by April Zyon
“We’ll always be yours, Kasper. Even if we need to thin the herd a little on the brotherly front,” he assured her. After giving her another kiss, he shifted and tucked a pillow behind his head. Yawning wide, he lifted the hand he still held to rub her knuckles to his cheek as a smile curved his lips.
“I think that it’s going to be an amazing life.” She certainly hoped so, at least. Kas was looking forward to learning more about these men, all that they did and all that they were. “Life will be good. I just know it. For now, I think we either need to nap or go for that swim. Thoughts?”
“Nap. The house is still abuzz with people running around. We’ll do the swim tonight, sweetheart. Slide down and get settled in.” James shifted to grab the comforter and eased it up over her as she slid next to Victor. Then James settled in beside her, pressing a kiss to her cheek.
Chapter Twelve
Several days later…
Kasper sat at the large table and looked at Owen. “Are you sure?” she asked him with utter shock. “That bastard has been planning stuff for a long time, hasn’t he?”
He gave a nod with a sympathetic look. “I only found it because of a weird notation I saw on one of the files I hacked. He had it all partitioned off, which really caught my attention, and then I found the policy, or rather, policies. This isn’t only about you, Kasper. He has one out on Pepper, too. He had smaller ones on your parents which, I think, is what’s keeping him afloat to a degree. Your uncle even had one on himself in their names so it didn’t raise any suspicion from the agent.
“What the guy was able to remember from the meeting was that your uncle said the family was feeling a little skittish after a close call, and that they were taking out policies on one another to ensure that no member of the family was not covered should the worst occur. The guy didn’t even blink at the request, apparently. He filled out all the paperwork, and your uncle got all the signatures, with notarization, so everything was legally binding.”
“Damn. I’ll need to arrange security for Pepper as well. She’s so young.” Kasper was still young, too, but Pepper was younger. “Is there anyone that you guys can suggest for her?” She was trying to absorb all of this. It was damn hard to realize her uncle had put life insurance policies out on herself and her parents, worth millions, which gave him even more reason to kill her. “How can we get the policies cancelled? Do I need to get my attorney started on that?” Kas needed to know what she needed to do to stop her uncle from his obvious end game. “Have you found anything out about Douglas Swann and how to link him to my parents’ murders?”
“Not yet, but I have a friend of ours looking into things a little more closely. His father has run a PI firm for years. He’s stateside right now so he’s got a few of the guys from the office helping him. They’ll be getting into his office, and his home, through various ruses to do searches. If there’s anything there to find, they’ll find it. As to your cousin…” Owen shrugged. “I’d recommend having her come here. It’s the safest place on the planet currently. If she’s resistant to that, I know a squad I could send in to watch over her, but I doubt she’ll like their methods.”
She sighed and rubbed her temples. “She just started school. This will be bad. I’ll have to arrange for her to be able to take her courses online. I’m sure that adding a new wing to the school would be enough enticement for them to let her take courses online, right?” Poor Pepper. Pepper knew what a monster her father was, but now it was going to be driven home even deeper. Kas had only been teasing about the wing to the school, a skill she obviously lacked by the looks on the men’s faces around her. They thought she was serious
“More than likely, though, I’d go with funding something in the school already instead of adding on more space to it. Why don’t you call Pepper and talk to her? Get her take on this before we go to the guys. I think it will be a better idea if we send a couple of us to either watch over her, or pick her up, depending on how receptive she is to all this. We’re getting more secure here by the hour, and all the equipment they intend to put in will be arriving this afternoon. We’re still a couple days out from being more secure than Fort Knox.”
“Good idea. I should call her anyway just to see how she’s settling into life here. She’s such a sweetheart. I hate to tell her this. She knows how bad her sperm donor is, but this is going to make it even worse.” She sighed and then frowned. “Wait, I wonder if he had something to do with her mother’s death. I know he received a massive settlement when she died.” She decided to let her joke slide; it was very clear she hadn’t pulled it off and they all thought she was crazy enough to add a wing to a school just to get Pepper transferred to online school instead of a brick-and-mortar school.
