He frowns. “Turn around.”
I let out a sigh, then say, “Okay.” Pretending to turn my attention back to the road, I see him relax slightly and take my shot. Fast as lightning my hand shoots out to grip the gun and push it hard toward the dash. Shoving down, against Chuck’s efforts, I manage to wedge the shotgun under the ledge of the dash.
Then I punch Chuck. Hard.
His head bounces off the back of the seat and his eyes cross. I punch him again, then grab the back of his head and slam it into the dash. It’s enough to knock out his lights.
I grab the shotgun out of his unconscious hand, then lean over and open the truck door. It only takes a good shove for him to tumble out of the pickup and hit the pavement. Not bothering to pull the door closed, I hit the gas, speeding up the hill. I swerve slightly, just to get the door shut, then focus on my target.
In less than a minute, I’m pulling up the long drive to my family’s estate. There’s a cop car parked out front, its lights flashing. The front door to the house is open, and there are no security guards blocking the entrance.
My heart is pounding so hard, it feels louder than the engine. I put the car in reverse and back down the road until the car is out of sight behind a stand of trees. I park, leaving the shotgun in the truck and pulling the gun out of my waistband to put it in the glove compartment. I’m a convicted felon. If I stroll up into this house full of cops and security with a shotgun and a handgun, my chances of coming out without the aid of a stretcher or in handcuffs fall to next to zero.
I walk slowly, hands out at my sides, palms up, just in case. The entry hall is empty, so I walk up the stairs, one at a time, not wanting to draw negative attention to myself. The cops worry me as much as whatever craziness has drawn them. My last name isn’t going to outweigh my police record, after all.
The hall is empty, so I hurry to the door of the suite where Lex and Sabrina have been staying. I enter silently, but the sitting room is empty and the bedroom dim. I hear the TV, some children’s show, and stick my head in to find Lex dead asleep. And alone. Where is Sabrina?
Returning to the main hall, I make my way toward the back of the house. And that’s when I start to hear the voices. I creep to the end of the hall and peek around the corner.
The door to my father’s office is open, and I can see one of the security guards talking to one of the cops outside. The guy’s face is swollen and red. Someone got a few good blows in on his head. I can see part of another black jacket going into the office, and a loud voice shouting into a radio.
“Tell them to pull that damn SUV over and arrest the man inside. He may be armed and dangerous, so approach with caution.”
The SUV. The one Luke’s been driving. Does that mean Luke’s on the run from the police?
My brother’s in there.
I know it like I know my own hands. Brent is the one masterminding this dog and pony show. Which means he’s the one who told Chuck to keep me out of the way.
Except he wasn’t here when Chuck and I left.
He’s working with Leigh.
I lean my head against the wall and wonder how I didn’t see it sooner. I knew she was playing some game, but I never would have thought that she hitched her wagon to my brother. But it makes sick sense, doesn’t it?
She’s the one who’s been pushing the pills on my father. She’s the one trying to manipulate Sabrina, to manipulate me. All the while, Brent’s been pulling her strings. Fuck.
I close my eyes and listen, trying to separate the voices. The officer in the room, the one on the radio, is the loudest voice of the bunch.
“So you’re saying he tried to rape you, in the room right outside your husband’s?”
Rape? Luke? What the fuck?
“Yes. My husband took a sleeping pill and had a glass of wine. He’s out like a light. I told you.” It’s Leigh’s voice, and she sounds both shaky and annoyed. “That asshole came into my room and tried to touch me. I fought him off and screamed, and my security guards came running. Luke fought them off and drove off.”
I don’t believe it. Not for a minute. Leigh clearly has no allegiance to the truth. What is clear is that Leigh set Luke up, and she’s back to drugging my father.
“I think we should talk to your husband, ma’am. Maybe he heard something. He could be a witness.”
There’s a new voice, smooth and warm. “I’d prefer we didn’t disturb my father. He’s recently had a stroke and hasn’t fully recovered. In all honesty, it’s unlikely he noticed anything, and if he did, by now he probably wouldn’t even remember it.”
