Revenge

by Lexi Blake

  It was why she always requested the daily documents of a subject’s life. Johnny had laughed at her once because she’d spent so much time going through a subject’s day planner.

  Sometimes a reporter had to get all the data and carefully sift through what seemed meaningless to find the truth. Little clues that seemed insignificant . . .

  “Charlotte, you said you looked into all the contacts that were taken in the hack on 4L a couple of months back, right?”

  She turned her focus back to Shelby. “I did. It was tedious and probably means nothing, but I thought it would be interesting to see if any of the hacked contacts had been . . . well, hacked.”

  “And had they?”

  Charlotte nodded. “Oh, yes. A couple of them. I don’t know that the incidents were related, though.”

  “Was Drew’s lawyer one of them?”

  Everyone seemed to sit up straighter, pay more attention.

  “Our lawyer got hacked? 4L’s?” Mia asked. “We have a legal department, but we also have outside counsel.”

  Drew had a ton of lawyers, but she was only interested in one. “I’m asking about his personal lawyer. Does Drew have a will?”

  She would be shocked if he didn’t. Drew was careful. The minute he’d had any kind of money at all, he would have sought to protect it.

  But he was more than careful, and he’d had more than money to protect, but Iris was so good at exploiting the details. She was smart that way. She would use every single resource she could find.

  Including her children.

  Mia leaned forward as the sound of a cell phone trilling split the air. “He did. He left everything to me and Riley and Bran. To his siblings.”

  “Did he name you? For a while he was pretty freaky about the last name Lawless and anyone connecting the rest of you to him.” An idea was playing in her head and it wasn’t a good one.

  Drew had asked Riley and Bran to legally change their names. Mia had taken her adoptive parents’ last name. Drew had been the last Lawless. Would he have named them in a legal document? Or would he have been subtler?

  Mia crossed her legs, sitting back. “He was obnoxious about that. I’m so glad we’re doing an end run around him. I’ve already started the paperwork.”

  Ian Taggart was talking on his phone, but his brother leaned in. Case frowned as though an unsettling idea had taken root. “Did he name you in the will? By name?”

  Mia went a bit pale. “No. He left his entire estate to his full-blooded siblings. We have to take a test to prove we’re his siblings. Noah would pass it. According to that will, Noah would receive a full quarter of everything Drew owns if Drew dies. Oh, my God. She knows. She hacked his lawyer and she knows how his will is written.”

  Shelby’s heart rate ticked up. “Now we know how she’s going to come at him. He’s going to need twenty-four-hour protection. I know he said he doesn’t think he needs a bodyguard, but he’s getting one.”

  Mia looked up at Case. “How fast can we get one out here? Or two or three?”

  Ian put his phone down, and his big hand moved up to touch the button that connected him to the driver. “We need to turn around and go back to the house. Now. If you can’t make a U-turn, stop and let me out. I’ll run.”

  He was reaching down to his ankle, and when his hand came back up, there was a shiny gun in his hand.

  Case immediately leaned over, mimicking his brother and pulling a gun from his own ankle holster. Apparently Taggarts didn’t ruin the lines of their tuxedoes. “Trouble?”

  “That was Hatch,” Taggart said. “Iris has Noah in the pool house and Drew’s on his way in. He said he couldn’t talk him out of it. Noah’s in trouble and Drew won’t wait.”

  Shelby bit back a cry. Of course he wouldn’t. Noah was his brother, and Drew would never allow him to come to harm if he could help it.

  “But Noah’s probably working with Iris,” Case pointed out as the limo made a crazy turn. He had to hold on to the side with one hand to stay upright. “Who else could have fed her the info? I already talked to Drew about this.”

  “He knows,” Mia said. “At least he suspects that Iris has something she’s holding over Noah’s head, but he thought shoving Noah out into the cold would do nothing but help Iris. He was trying to bring Noah fully over to our side, to turn him. I guess we waited too long.”

