He’d tried playing it off with her as something he wanted for convenience and for Starling. Being Starling’s dad did it for him in ways he couldn’t wrap his head around. Being Natalie’s husband and Dominant? He planned to wrap himself around those two things for the rest of his life.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
There was no point in acting like he didn’t know what she was talking about. “Because you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. And when I look at you it simply makes me happy. And thankful. And horny.”
She snickered and he hugged her again. “Always honest.”
Completely. Minus one majorly important conversation when he almost messed up the best thing that had ever happened to him. He opened his mouth to confess how bad he’d fucked up when all the lights went out. Again.
Her head fell against his chest and he gave her another hug. “At least it’s in the middle of the afternoon this time and not like last night when you were still trying to file in the back. And we can still see. Sorta.”
“Love the silver lining attitude. Must say, though, I’m thinking about trading it in for an easy button. Better not be the same breaker the electrician fixed this morning. The lights going out gives me a serious case of the willies lately.”
He laughed and kissed the top of her head again as she let go. “Why don’t you go get Starling and bring her up front? I’ll call the electrician and get him back down here to take a look at what went wrong.”
“Sounds like a plan. See if he has an easy button on his truck somewhere,” she mumbled as she went down the hall toward her office.
“At least we still have coffee.”
“I finished it right before my lovely parents got here.”
“Dammit.”
“How’s that silver lining doing now, Mr. Tough Guy?”
“You make fun of my kryptonite, young grasshopper. For this, I will make you pay later.” And for the rest of my life if I’m lucky, Campbell added to himself. He waited for a second for her witty comeback while he flipped through the contacts on his phone. But nothing came. “Natalie?” he called over his shoulder.
He tried the electrician, but the phone went directly to voicemail. He hung up. “Gonna have to try the electrician back in a minute.” Still nothing. “Natalie, are you all right?”
He turned around to go after her and the blood froze in his veins.
Natalie backed down the hall, slowly, step by step with a man a few feet away from her on the far end of the hall. Each step of hers revealed a tiny bit more of the person moving closer. Several footsteps more and Campbell cursed, low and vicious.
He tried to move forward but a familiar voice said, “Don’t even try it.”
As they continued to move toward him, slowly the man came into view. He held Starling in one arm, her little body completely limp.
The fucker holding her had done something to her as he held a gun on Natalie. A person he’d trusted, liked.
“What do you want?” Natalie asked.
“That’s far enough at the moment.”
She stopped moving and Campbell gripped the counter behind him, trying so hard to fight the instinct to run headlong at the man he had considered a friend. “What are you doing, Jay?” he asked, with bile rising in his throat as he said the man’s name.
Jay looked him square in the face. “Taking back what’s mine.”
Chapter Thirty
Natalie
The panic button.
She needed to get to the panic button underneath the counter, behind where Campbell stood. The police would come. Fire department.
“Move out of there, Campbell. And you, Swan. Get out in the middle of the front area.”
“Why would you want to go out there, Jay? There’s cameras out there. Let’s talk about this. It’s a misunderstanding.”
He laughed, but it didn’t sound funny. It was dry and methodical. “What cameras? I turned the fuckers off using Campbell’s code before you guys started going at it.” He rolled his eyes and stepped toward her.
Natalie automatically took a step back and jolted when Campbell moved next to her.
He placed her behind him and then backed them both up as Jay stalked closer. “What have you done to Starling?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
The muscles in Campbell’s jaw flexed but he stayed quiet.
“Don’t worry. She won’t be your concern much longer.”
“What do you mean? You’ve never been very fond of her. I’ve never seen you hold her or talk to her. Why go through all of this for a baby you don’t like?” Natalie tried to keep it together and focus on Jay, but her gaze was drawn down, again and again to Starling’s limp hand.
“I wasn’t certain if she was going to be collateral damage or not. Like the runt of the litter. No point in getting attached if it wasn’t going to make it.”
“What?” Natalie asked, completely unable to wrap her head around the pile of awful he’d just spewed forth.
“She’s my daughter.”
Campbell pulled her tight against her back as she swayed on her feet. “Your daughter?” Campbell asked. “Her father died in a car accident.”
“My buddy died with my wife when a drunk driver did my dirty work. I’m sure the cops will figure it out eventually but that doesn’t really matter. By then I’ll have disappeared with Starling and you’ll both be long dead.”
“You’re what? Starling’s father?”
“In the flesh.”
“But why would you want Wren dead? That makes no sense.” Natalie eyed him, trying to make her brain cells connect the dots, but fuck if she could get the panic to subside long enough to play the game.
“She was going to tell you it was me the whole time. Getting a case of conscience at the very end pissed me the fuck off. We’d worked for years to get where we were and then she started feeling bad because you were nice to her. She was in it with me from the very beginning and then you turned her against me.”
“How could I be anything but nice to her? She was so sweet.”