“When did she die?” When Kasper told him, Owen started typing on his laptop, and after a few minutes shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. But it may have been the catalyst for everything. The settlement he got was her life insurance, as well as some trust money she’d received from her mother’s mother. Looks like she’d used some of the trust to go through university, then set aside a large chunk to grow, and a smaller chunk that eventually was put into Pepper’s name. It grew quite large from additional deposits she put in over the years.
“Oh, well, that’s interesting. As of two months ago, the account doesn’t even exist anymore. The money vanished, the account vanished, and I have no idea where. This is going to take a lot of digging to see what happened there. But if he was involved in the account going MIA, he’s got about six million in his pocket currently. If he wasn’t, it might explain why he’s a little panicky. The account was set up with your uncle as the trustee, all to revert to Pepper on her twenty-fifth birthday. Looks like there were a few small withdrawals over the high school years, nothing over two hundred, though, and only every few weeks to a couple of months. Why don’t you call your cousin while I start poking around a little more?”
“Sounds good.” She took the phone offered to her and thanked Owen. Briefly, she wondered where James and Victor were, but realized at this time of day, they were more than likely helping Mikhail with the trees again.
When Pepper answered on the second ring, Kasper began to lay the truth on the poor girl.
“Hey, Pepper, it’s me, Kas.”
“Kasper. Is everything okay?” There was a bit of panic in the woman’s voice, which Kasper could understand.
“Yeah, look, we found out a bit and I need you to sit so that I can tell you everything.” When Pepper confirmed she was sitting, Kasper began to tell her. “Look, there was an account set up for you with a little over six million dollars in it that was to revert to you when you turned twenty-five. However. somehow your dad was listed as trustee. I don’t think that Daddy realized just how bad he was at that time.” Kasper took a deep breath and had heard the shocked inhale that Pepper gave off when she mentioned six million dollars. “It’s not there anymore, Pepper. I’m so sorry, but it’s all gone.”
“Gone? I don’t understand. How can it be gone? If it were in a trust, it shouldn’t have been able to be touched. How could he have been able to siphon even six dollars, let alone six million dollars, from a trust?”
She understood the hurt and confusion in the woman’s voice and sighed. “I’m so sorry, Pepper, I really am. I wish like hell I had a better reason to call you, but I don’t. I’m so sorry.”
“That asshole. He’s done nothing but make my life miserable from the day I was born. I swear it’s as if the world has been trying to kill me from the moment I drew my first breath.” There were tears in Pepper’s voice as she spoke, which Kasper could totally understand. Hell, with some of the things she had learned Pepper had gone through, she would feel that way, too.
“Okay. Well, we’re going to send people to watch over you. Do everything that they tell you. Do you understand?”
“Sure, send whoever you think will help. I just hope that they don’t try to kill me too.” Kasper really hoped that Pepper was teasing her. “I
’m kidding, Kas. I know you’re in my corner,” Pepper told her with a hint of a smile in her voice.
When she got her cousin’s assurance, Kas nodded and looked back at Owen. “Send whoever it is you have in mind to watch over her. She will do whatever they say. Give me a safe word for her,” she asked while she had Pepper on the phone.
He frowned slightly and gave a lazy shrug. “Poppycock,” he told her with a grin. Chuckling when she gave him a look, he held up his hands. “If you don’t like it, pick your own. But it has to be something so unusual that she’d never hear it. Either way, we’ll be sending her pictures of whoever we deploy so she’ll know them on sight. Pick a word,” he told her as he pushed up from the table. After hitting a couple more buttons on his laptop, he left the kitchen to bellow for the others.
“Jabberwocky. There you go, P, that’s the safe word. Owen is sending you pictures of the guys coming to watch over you. Just take care of yourself, please?” She loved her cousin, even if the poor girl came from a monster.