  “Or she moved the timing up for some reason,” Charlotte pointed out. Like the two Taggart men, she had a gun in her hand.

  “Hatch is calling the police, but it could take time if they don’t have a car in the area,” Ian said. “This is going to go down fast. She needs it to. We can’t go in guns blazing. Case and I will go around the back and try to get in that way. Are there security cameras?”

  Case looked down at his phone. “There are, but it looks like the whole system is down right now. I’ve got a feed to my phone. Someone shut it down. We need to reboot the system to bring the cameras back on line. It’s the same one you have at your place, Ian.”

  Ian nodded. “Charlie, baby, I need you to see if you can get any of what’s going on in there on film. Even if Lawless is already down, we might be able to catch Iris in the act.”

  “He won’t be dead.” Shelby’s hands started to shake.

  “Ian.” Charlotte sent her husband a nasty look.

  “I’m a worst-case scenario kind of guy, and the last thing Lawless would want is for his mother to get away with it.” Ian pressed the button again. “Park out of view of the house.”

  The car came to a stop, and Shelby thought her heart was going to explode. This was really happening. Drew was caught in some web his mother had weaved and she meant to kill him. Ian and Case Taggart were his only hope, and they thought they needed evidence so Iris didn’t get away with it.

  Because they thought he might be dead.

  God, he couldn’t be dead.

  Case looked at his wife as he opened the door of the limo. “You go around to the front and get inside the house. Take Shelby and get in the safe room on the second floor. If you see anything out of the ordinary, run. You are not going to engage.”

  “Case,” Mia began.

  He shook his head. “I can try to save your brother or I can protect you and our unborn child. Your choice.”

  “Go,” Mia agreed. “I’ll lock us in the safe room. But I’ll get to the security cameras from there. I can reboot the system from the safe room.”

  Ian checked his gun. “Excellent. Charlie, see that they make it there.”

  Charlotte nodded. “Will do, baby. Be safe.” She turned to Shelby, her eyes narrowing. “Don’t even think about it.”

  But she was. She was totally thinking about running into the pool house and damn them all. She needed to see Drew. She needed to hold him and know he was alive. She needed to tell him again that she loved him. She loved him so much.

  He couldn’t be dying.

  “Let’s go and get the cameras turned back on. All you’ll do is create chaos and make it harder for Ian and Case,” Charlotte said as she started up the path. “Drew needs you to stay calm.”

  She followed Charlotte inside, and within moments they were in the safe room. Mia pulled up the cameras, activating the security systems. The monitors flickered on, and Shelby saw her worst nightmare coming true.

  • • •

  Drew took a deep breath and opened the door to the pool house. He entered, holding his hands up. “I see you’ve made yourself at home, Mother.”

  He was surprisingly calm. They hadn’t immediately shot him the minute he walked through the door. That meant they had a plan, and plans took time to execute. What Iris didn’t know was that the Taggarts had come to the house, and they would turn around and come back for him.

  Right this second, having a couple of ex–Special Forces badasses in the family seemed like a good thing.
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  And then there was Hatch. Hatch would be calling the police. Hatch would do the smart thing and wait for them at the gate. He would take care of things.

  He wished they hadn’t fought. He wished he’d forgiven Hatch sooner. Yes, Hatch had done something bad, but now that Drew was here in this room, he wished he’d been more forgiving.

  Did anyone ever wish they’d loved less? Did anyone come face-to-face with a gun and think I wish I’d hated a little more?

  God, he wished he’d said the words to her. He hadn’t even said the words to her.

  I love you, Shelby.

  “Nice of you to join us, son.” His mother was dressed all in black, her long hair pulled back. She looked stark and predatory.

  The big guy he’d seen in the window moved next to him. “Don’t think about pulling a gun.”

  He held his hands up, his eyes looking to Noah. “No guns. Why is my brother tied up?”

  “I’m sorry, Drew,” he said, looking so much younger than his years. By all rights of age, he was an adult, but it was a frightened child who looked back at him. A kid desperate for someone to save him, someone he could trust.

