by Katee Robert
Anderson hesitated, but if he had figured his way out of this situation, he would have done it when Elliott first showed up. He was obviously outmaneuvered by his father, and not in a position to turn away assistance, even from Frank and Beck. He picked up the beer in front of him and took a long pull. “He’s organizing a merger with Cardinal Energy, though it only goes forward once Eliza and Asher Bishop are married.”
“A marriage to cement a merger?” Frank raised his eyebrows. “Outdated, don’t you think?”
“It doesn’t matter what I think. Elliott pulled that shit off all on his own. I tried to go around him to finesse the deal, but the Bishops won’t talk to me, and the board of directors seems to be permanently unavailable.” He cursed. “I only had a couple hours before I heard about Eliza’s accident, but I will get her out of this. I just need time. She didn’t give me any fucking time.”
“It doesn’t make sense. If the marriage is the determining factor for the merger, then keeping Eliza safe and in good health should be Elliott’s priority. What the hell does he gain from nearly killing her?” Frank picked up his beer and set it down again without drinking it.
“He doesn’t deal well with people defying him.” Anderson moved his beer bottle a precise inch to the left and glared at it. “He’s capable of anything.”
The whole thing reeked of a personal vendetta, which made sense if they took it as Elliott reclaiming what he felt Lydia had stolen from him.
Or punishing the children who escaped him.
Frank shook his head. This meeting wasn’t going to get them anywhere. They could spend hours going back and forth. It wouldn’t change anything, and Journey wouldn’t be in any less danger.
He slid out of the booth and stood. “I suggest you get a secondary security detail on both Eliza and Bellamy for the time being—as well as on yourself. Better to be paranoid than to be dead.”
Beck propped his elbows on the table. “Where are you going?”
“To do what I’m good at—fixing the fucking problem.”
Chapter Nineteen
After Samara left, Journey strode into her bedroom and grabbed her phone. She had two missed calls from her mother. She hesitated. Telling Lydia anything at this point was a risk, but there was a chance her mother might have valuable information about Elliott—information that she could leverage into forcing him to leave. She took a slow breath and dialed her mother.
Lydia didn’t make her wait. “You’ve been avoiding my calls.”
“I know. I’m sorry. Things have been complicated.” She walked to the window in her living room overlooking the street. Nothing seemed amiss out there, but Journey still moved to her door and double-checked the locks. “Elliott is back in town.”
Silence for a beat. Two. “Has he hurt you? Any of you?”
Warmth flooded her chest, tangling with the betrayal she still hadn’t quite dealt with. Her mother was just as capable of evil as her father, but Lydia had never hurt a child—would never hurt a child. It’s just the adults who have to watch out for her. “He’s made a play for Kingdom Corp. Why didn’t you tell us that he helped get the company off the ground?”
“Because he didn’t,” Lydia scoffed. “Elliott likes power, but he’d never part with the kind of capital I needed at the time.”
She stopped short, her mind racing. If not Elliott, then…“Esther.” Elliott’s mother. Journey’s grandmother.
“Yes. Whatever he’s doing there, she’s the one behind it.” Lydia lowered her voice. “If you need me—”
“No, absolutely not.” She put as much calm assertion into her voice as she could. “You know what will happen if you come back. We have things covered.”
Despite her lying through her teeth, Lydia accepted that. “I expect you and your siblings in Monaco for Christmas this year.”
That broke the tension better than anything else could have. Journey rolled her eyes. “Mother, it’s February. Christmas is ten months away.”
“All the same.” Lydia hesitated, but when she spoke, steel laced her tone. “You can deal with Elliott, Journey. He’s going to try to convince you that you aren’t capable, and your brothers will try to step in, but you can deal with him. Break him. Don’t let him break you.”
She found herself smiling despite everything. “I’ll deal with him. And we’ll be there for Christmas.”
“See that you are. Good luck, though you don’t need it.” She hung up, leaving Journey staring at her locked door.
Her mother seemed to have every confidence that Journey could handle the situation and that they’d all be vacationing in Europe over the holidays to celebrate.
She blew out a breath. “Okay. I can do this…Okay.” She scrolled through her contacts and dialed, holding her breath and praying she wasn’t making a terrible mistake.
The line clicked over. “Yes?”
She swallowed hard. “Hello, Grandmother.”
“Journey. So wonderful to hear from you. It’s been quite some time.” If Esther Bancroft was surprised to get Journey’s call, she gave no sign. But, then, if Lydia’s suspicions were correct and she was the one behind Elliott’s determination to take over Kingdom Corp, Esther had to know one of the King children would be calling eventually.
“I know. I’m sorry.” She wasn’t. The Bancroft family had rallied around their discarded son after Lydia threw him out. Though her mother kept her from the worst of it, Journey vividly remembered eavesdropping on a meeting with Lydia and her lawyer where they discussed how ugly the battle had become. She had never filed for divorce, and Journey firmly believed that it was because the Bancrofts threatened to take the children and ruin her business in the process. Elliott had generations of family prestige and money to fall back on and ensure he got his way. Lydia had no one, not after her split with the rest of the Kings.