“I’m sorry,” the officer responds. “You will testify if needed, though, won’t you Mr. Craven.”
“I’m happy to,” my brother says, and I see the officer and Brent enter the hall, my brother putting his arm around the policeman’s shoulder. “I really appreciate you guys coming out.”
I dash down the hallway, ducking into my old room. I pull the door so that it’s almost closed, but I can still hear what’s going on outside it.
“I’m sure they’ll have the assailant in custody soon, Mr. Craven.”
“I’m sure you will. And I’ll bring everyone down tomorrow to file official statements if needed.”
“Sure thing, Mr. Craven.” I listen as several sets of footsteps head toward the stairs. Looking around frantically, I find the pocket knife I’d carried around in high school to make myself look cool and dangerous. Something’s better than nothing, I figure.
I crack open the door to make sure the hallway is clear, then I move swiftly toward my father’s office. If Brent took the cops downstairs, the security detail might have followed. That leaves only Leigh and Sabrina. And if the security didn’t go downstairs with the others, I’m going to have to take them out.
And then I need to deal with my brother.
There’s no one outside my father’s office, but the door is still open. I hear a female’s voice. Sabrina’s. Thank God she’s still safe.
“You’re happy to ruin as many lives as you need to, as long as you get your way?”
“I’m happy when I’m rich. And I’ll do whatever I have to in order to stay that way.”
I pause outside the door, getting a quick peek. The women are alone. Now’s my chance. Without hesitation, I walk into the room and head straight for Leigh.
When she sees me, she jumps in surprise, then makes immediately for the door. I catch her, restraining her easily. “Yell for my brother and I’ll knock you out, hard enough for you to need a nose job.”
“Bastard,” she hisses at me. “Let me go.”
“Not gonna happen. Now that I know you’re in league with Brent, there’s no way I’m letting you escape.”
“Ax!” Sabrina gasps, leaping out of the chair she’s in. “You’ve got to get out of here. Your brother’s planning to kill you.”
She looks so worried that it fills me with conflicted emotions. It feels good to be cared about so much. But, then again, I hate to make her worry.
60
Sabrina
“You’re not supposed to be here,” Leigh grits out between clenched teeth, struggling against Ax’s grip. “If you let me go now, you’ve got a chance to get out of here alive. Otherwise, all bets are off.”
“Gambling is a fool’s game,” he replies, then covers her mouth. “I don’t have time to waste arguing with my bitch of a stepmother,” he says, his expression serious. I watch as Ax tries on a smile. It doesn’t fit. “It’s time for you to go. Grab our daughter, and get the hell out of here.”
“I can’t.” My eyes flick to Leigh. “Your brother has us on tape.”
“What?”
I can feel my face starting to heat. “The other morning. In the kitchen. Apparently there’s a camera in there, and your brother has the footage. I saw it, on that laptop.” I point toward his brother’s desk where a silver laptop is sitting with the lid closed.
“That sick son of a bitch. What did he say, exactly?”
I hang my head, my voice flat. “He told me I could either take a check and leave town and never come back. Or, he could have his security squad take us out of town and make sure we stay gone. The tape is there in case I decide to try and come back.”
I can see Ax is on the verge of losing his temper. His nostrils are flaring, his face flushed. He closes his eyes for a moment, then shakes his head as if to clear it. Then his eyes open, and he scans the room, a desperate look on his face.
Brent could return at any moment, once he’s convinced the cops to go. We’ve got to get out of here before he comes back and finds Ax here.
I see his eyes lock on the laptop and fill with a strange light. “Here’s what we’re going to do,” he says. “You’re going to grab that laptop and run to your room. Wake Lex up and get her ready to go. Then you’re going to stash the laptop in your bags, and you and our daughter are going to walk out of here. Brent wants you gone, so gone you will be.”
I look at him like he’s crazy. “Just because I steal the laptop doesn’t mean I have the footage, Ax. It’s an online security site.”