  Drew had been that kid, and no one had come for him. He couldn’t leave Noah to the same fate.

  Iris stepped up, putting a hand on Noah’s shoulder. “Noah here has been a good boy. He’s been helpful the last few days. I thought he was a liability in the beginning. You can’t imagine my surprise when I realized Ben had the last laugh on me.”

  “Because he changed his will. You didn’t find that out until afterward, did you?” The longer he kept her talking, the better.

  Noah’s hands were tied in front of him, his feet bound as well. He wouldn’t be able to run, and there were at least two guns against them. How would Taggart handle things?

  “Of course I knew. I had an excellent relationship with one of the secretaries at his firm. It wouldn’t have stopped me from gaining the shares, but I immediately realized that the police would look to me when they found out he’d changed his will. That was when I realized I had to go as well,” she admitted.

  “Yes, if Father died or merely killed himself and that will had come out, the police would have taken at least a look at you. By dying yourself, you changed the story. You’re quite good at handling the press.” Drew had to force himself to remain still because the other man was maneuvering around, flanking him. Drew carefully began to turn.

  Iris’s hand came up, the gun leveled at him. “Don’t you move an inch. I’ll fire and this will be over quickly.”

  He stopped. Quick wasn’t what he wanted, but he didn’t like the big man with the gun behind him. “So you decided to become Francine Wells and insinuate yourself into Patricia Cain’s life.”

  His mother shrugged one shoulder. “I was already sleeping with her. She was the one who convinced the others that Benedict had to go.”

  “Yes, Mommy liked to get around. Why Hatch?”

  “They wouldn’t do it unless I put up money, too,” she explained. “We needed mutually assured destruction, but I didn’t have fifty thousand. Your father would have noticed if fifty thousand had gone missing. I needed Hatch’s cash, and it was an awfully good method of controlling him after for everyone else. The only problem that came up was this one. I certainly hadn’t meant to get pregnant.”

  “I’m surprised you decided to keep Noah.” Drew tried to watch the big guy out of the corner of his eye.

  “I thought I might be able to use him against Hatch if the plan with Patricia fell apart. Babies look so much alike. At that point he would have believed what I told him. I ended up not needing to because Patty and I actually built something quite nice. It was good for a while, and Noah gave me access to some wealthy gentlemen as he got older. He served his purpose and now I get a bonus out of him.”

  Drew watched as a tear fell out of Noah’s eye. His jaw clenched. Shit. Noah was going to need a damn therapist, too, after all of this. No one seemed to get out of his family without a shit-ton of damage.

  “Did I serve mine, Mother?” It still hurt. It fucking hurt that she was his mother and she was so willing to sacrifice him. For what? Cash? Power?

  Deep breath. The asshole his mother had brought along was behind him. He couldn’t see the other man, but he knew the dude had a gun.

  All this time and he’d been ready to put himself on the line. All this time and he’d been willing to sacrifice to get that revenge he’d always prayed for.

  All he wanted right now was to see Shelby one last time. Fuck. That wasn’t all he wanted. He wanted a life with her. He wanted forever with Shelby. She was his, and he couldn’t die now that he’d finally figured out what it truly meant to live. It meant choosing to look past his own pain to something that might heal him. Someone. Shelby was his future, and he was suddenly desperate to have one.

  But he had to be worthy of her, and that meant trying anything he could to save his brother.

  “You were always a difficult child.” Her eyes went somewhere behind him, as though she was trying to force her will on the man standing there.

  Was he about to get shot in the back? “Well, I had bad DNA. What did you use against Noah to get him to turn?”

  Keep talking. He had to keep her talking. He had to pray he wasn’t about to get murdered. Just a little more time. He needed a little more.

  “I’m sorry, Drew,” Noah said, tears now running down his too-young face.