After the lawyer laid out how awful their chances were and left, Lydia had called her brother Nathaniel—the only time in Journey’s living memory that she’d done so voluntarily. She’d…she’d begged him for help.
And he refused.
Lydia had no choice but to bend to the Bancroft family’s wishes and stay married to Elliott, and one of those wishes entailed mandatory visits to the family home in Dallas during the summers. Journey had fought hard against going, but her mother finally sat her down and stressed the necessity of using every weapon available.
The second Eliza turned eighteen, they were free. The visits stopped, and she hadn’t had to endure more than a quarterly phone call since.
Esther’s definitely going to hold that against me.
“Grandmother, I think it’s long past time we had a talk. Are you in town?”
“I just arrived from Dallas this morning,” Esther said.
If she hadn’t suspected Esther was aware of what Elliott was up to, her grandmother’s presence in Houston would have announced it in blinking neon. The only time she came into town was to deal with something that couldn’t be delegated, preferring to stick to the Bancroft estate just outside of Dallas, running a good portion of Texas from her drawing room. “Are you available?” She checked her watch. Frank said he’d come over tonight, which still gave her plenty of time to meet with her grandmother and get back to the apartment before he did. Journey wasn’t stupid enough to go somewhere without telling anyone, but she didn’t want company for this particular meeting.
“For my beloved granddaughter? Be at the apartment I keep in town within the hour.”
Journey gritted her teeth and then forced a smile, hoping it would translate into her tone. Her grandmother held a place of power in any negotiation they had going forward, and they both knew it. No reason to hand her yet another weapon. “I’ll see you then.”
“I’m looking forward to it.”
I’ll just bet you are. The only thing the Bancrofts loved was power. Esther, in particular, had scared the shit out of Journey as a child. She had a way of looking at a person as if she could see down to their very soul—an
d she always found them wanting.
Journey changed into a fitted black dress that managed to be her version of demure, and pinned her hair up in a simple style. She would have to hurry to make it inside of the hour timeline, but the only thing guaranteed to distract her grandmother from her purpose was showing up inappropriately attired. God forbid.
My family’s priorities are so fucked up.
After letting José and Ethan know where she was headed—and waiting for them to grab their car so they could drive her over there personally—she arrived at her grandmother’s Houston residence.
The high-rise building was on the newer side and so expensive that the suites were mostly owned by out-of-town billionaires. Journey waited for the doorman to check her info and then left the men in the lobby and headed up to her grandmother’s floor. Stepping off the elevator was like stepping into the past. Esther had apparently decided to bring a little piece of home with her when she visited, because the suite was decorated identically to her rooms back in Dallas, right down to the little Pomeranian statues arranged carefully on the vanity. Creepy, as always.
Esther rose as Journey walked in, as regal as a queen. Her cloud of white hair was pinned perfectly in place, and she wore a designer dress that managed to convey wealth and power without beating the viewer over the head with it. She extended a gloved hand. “Granddaughter.”
So we’re going to play it like this.
Journey stalked to Esther and placed her hands over the old woman’s. Despite having left seventy in the rearview several years ago, age hadn’t conquered Esther yet. She stood straight, her face smoother than it had any right to be. Probably bathing in the blood of virgins. “Grandmother.”
“It’s been some time since I’ve seen you.” She held Journey’s arms out and cast a critical look over her. “Stressed and brittle isn’t a good look for you, my dear.”
She extracted her hands and took a small step back. “As usual, your warmth astounds me.”
“Attitude.” Esther shook her head. “You get that from your mother. My Elliott never talked back the way you children do.”
No, he always kept a calm and cheerful voice when he was giving his children a lifetime’s worth of scars.
Over the years, they’d gone through this song and dance more times than Journey could count. “As delightful as this is, I’m not here so you can tell me all the ways I’ve disappointed you over the years. This isn’t about family. This is business.” The Kings might not differentiate between the two, but the Bancrofts sure as hell did.
Esther stilled, shifting from grandmother to a cold stranger in the space of a heartbeat. This was the woman who had taken a prestigious family name and old money and turned it into an empire that spanned a good portion of the country. “You should have led with that.” She motioned to the dark wood table situated in the corner opposite the door. “Tea?”
“No, thank you.” She didn’t necessarily think her grandmother would poison her, but she’d also never thought that her father would orchestrate a car accident that put Eliza’s life in danger, either. The rules on what was and wasn’t possible seemed to change daily, and she wasn’t going to get caught flat-footed.
Esther took a seat opposite her and waited for Journey to do the same. She folded her hands. “Now, what is it that brought you to my door?”
The phrasing made her sound like some kind of Mafia boss, which should have been absurd, but only a fool underestimated Esther Bancroft, blood relation or no. Journey lifted her chin. “I want you to call off your dog. You’ve made your point—Kingdom Corp owes its existence to you. Tell me what you want and I’ll see it done—on the condition that Elliott leaves Houston and never comes back.”