“I don’t give a fuck about our sex tape. I only care about what those cameras are going to pick up in the next half an hour. Get out, go to your mother’s, and watch the feed. Once we get Brent on tape, admitting he set Luke up, admitting he set me up and drugged our father, I want you to call the police. Not the Cape Craven police. The state police.”
“But, Ax, you can’t stay. Brent will kill you. He’s as much as said so.”
“He won’t kill me before he admits what he’s done. And once we have it on tape, he loses his control over us.”
“No,” I say, tears filling her eyes. “I won’t leave you.”
“You have to. You’ve got to get Lex to safety. Please, go now. We’re running out of time!”
Tears spill onto my cheeks as my heart crumbles in my chest. This might be the last time I see him, and I can’t think of anything to do. Except one thing.
I approach Ax, placing my hands on his chest, and press my lips to his softly.
“I love you, Ax.”
“I love you too. More than anything.”
“Come home to me.”
“I’ll do what I have to do to keep my family safe. He reaches in his pocket and pulls out his keys, passing them to me. “The truck is parked down the drive. Get out of here. Now!”
I can’t wait any longer, he’s right. Quickly, I grab the laptop and head for the door. Ax follows me, dragging a struggling Leigh with him. His supermodel stepmother weighs next to nothing, so he’s treating her more like an annoying insect than a hostage.
He pulls her to the place where the hallways meet, then watches as I enter my room. As fast as I can, I wake my daughter up. “Lex, honey, get up. We need to go, right now.”
“Mom, why? I’m sleeping.”
“You can go back to sleep at home. It’s time to go, right now.”
She groans but gets up at last. “Don’t bother to change out of your pajamas. We’re going straight home.”
I find the nearest bag and shove the laptop in it, leaving the rest of the bags behind. “Let’s go,” I say, grabbing my sleepy daughter’s hand and pulling her out of the suite.
Ax is still standing there, at the end of the hallway. I nod, take a deep breath, and tug Lex down the stairs.
Brent is standing there, talking to the security guards. The cops are nowhere in sight. “When my brother gets back, let him come into the house. I’ll notify you when I want you to take him down.”
Three faces turn to look at us as we come down the stairs and head toward the door. “What are you doing, Sabrina?” Brent asks, his voice tight.
“What you told me to do, Brent,” I reply, trying to sound as imperious as he does. “We’re getting out of town, as commanded.”
“Right now?”
“No time like the present.”
“You don’t have a car.”
“I’d rather walk than stick around here.” I struggle to sound resolute, hoping he’ll buy my bluster. I hold my breath, afraid he’ll order his security jerks to stop us, but I manage to open the door without a hassle.
“Don’t come back now, you hear?” Brent says, and the security guards laugh.
“Fucking asshole,” I mutter under my breath.
Lex is practically running at my side as we hustle down the driveway and out of sight. As quietly as possible, I unlock the truck. I’m terrified that they’re going to hear it start up and come after us to investigate, but I catch a lucky break when I see the truck is a stick shift. I put it in neutral and, with one foot out the door, I push against it to get it rolling. Then I let it coast backward down the hill.
When I know we’ve gone far enough not to be noticed, I pause to start the truck and continue pulling down the hill. Finally, I hit a spot where I can turn around, and I speed off, gunning the truck toward our house.
My mom is surprised to see us home and in a different car. I tell her I’ll explain later, then push my daughter into her arms, asking her to get her into bed. As fast as I can, I pull the laptop out and open it.
Thankfully, it boots immediately, the top-of-the-line model purring away. When Brent closed it, it was on the security website, and it still is when I open it. It takes a couple minutes before I can navigate to the right camera, but finally, I click on the kitchen camera in real time.
I see Ax standing there, staring at the camera. Waiting. My eyes scan the kitchen and lights on something out of place. One of the stools from the kitchen island is wedged under the doorknob of the door that leads to the pantry. The pantry where Ax and I—
Assuming Leigh’s been stashed in the pantry, Ax must be waiting for his brother to appear. I close my eyes, tracing Brent’s potential steps. He’d likely return to his father’s office to find Leigh gone. Would he go looking for her?