  “Noah got involved with some unsavory characters. Some people I might have been involved with from time to time. They’re quite loyal when you pay them well, and they were more than willing to help me explain the world to my youngest child. Sometimes things that seem coincidental are actually quite well planned. Noah believed he found Jase, but that wasn’t the case. He did what I wanted him to do.”

  Ah, so the hacker was working with Mommy. Poor Noah. Drew remembered that moment when he’d figured out the world sucked, and yet it had been so much worse to find out how shitty his mother was.

  “So you pulled out everything he’d done in a desperate attempt to survive and used it against him.” He kept his eyes on Noah, trying to will him to see that he understood. He’d been desperate, too, once.

  He was desperate now, but he couldn’t be less than his loved ones thought he was. There was something powerful about knowing they loved him. His sister and brothers loved him. It was worth more than being needed.

  Shelby loved him. She loved him so much she was willing to sacrifice her career for him. He was more important than her ambition, and that made him want to be worthy of her love. That meant not leaving Noah behind. He’d been a dipshit, but Noah was his brother. Noah was worth saving.

  “I’m so sorry, Drew. I tried.” Noah had gone a pasty white, as though he knew what was about to happen. “I didn’t know it was her in the beginning, but she was working with Jase. I might have done more than write code for him. I’m so sorry I lied, but I wanted you to like me. Then she called and told me I would go to jail if I didn’t write those e-mails. I knew you would figure it out, but I wanted more time here. I’m so sorry. I don’t have anything to do with this plan. I told her I wouldn’t do anything else.”

  So Noah had tried to pull away, had threatened to walk, and Iris had realized she’d lost power over her youngest. That explained the desperate play this evening. Noah was going to choose a side, and it hadn’t been hers. Shelby had been right. He’d shown Noah what a family could be, and Noah was ready to jump ship. She was going to lose her spy and her only helper.

  “It’s okay, Noah.” He looked up at his mother. “Why now? You might manage to kill me, which I suspect is your play. Obviously your friend behind me is going to shoot my brother, and you’ll hope the police will think it was me. Then what? I turn the gun on myself? You have to know Hatch has already called the cops. He was in the house with me.”

 
For the first time, his mother looked less than composed. She paled for a moment and then that steely will of hers returned. “A lie, Drew. And not a good one. Do you think my man wasn’t watching? We saw Hatch leave and then the limo. We know you were alone.”

  Oh, wasn’t that nice. Her “man” had seen the feds leaving and thought it was Hatch. That was excellent. He wasn’t giving up the surprise advantage. Not now. “Well, I had to try. Still, I’m fascinated with this plan of yours. How exactly does Jase play into this?”

  “Jase was my partner. A lovely young man with incredible skills. After I realized you had attained an enormous amount of wealth, I knew you would use it to come after Phillip, Steven, and Patricia. They were all so foolish. None of them believed you would figure out what they’d done. I knew then that I had to disappear. So I arranged a handy car accident after finding a vagrant woman who could take my place in the vehicle. I had some cash, but what I really needed was the documentation Stratton, Castalano, and Cain had on me. We knew we had to have proof of one another’s crimes in order to keep everyone in line, but if they wouldn’t believe that you were coming for us all, I had to take them out.”

  “So you found a hacker? Why did you need a hacker?”

  “I never was any good with the technical stuff,” she explained with a disdainful huff. “Jase procured new documents for me, and when the time came, he helped me pick them off one by one. Phillip was easy. He was already dying. He kept our letters in a storage unit. I understand he left something for his daughter as well, but I ensured you couldn’t find the real proof.”

  He felt a hand on his shoulder and then the hard knock of metal against his spine. It was good. His enemy was close. He would want to try to get gunpowder residue on Drew, but he would have to move the gun to his side and shoot to do it. All of his hours of training with Case came back to him. They’d spent a good six months punching each other at the beginning of their relationship. Case had been working to win Mia back, and part of the way he’d done it was training her brothers. Case had been patient, teaching him tactics and how to listen to his own natural instincts. He’d taught him how to use an enemy’s body against him, where to hit, how to handle a hit.