“Dear God, did you just give them the word Jabberwocky to use when they came to me?” Now Pepper was laughing. “God, I love you, Cuz, but I really have to get to class. Send me pics to email.”
“Okay. Go to class, just keep your email on with your phone. Got it?”
She heard the acceptance and smiled especially since Pepper was laughing as she gave her goodbyes and then disconnected the phone. “Now then, the guys you are sending to watch over her, they’re good?”
He gave her a nod as he settled back into his chair. “Lincoln and Thomas are going to be going. Thomas is excited, Lincoln is dreading it a little. Poor guy is likely going to have to hogtie Thomas to keep him from flirting with everything on two legs there. Get your butts in here so I can take a current pic,” Owen called out. A moment later, both men wandered in to dutifully stand in front of Kasper’s wall for a picture. “Kasper, get in there with each of them so she knows these are the real deal.”
She couldn’t help snickering. “Yeah, well, he better not flirt. Most of those girls are barely legal, you know.” Pepper was in college so the women were eighteen to twenty-five. She took photos with both men and sent them to Pepper. She waited until she got confirmation and smiled. “Thanks, guys, for being willing to watch over her. I appreciate the two of you keeping her safe.”
Lincoln merely shrugged with a small smile. Thomas, on the other hand, was grinning wide. “No woman is safe from the flirtations. But they all must be of consenting age for anything beyond that. Don’t you worry, Kasper. I promise not to turn the charm up too much in your cousin’s range.”
“I don’t think you could charm her, pretty boy,” Kasper said with a smirk. “She’s far too shy. I don’t think that you would be able to do it. I would even bet you that you couldn’t do it. Want to lay some cash down on it?” Kasper knew that she should feel guilty in setting this up, but for some reason she didn’t. She had a feeling deep in her soul it was right that these men tease and get to know Pepper; perhaps it would bring her out of her shell. Kasper was also very hopeful it would help Pepper deal with everything concerning her father and brothers.
“You would actually put money on a bet involving your cousin?” He narrowed his eyes and then nodded. “I knew there was a reason I liked you. We’ll keep it friendly, though. How does fifty bucks sound? Lincoln is an impartial participant in this and will be on site at all times so he can report back as to how this progresses. Deal?” Thomas stuck his hand out while Lincoln groaned and turned to mutter something to Owen that had the other man snickering. “Don’t think I didn’t hear that, buddy. You’ll pay for that comment later.”
“No sleeping with her, though,” Kasper added at the last second. “But yeah, fifty bucks it is.” She grinned and shook the man’s hand. “Let’s do it. She can’t know that I’ve bet on you, either, and no war sob stories, either. She’s a sweetheart, and if you tried to give her a sob story, she would totally buy it.”
“Got it. No sob stories, no sleeping with her. Everything else is fair game.” She didn’t like the grin he had on his face, though. Clapping his hands together, Thomas looked to Owen. “So, where exactly is it we’re going?”
Rolling his eyes, Owen mumbled something and scribbled on a piece of paper he tore off and thrust at Thomas. “The jet will be ready for you when you get to the airport. I’ll have a car arranged for you at the other end. The pilots and jet will remain with you should you need to get out for any reason. Take full comms and some gear, but remember it’s a college and they don’t know you’re going to be there. At least not until Kasper calls the Dean and lets them know she’s sending in some private security. No guns. They’ll taser your ass if you go waving one of those around.”
“Exactly. I’ll call the Dean now.” She looked at Owen and asked, “Is this going to be okay? Them going to watch over her? I’m not making a mistake, am I?”
“It’s what should be done. We don’t know for sure there will be any threat against her, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. Thomas may goof around, but on the job, he’s deadly serious. Neither of them will let anything happen to Pepper. Promise.” He looked to his laptop when it beeped and hit a few more keys. “Victor and Wyatt are going to take them to the airport so we don’t lose a SUV while we’re here. They’ll be heading out in about twenty if you want to pass on any other information to them. Personally, I’d tell Lincoln, Thomas is likely already in full plan mode.”
