have walked down the alley and around to her car out front. It looks like someone grabbed her in the back alley. She probably didn’t have time to go for her panic alarm,” Chad continued.

  Jack felt as if he had been shot in the gut. He should have increased her security as soon as Chad found out about the rotating license plates instead of waiting to talk to her tonight. He had just found Kelly. He couldn’t lose her now when he finally knew what it was like to live your life with someone else, for someone else, instead of being alone. He couldn’t imagine his world without her.

  Chad quietly doled out assignments. “Andrew, I want you to liquidate assets and free up as much cash as you can, in case we get a ransom demand. Mom, contact Kelly’s family and get them over to Jack’s house so we can have everyone in one place. Jack’s secretary can get you in touch with a car service to get all of them, wherever they are.

  “Jack, you head home now in case there’s a ransom demand before I get there with tech support. I’m going to check in with some contacts I have at the New Haven Police Department and FBI. I’ll be a few minutes behind you.”

  Chapter 54

  Kelly’s head throbbed when she woke. She felt nauseated and confused as she tried to shake the foggy feeling in her head and rid the cotton from her mouth. Panic set in when she realized her hands and feet were bound with thick layers of duct tape and she was in a room she didn’t recognize.

  She felt as though a band was tightening around her chest, suffocating her. Waves of panic swept over her and bile burned at the base of her throat.

  She was lying on the floor in a typical bedroom, a bit small. It was daylight out. There was a twin-sized bed, and a torn-up upholstered chair in the corner, but that was it. The room was bare, other than those two pieces of furniture.

  Kelly fought to pull details from her mind, grasping at threads of memory so thin they seemed to fall from her mind before she could see where they went. She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths and pictured herself earlier in the day. It would have been noon when she was grabbed. She had left the clinic at noon.

  She could remember walking out the back door of the clinic. Denise had asked her to take the trash to the dumpster on her way out, so she left through the back door even though her car was parked out front. Out front—where her security detail would have been.

  She struggled to remember, but felt like there were holes in her mind, like her brain wasn’t quite functioning right. She could remember someone coming at her from behind as she walked out into the alley, then a strong, sweet smell filled her nose and overwhelmed her before she blacked out. Nothing about the memory seemed right, like trying to put together pieces of different puzzles.

  Tears were flowing freely now. Kelly could picture three men surrounding her, and she remembered seeing a van with two more men before she passed out. The men had worn masks….

  Staying calm was no longer an option. Fresh waves of sheer terror bolted through Kelly’s body. She closed her eyes tight and tried desperately to calm herself, but she had never felt a level of dread and utter anguish like this.

  Her mind started running through all the ways that this could end, each image sending her into further panic until she felt as if she would choke on the fear. Then one image stopped her catapult into darkness. Jack.

  Jack taking her in his arms. Jack holding her, safe again. She didn’t know if Jack’s Aunt Mabry was responsible for this or not, but she knew one thing. He would find her.

  Kelly latched onto that image and tried to take deep breaths.

  You can do this. You need to stay calm and figure out how to get yourself out of here.

  She looked around and assessed the room. There were muffled voices outside the door to the room. It sounded as if all of the men were out there, but she couldn’t hear what they were saying.

  She did hear the sound of a television as it played in the next room. Kelly hoped that would mask any sound she made as she tried to move and release her bonds.

  She stayed as quiet as she could so they didn’t realize she was awake and studied her surroundings, trying to understand her circumstances. She was sitting on the floor with heavy layers of duct tape around her ankles and wrists. There was tape over her mouth too.

  Thankful that they had bound her hands in front of her body instead of behind her back, she found she could use her hands a bit. She reached up with her hands and pressed her lips together to fight the urge to cry out, then pulled the tape from her mouth. She left the flap of it hanging from one corner so that she could put it back if they came in.

  Kelly began to take inventory of the room.

  Is there anything I can use to get out of here? Look around, Kelly. Focus.

  Swallowing another wave of panic, she saw how little furniture there was in the room, how hopeless her situation was. She again forced herself to take deep slow breaths. She needed to look out the window.