Esther considered her, the steely blue eyes that ran through the Bancroft family showing nothing. “Never come to the negotiation table from a point of anger, my dear. It makes you look weak.”
Damn it. She held her grandmother’s gaze, refusing to look away or show how overwhelmed she felt. “If you want to nuke the company, there are more effective ways to do it than letting your youngest son meddle with everything because he thinks he’s untouchable.” She paused, smothering any show of emotion. Esther wouldn’t respect it, and it would only undermine Journey’s argument. “Which leads me to the conclusion that you want Kingdom Corp mostly intact for whatever you have planned. With Elliott at the helm and the rest of us driven out, all the key employees will be gone within a month—two at the most. He’s been here a week and he pissed off the tech department so thoroughly, they would have walked if not for me. That would be impressive if it wasn’t so damn dangerous.”
A slight tightening around Esther’s mouth betrayed her irritation, though it didn’t show on the rest of her face. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, but my Elliott is more than capable of running the business if that’s what he’s decided to do. I’m not his keeper.”
Journey snorted. “You don’t believe that any more than I do. He requires a keeper. He’s a mess. He’s always been a mess.”
“And you’ve historically had issues with your father.” Esther narrowed her blue eyes. “You’re too old for such petty vendettas, my dear.”
There was nothing petty about her issues with Elliott, but she wasn’t stupid enough to trot them out now. It would make more sense to hand a loaded gun to her enemy and paint a target on her chest. Esther and the rest of the family considered Journey and her siblings as Kings, rather than Bancrofts. What they would do for each other, they wouldn’t do for them.
The image of her mother after that meeting with the family lawyer skated through her mind. The only time she’d ever seen Lydia look something close to defeated. If my mother couldn’t best them, how in the hell do I think I can?
She shoved the dark thoughts away. She had to power through this as if Esther were just another business competitor. That, Journey could handle. “Even if you—excuse me, I mean Elliott—had planned on replacing key employees, replacing an entire department is costly and ineffective. We have the best Houston has to offer on staff, and you won’t convince them to stay with him helming the ship.”
Esther sipped her tea from its porcelain cup. It had frolicking kittens painted on the side, which just added to the surrealism of the moment. “You assume that your father isn’t making choices to best benefit the company. You’re taking this whole thing rather personally, aren’t you?”
“Choices to best benefit the company. Funny you should say that.” She folded her hands in her lap. “Explain to me how orchestrating a hit-and-run that almost killed Eliza is benefiting the company?”
That got Esther’s attention. She straightened, something resembling worry flickering across her face. “Is she well?”
“As well as can be expected considering the circumstances. Quite a coincidence that she was on her way to the airport to jet out of Houston and never return when it happened.”
Understanding dawned, quickly replaced by cold calculation. “You can’t honestly think that your father had anything to do with this. Eliza is instrumental in moving Kingdom Corp into the future. Elliott wouldn’t endanger that over something as petty as her leaving town.” Esther sighed and leaned back. “You always were a dramatic child. Elliott would never hurt one of his children. Never.”
Frustration bloomed, and she had to press her lips together to stop from screaming at her grandmother. Hurt was the only thing Elliott was capable of doling out to his children, and Esther wasn’t stupid. Even if she didn’t believe Lydia’s claims on behalf of the children, she was more than capable of looking into things and coming to her own conclusions. Whether she had done that or not was irrelevant. She knew what he was accused of, and she had the gall to make that statement to Journey’s face.
There would be no winning this argument today. Esther was too smart to concede anything now, but she was also too smart to let her son continue fucking things up. She would rein him in. She had to if she didn’t want a full-on rebellion on her
hands. The only reason she would have sent in Elliott was to ensure what passed for a bloodless coup.
She knew that wouldn’t happen now.
Journey would go down fighting, which meant things would get very, very ugly.
Very ugly wasn’t good for business, and if there was one thing Esther prized above all others, it was business.
Journey set her jaw and stood. “Thank you for seeing me.” She turned and strode toward the door.
She barely made it three steps before her grandmother’s voice stopped her.
“I hear that you’re seeing that boy, Frank Evans.” She tsked. “Honestly, Journey. Even if you’re set on infuriating your family, dating one of his kind is going too far.”
She spun on her heel and glared. There was no mistaking what Esther meant. “Racism isn’t a good look for you, Grandmother.” There was so much more to say, but Journey reined in her rage. It didn’t matter what Esther thought of Frank. He was better than her—better than all the Bancrofts piled together. She lifted her chin. “I highly suggest you bring your mad dog to heel before he does something irreparable. Time is of the essence.”
She walked out and this time her grandmother didn’t call her back. It was just as well. Journey had nothing else to say.
She had to believe there was still time to save the company. To save what was left of their family.
She pushed the button to call the elevator, and a prickle crept down her spine. Journey turned, her hand going to her purse where she’d stashed her gun, but the hallway was empty. A flash of a reflective surface caught her eye, dragging her attention up to the camera situated in the ceiling. Many residences had security cameras—her own included—but she couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was on the other side of those cameras.