“Full plan mode, what do you mean?” she asked with a frown. “Oh crap, do you mean about the bet? Seriously? No matter what he does, I don’t see her biting. She’s a total sweetheart but also a complete innocent. With the family she had, I don’t see her falling for his charms.”
“Not the bet—he’ll do that on the plane. Right now, he’s planning for any, and every, eventuality. He’ll be going over the blueprints, looking for problem areas and a variety of other things. We’ll need her class schedule and the classrooms as well, so I can plot them on the blueprints to shoot them over so they have that on arrival. Is she living in the dorms or off campus?”
“Oh,” Kasper whispered with her eyes wide. Thomas seemed to be a permanent tease and seemed to be ready to play at the drop of a hat, so to think of him as a planner to keep her cousin safe seemed at odds with the teasing man he seemed to be so far. Then again, all of the men were nothing but competent and excelled at their jobs, so of course he was amazing at what he did.
“I know, you’re amazed. He has that effect on people. You’ll get used to it in time. I need you to focus on right here, though, Kasper. Does your cousin live in the dorms or off campus? This is a big deal if we’re doing security because I doubt they’re going to let those two bunk anywhere near her if she’s in the dorms.”
“Off campus. She has a home I purchased for her. It’s a three bedroom. She was going to possibly invite people to live with her after she got to know them, but she’s painfully shy, so I doubt seriously that she’s asked anyone to move in there yet. The blueprints should be on file. If you go into the Cloud here, you should see it.”
“I like to ask when the person is standing in front of me.” Owen shot her a big grin and a wink. “Besides, I like you, so I’ve been resisting the urge to snoop and whimper at the abysmal lack of security. Don’t worry, I’ll beef that up before I get out. Is her class schedule in here, too?” he asked, beginning to type once more.
“Yes. Everything is in there. There’s her class schedule, the next term schedule, everything. So sure, feel free to snoop. There are even pictures.” She felt her smile crack and the pain bloom. “Family pictures,” she whispered as her eyes welled. “I put them onto the Cloud so they would never be lost,” she admitted. “God, I miss them.”
“Uh-oh, crap. Tears are bad, very bad.” Owen waved his hands around and got up from his chair, then urged her into it. Dashing off, he yelled for James and came back with a box of tissues. “No crying, please, no crying. They’ll blame me. I’m sorry, I didn’t m
ean to do it.”
“What’s going on?” James asked. “Why the fuck is she crying, Owen?”
“I didn’t mean. It’s the pictures. Shit. She just started to cry. I’m sorry! Make her stop, for the love of the gods.”
“I’m sorry.” Kasper wiped at her face with the tissue and leaned into James when he pulled her into his arms. “It’s just that we started to talk about the Cloud I have here, and I remembered the images of my mom and dad on there. It made me cry. I couldn’t help it. I miss them like crazy.” She would never have met James and Victor if not for the loss of her parents, but she refused to think of it like that.
“See! I didn’t do it.”
James rubbed her arm. “It’s fine, Owen. She’ll be okay in a moment. Come on, babe, let’s go get you a drink while Owen digs what he needs to out of the Cloud so nothing else sets you off. He has this panic mode that only seems to kick in with tears from a woman. If you ever need to get him to do whatever you want, remember that,” he whispered the last to her.
“I would never want to do that to him. Why would I? I would rather he do things willingly instead of doing them because of tears.” She took a deep breath and nodded. “A drink does sound good though. I have some really, really old Scotch if you are interested.”
“I think we can have a little bit,” he said softly. He gave her a hug. “Grab the bottle. I’ll get some glasses. I think Owen needs one, too.” After rubbing her back for a few moments, he stepped away.
“Poor guy. I think you’re right. He likely could use a drink after I had a meltdown on him. He’s a good guy, but you all are, aren’t you?” Kas asked before dragging in a deep breath. “Thomas and Lincoln will be able to keep Pepper safe, right? Even though I bet Thomas he couldn’t charm Pepper.” She wanted James’s reassurance.