Jay cackled, jostling baby Starling, and Natalie’s heart must have stopped beating. “Sweet? Are you kidding me? Who do you think was trying to kill you?”
“Uhh. What? I thought you tried to run me over?”
“We both did. Took turns, you know? Gave the other one the alibi each time. Epic planning on our part. But the first fire? That was her. All her idea.”
“But who are you, Jay?” This time it was Campbell who asked the question.
“I am my father’s son. Our father.” He looked at Natalie and her core temperature plummeted until she felt frozen inside.
“You’re my—brother?”
“Half-brother to be exact. Our father fucked a woman on the side for years by the name of Geraldine Montree. She was a conniving, manipulative woman who I’m sure was only with our father to extort money out of him.”
“And that’s your mother?” Natalie realized she kept repeating each question but Jesus.
Jay nodded. “His mistress. My mother. And your mother knew about her apparently. Hated her. Not shocking. When she got pregnant with me and I came out, the boy your father’d been waiting on, my mother named me Blue Jay, just to piss off your mother.”
“You said your mother put you in a dumpster.” Campbell said it just as Natalie thought to ask it.
“Lied. And you bleeding hearts bought it. You bought everything.”
“But Wren’s husband’s name was Jonathon.”
“Jonathon Blue Jay Montree. Should have been Grant,” he added through gritted teeth.
“My mother knew about you? My father knew about you?”
“Of course,” he sneered and waved the gun around a bit.
Campbell squeezed her wrist to keep her in pla
ce and firmly behind him.
“But they never told me about you. Why?”
“I was a bastard. I don’t think our father ever really believed I was his son anyway. My mother was quite a whore actually.” The expression on his face made Natalie completely pause. It wasn’t upset, accusatory. Not at all. It was nothing more than conversational.
“I’m so confused,” Natalie told him outright.
“Not shocked. I’m that good.”
Campbell’s muscles stiffened and she latched on to his shirt at his back to keep him in place.
His gun.
Beneath his shirt in some kind of shoulder holster.
She’d forgotten he always had it on. Seeing him put it on every morning, and take it off every night, it had become commonplace.
Thank fuck.
“But the police went to your apartment,” Campbell reminded him. “And they’ve been watching the place. Surely you haven’t been staying there anymore.”
“Assholes rushed me along. It wasn’t supposed to go down exactly like this so all of my plans had to be moved up.”
“But wait, you don’t have a vehicle. The car Wren was in when they died. It was the one you guys used to run me down. It had to be your buddy’s. Was he in on it too? Why would he just let you—”
“He didn’t know. But I needed a vehicle to use that wasn’t registered to us if you guys ever got enough info on it. I was helping do computer work on the side for him in exchange for borrowing it. Guy was oblivious. Probably fucking Wren on the side too. They thought they were so smart. As if I didn’t know. Served them right for what they got.”
“Her daughter? Or your daughter?” Campbell asked him, distracted him.
“Ours. Maybe. Wren was jacked up on drugs when I found her. She was perfect for what I needed.”
“Which was what exactly?” Natalie prompted.
“A brood mare, of course. With the right name to give you a taste of a clue you never put together. I needed her pregnant and desperate so she could use this place to get close to you.”
Campbell spoke to Natalie, “Is that why you were so close to Wren? Because she used the clinic twice?”
Natalie nodded without taking her eyes from Starling. Her little arm was still hanging limply off the side and she kept willing it to move. “Wait,” Natalie breathed. “That means Hazel was my niece.”
“Half-niece.”
“And so is Starling.” She talked over Jay as realization dawned on her. “I really am next of kin.” She glanced up at Jay. “Or does she have extra family somewhere else that haven’t even been notified yet? Oh my God, you would have killed your wife and your daughter and your friend and you’re just fine with it. How horrible!”
“Horrible? You think this is horrible? I’ve spent my entire life standing on the outside looking in and you think this is horrible. Of course you do.”
Natalie took a deep breath so she didn’t rise to the bait. “Why Hazel? Why take her out?”
“I didn’t. A drunk driver did.”
“Wouldn’t be surprised if you had someone in the wings to kill them and you just lucked out.”
“I was waiting for them at home.” He shrugged. “Moot point though when they never arrived.”
“But why Hazel?” Natalie couldn’t let it go. She had to know and stalling seemed like the thing to do even though she shook so hard she wanted to fall over.
“She got in my way. She kept talking about how wonderful you were and you.” He glared at Campbell. “The former Marine, security guard, friends with anyone and everyone. Hearing her talk about you all night was annoying as shit.”
“How is that getting in the way? She found someone to look up to. Almost all kids do it.”
“She got to Wren.”
Got to her. As if the tiny girl was a manipulative backstabber who set out to ruin him.
“Got to her. Do you hear yourself?” Campbell asked.
“She convinced Wren you were good. Both of you.” He glared at them and stopped on Natalie. “We were this fucking close to killing you and getting all the money.”