  Kelly lay down again and began to roll sideways, moving herself slowly and quietly toward the window. She was methodical in her movements to avoid making noise. She rolled up onto her knees, placed her bound hands onto the windowsill and levered herself up to look out the window. It had been nailed shut.

  She appeared to be up on the third floor of what looked like a small apartment building. She could tell because there was another, similar building across the street, and she wondered if she could signal anyone over there but didn’t see any movement in the windows.

  It was hard to hold herself up at the window with her ankles bound so tightly, but she made a mental note to look out the window again every fifteen minutes to try to get someone’s attention.

  Kelly turned and sat on the floor, leaning her back against the wall. There were two other doors in the room in addition to the door leading to the voices. After resting for a few minutes, she rolled over to one of them.

  A closet. Empty.

  She rolled to the next door and opened it. A bathroom. It was as empty as the rest of the apartment. No shower curtain. No towels or bathmat. Kelly took a deep breath and rolled to her knees, put her hands onto the sink and pulled herself up. She hopped up onto her feet and bumped her lip on the corner of the sink.

  She swallowed the urge to yelp at the pain and shoved open the medicine cabinet above the sink. Empty. She reminded herself to be methodical, cautious…to think.

  She crouched back down and rested on her heels. Think, Kelly, think. That was her mantra now, to keep her focused and calm.

  She looked up at the sink. It could provide a long-shot possibility; there was no other way to get out. Kelly remembered watching a child safety video when she was little. Their parents played it for her and her sister and brothers all the time. It had this cheesy caped safety hero who taught safety for kids. She had a sudden memory of a scene in the movie.

  The sink. Turn on the taps and let the water run over to flood the apartment below.

  She thought about it for a minute. She would need to turn it on low so the men outside the door wouldn’t hear the water running. And she had to fill the safety drain hole in the basin by the wall. Balled up toilet paper did the trick. She just hoped she had enough time for it to overflow if it poured at such a low rate—and that there was someone below to see it.

  She figured she could listen to the kidnappers and come turn the flow up, or try to break a window and call for help if she heard them leave the main area.

  That seemed like a long shot though, because there were five of them. It was unlikely they would all leave at once, so Kelly knew her bes
t chance was to focus on silent ways to alert others of her location. The open sink faucet might be her only shot.

  Kelly turned the tap on low and plugged the drain, then rolled back into the bedroom and lay down where they had left her. She put the tape back onto her mouth and closed her eyes, and tried to picture Jack. She squeezed her eyes shut as tightly as she could and blocked out the fear by picturing herself safely in Jack’s arms.

  Chapter 55

  Chad had set up shop in Jack’s living room and he, Jack, and Andrew were working every angle possible to locate Kelly and get her back, but there were virtually no leads. Roark had arrived and was helping Mrs. Poole where he could. For once, she didn’t shoo him away. In fact, Jack thought she might be leaning on the man for support and Jack was glad for it.

  Kelly and Mrs. Poole had grown very close in the last month.

  Kelly’s family had been brought to the house and Mrs. Poole was doing all she could to comfort them but there was not much comfort anyone could offer them—and there wouldn’t be—until Kelly was found. Her mother was as white as a sheet, surrounded by her husband and children. She was as strong as Kelly and was holding herself together as they waited for news.

  Jack didn’t think he had ever felt so afraid in his life. Or so angry. He had just found Kelly. They had just started their life together. He hadn’t even told her he loved her or that he wanted their marriage to be real. He needed time with her. He needed her in his life.

  If he got his hands on the people who’d taken her from him, he really believed he would rip them apart with his bare hands. It was a level of anger and hate he never imagined he could feel.

  Chad got off the phone with one of his connections at the FBI. “Jack, it’s not good news. This afternoon, four other women were grabbed, all within the span of three hours. They’re all wealthy young women about Kelly’s age. The FBI have been called in to all of the other families’ homes. Since we haven’t officially reported Kelly’s disappearance yet, we can keep them out of it for now—if that’s what you want to do.”