Apparently so. He appears on screen less than five minutes later, and he freezes in place when he sees Ax leaning casually against the counter.
“I wasn’t expecting to see you here,” Brent recovers. Then his head turns toward the pantry door from where muffled shouts and the sound of fists slammed against the door are coming.
“I take it our stepmother has been detained.”
Ax nods. “She has, as soon as I figured out she was working for you too.”
“I see. And you’re the one who sent Sabrina out of here like her ass was on fire.”
“I want Sabrina and Lex kept safe, far away from you.”
Brent shrugs. “I’m sure she was eager to go. I wrote her a very large check, which I don’t suppose she mentioned. You should have taken the money when I offered it to you. Now, it’s too late.”
“Too late, huh?”
“Yeah,” Brent replies, a sharp grin on his face. “Because now I’ll have to make you disappear.”
“I suppose so since I know what you and that bitch have been doing to my father. And I know that you lied about Luke, just like you lied about me. I’m a loose end, one you need to tie up. The problem is, I don’t exactly understand why. You’ve been fired. The Cravens no longer control Craven Industries. What is the point of all this now?”
“I should have known you’d be too blind to see it,” Brent says, slapping himself on the forehead for comic effect. “I should have just let you keep fucking that cheap townie, keep you distracted. You wouldn’t have even noticed when I stole our father’s company from him.”
“I thought you were drugging him to keep him out of your hair. But you made every textbook mistake of business management, and the board tossed you out. So why keep drugging Dad?”
“Every mistake is right, almost like I did it on purpose, right?”
I saw Ax’s eyes widen. “You did do it on purpose. You tanked the stock on purpose.”
“Bingo.” Brent struts closer, and it’s like I can see his head inflating. “Step one: Get Dad out of the way so I can take over. Step two: Tank the stock on purpose while making back
room deals with a couple of the more progressive board members. Step three: Secretly buy up the stock at rock-bottom prices.”
Brent is counting the steps off on his fingers, and his tone is like a frat boy bragging about the size of his penis. “Then get Dad declared incompetent, which means his shares will revert to his wife’s control. Leigh’s shares and the ones we buy up means we have a controlling interest.”
“You’re going to take over the board.” I can see that Ax is shocked. He shakes his head. “And I was wasting all this time trying to frame you for insider trading. You went ahead and did that, and more, behind my back.”
Brent laughs. “With our controlling interest, we’ll run the board. And we can finally start moving manufacturing offshore.”
“I fucking knew it. I knew that was at the heart of all this. Craven Industries is an American company. You knew Dad would never let you move our operations out of the U.S. just to make a profit.”
He nods. “And now Dad’s out of the way.”
“Well done,” Ax says, his tone sarcastic. “But what I still don’t understand is why? You could have run Dad’s company well, with his blessing. Why do things this way?”
“Because he never would have let me run it the way I wanted. He was constantly harping on me, ridiculing my ideas. He never wanted me to have Craven Industries. He wanted you to have it. I was tired of living by his rules, tired of living in your fucking shadow. So I took matters into my own hands.”
“And you didn’t care about who you hurt along the way? You didn’t care about sending your own brother to prison? Just like you’re going to send that mercenary to prison for something he didn’t do.”
Brent scowls. “That mercenary deserves it. He double-crossed me. So Leigh did me a little favor.” His face breaks into laughter. “Man, was she pissed when he wouldn’t have sex with her. It’s hard to make up a rape case when your rapist won’t fuck you.”
“As for you,” Brent continues, looking Ax up and down, “you deserved it too. I had to get you out of the way before I started this whole plan because I knew you would catch on and try to stop it, although I see now that maybe I overestimated your abilities. Nevertheless, I had you tossed in jail, then I went looking for a woman I could get to seduce our father, someone who knew wealth but didn’t have any. Leigh was perfect. She’s been cut off by her ultra-rich family, so she was ready to do what had to be done.”
Billionaire Biker's Secret Baby_A Bad Boy Romantic Suspense Page 42
