“New York,” he states.
“That’s Walker’s headquarters. Won’t Waters expect that?”
“If he does his research, he’ll know how prepared we are there. If he doesn’t do his research, he’ll be dead.”
Dead.
That’s the word I hear.
“I have never wished someone dead,” I say, “but I believe the world would be a better place without Waters.” I don’t wait for a reply. I claim my spot in the backseat of the car.
Adam seals me inside.
I glance down at the phone and I know Adam told me to wait to use the phone, but I’m freaking out about Adrian’s safety. I can’t help it. I dial his number. The call goes straight to voicemail.
I tell myself that means nothing.
Chapter Eight
PRI
By the time I’ve ended the connection with Adrian’s voicemail, both of my escorts have climbed into the front of the car, with Beckham, whoever the heck he is, behind the wheel again. “I used the phone,” I say. “I tried to call Adrian. Did I screw up?”
Almost instantly we’re moving, and it’s right as we pull out of the garage that Adam glances back at me and says, “Did he answer?”
“No. No he didn’t.”
“He’s fine, Pri,” he says quickly. “Adrian’s resourceful. Hurry up and call your parents so we can dump the phone.”
“Walker Security is still protecting them, right? That hasn’t changed?”
“Yes,” he says. “But we’re doing it for you, not them. A team will pick them up. Just get them to agree.”
For me.
He means for Adrian, and I’m okay with that. Adrian has a family that fell apart and in a quite tragic way. Walker has become his new family. And so have I. He just doesn’t know that yet.
Now, for my family, if I can call them that.
I dial my father, the real decision-maker in our family over my mother, which was quite clear when she no-showed to dinner and didn’t even warn me. My father answers on the first ring. “Who am I speaking with?”
“It’s Pri.”
“Pri,” he greets stiffly and right there, in the coldness of his voice, I know with certainty that he sent Logan to that restaurant tonight. What I don’t know is why. “What is this number you’re calling from?”
I ignore the question. “You didn’t show up for dinner,” I say, stating the obvious.
“I thought Logan was the better choice to talk sense into you. We’re not exactly on the same wavelength.”
Despite the accuracy of his words, there’s an undeniable twist in my gut with his statement and I hate that it exists. How can there not be, really? There was a time when he was my hero, but there’s a moral separation between me and my father that continues to grow wider. On that, I grow clearer every day. And with that clarity, my hopes that he’d been blackmailed into supporting Waters’ cause now seem quite ridiculous. “Have you talked to Logan?” I ask, feeling him out, for exactly what he knows or does not know.
“I have not. I assume you’re about to update me.”
“He tried to rape me in the bathroom of my favorite Italian spot, the one I wanted to share with you and Mom this very evening. I, in turn, shot him in the foot. No one can say you didn’t raise a fighter.” My mind flashes back to the encounter with Logan in a small bathroom at a party two years ago now. “In hindsight, he often tried to take what wasn’t his to take. And before you reply, if you’d like to justify his actions the way you did him bending his secretary over his desk while engaged to me, please do so and get it over with now.”
He’s dead silent. The kind of silence I’ve never heard from my father. Then, he says, “Can you come here to talk to me?”
“No, Father. I cannot come there to talk to you. Listen, and listen carefully. I’m on a hitlist with a large sum on my head. I’m going underground. And if you think no matter how well you serve the devil that the devil won’t kill you to get to me, you’re a fool. Hide. Go underground. Take Mom. If you both choose to stay, that’s on you.”
“You think I’m working with Waters?”
I think of the man Walker had seen on my father’s security footage before showing him to me. The man who was also at the restaurant tonight and it reeks in all kinds of ways, I won’t even allow my mind to travel there fully right now. “Yes. I do. If you’re not, prove it.”
“I don’t have to prove anything,” he states. “I’m not working with Waters.”
“Then why send Logan to talk to me tonight?” I challenge.
“That case is causing conflict with some of the firm’s clients,” he states. “That topic needed to be addressed and done so in an all-business context, but I’ll just say it myself. You need to step back from this case.”