“What money are you talking about?”
“For killing you. I got more if I made it look like a total accident.”
“Hit-and-runs don’t look like an accident,” Campbell reminded him.
His smile was smug. “No. But a fire that is ruled accidental sure would have been.”
“You set the first fire?” she asked.
“No. Wren set the first fire. I set the second since she was obviously not able to do it.”
Natalie tried not to get mad. It wouldn’t do her any good and she had to figure out a way to get Starling away from him.
“And the pics on my PC? The emails? The threats? All you?”
“Of course.”
Campbell spoke up. “And I bet you’re the reason Braden’s name was in the pics too. And the reason he was showing up at night here, thinking Natalie would be here?”
He smiled. “Took me a year and a half of digging after the first fire failed to smoke you out to find Braden’s name and tie him to you. And your teen pregnancy. Never saw that coming. He was so heartsick over you it only took a couple well-timed emails telling him that you would be here late to get him to show up.”
“How’d you get the pics on the PC? I checked the video myself each morning. You were never in there alone. Ever.”
“I didn’t need to be. I put a special program hidden in the bios giving me remote access to all of the files. I could be in Jersey or Batswana and still put all sorts of shit on the system.”
“Which is how it showed up again when I changed my password,” Natalie whispered to no one in particular.
“I could read your password, too. I wrote the program so I could change it on the fly to do anything I needed it to do.”
“You’re so smart,” Natalie told him.
Jay scowled at her.
“Where’ve you been staying, Jay? Since you couldn’t go back to your apartment?” Campbell wanted to know and tucked Natalie a bit farther behind his back.
“Ha.” His loud laugh shook Starling, and Natalie thought she might have moved. “I’ve been crashing at my buddy’s apartment. Funny, right?”
“Hilarious.” Campbell’s monotone voice sent shivers up her spine. She knew he was trying to distract him to get closer and do something but it wasn’t working. “The friend was buried as you. That can’t last.”
Jay shrugged, not looking at all worried about it. “It’ll come out sooner rather than later. Especially since they did an autopsy on him. But everything was rushed and the department and hospital were slammed. Results normally don’t come out for six weeks and I’m right up on that deadline now. So it’s time to get this done so I can get out of here before the shit hits the fan.”
He looked down at Starling, and Natalie freaked out and put her hand on Campbell’s back. The gun.
Wanting to whoop with excitement, she tamped it down because they needed every advantage they could get. She slowly pulled his shirt from his slacks so he could get to it easier.
“Jay?” Campbell called his name to get his attention off the baby again. “Why would you want to hurt her?”
“Who?”
“Natalie,” he answered through gritted teeth. “She really turned this place around when she bought it. You said yourself it was so much better than it was before it was hers.”
Natalie scowled. “No he didn’t.”
“What do you mean he didn’t?” Campbell asked her without turning around.
“He wasn’t here first. I hired him several months after the first remodel. Right around the time…Wren came here when she was pregnant with Hazel.”
Jay sneered at Campbell. Probably because Campbell had believed whatever story Jay told him.
“Why not let me adopt Starling? No one knew who you were. You could have just left. Fled. Why not do just that? We all thought the bad guys were dead. You still could.”
“Are you kidding me? I’ve earned it.”
“Earned what?”
“My inheritance.”
“But the family money comes from my mother’s side, not my father’s side.”
“And the money will come to me if you die before marrying and with no children. I’ll have to give part of it up to bury my name so I get to completely disappear, but he told me I get to keep the rest.”
“Who’s he? Who are you talking about?”
“Our father.”
“What?” Natalie took a step forward and Campbell hauled her back as soon as Jay raised the gun at her. “I have nothing to do with that money. Nothing. I’ll never see a penny of the inheritance you think you’d get by killing me. And my money? The money I’ve earned? It’s set to go to numerous local charities and other organizations upon my death.”
“You don’t know anything.”
“And you think you’re so smart? How do you think you’re going to get away with this? Murder.”
“Well, I’ve already gotten away with it times three, haven’t I?”
He tried to sound smug but there was a hint of something there.
Doubt maybe and Campbell latched on to it. “Your wife? Your daughter? They were killed by a drunk driver. You didn’t do that. Whether you would have makes no shit because you didn’t have to get your hands dirty. Probably why you haven’t been able to do what you’re supposed to.”
“Fuck you,” Jay spat at him and moved a step closer.
Campbell backed up and pushed Natalie farther behind him. “You’ve been hiding behind your gadgets all this time. And it seems your wife even set a better fire than you did. That’s pathetic.”
“You try it sometime. One kid badgering me all the time. Another one on the way. Shitty paycheck that won’t make ends meet.” He was so angry he shook with rage, jostling Starling.
Her little fist closed and opened. She didn’t make a sound but she wiggled a tiny bit.
Ultimate Surrender: The Surrender Series, Book 2 Page 33
