“We need to see the rest of the house. We will also send over a team to search for bugs. Someone planted two in this room. Your home, particularly your office and private apartment, is going to be lousy with them.” Gedeon was already texting Rene to arrange for the team to come in immediately. He wanted them in and out before sunup, and the mansion was huge. “How many square feet?”
Harold told him. Gedeon relayed the information to Rene. Meiling and he spent another two hours familiarizing themselves with the layout of the mansion. The doctor showed up to help set up Atwater’s suite to look as if he was no longer functional and had to have around-the-clock care. Drake Donovan sent a team of bodyguards. He had men stationed in San Antonio and they arrived within minutes of the call.
Gedeon and Meiling gathered up the books and photographs and left the way they had come, trusting Harold to handle his boss and lifelong friend. Either Atwater would cooperate or he wouldn’t.
“Is she alive?” Gedeon asked Meiling. “What does your gut say?”
“It says that man is an idiot. He wanted to find whoever was taking money from him and make an example out of them. He’s been so long at the top, always handling everything with his own set of rules, it didn’t occur to him that someone could come along with a different playbook.”
“Lotus Blossom. That tells me nothing. Do you think she’s alive?” Gedeon needed the kid to be alive. If she wasn’t—he was going to go insane and burn down the city until he found every one of the fuckers responsible for taking her. They wouldn’t die easy. Slayer unsheathed his claws and raked cruelly, adding his ire and need for violence.
She nodded. “They need her alive. Atwater may be an arrogant ass, but he’s powerful, and if he finds out who has her, they’ll need her in order to bargain their way out of a very bad situation. He looks like a sweet man, but he didn’t get into that position by being nice. I could smell the rage in him.”
The relief was tremendous. That had been his assessment as well, but it felt good to have Meiling’s logical conclusion match his.
Gedeon opened the passenger door for her, keeping his smirk to himself as she slid in. She had really balked at him being the driver and called him a few choice names. He agreed with every name she’d called him and took his place behind the wheel. Now, she was so intrigued with the books Atwater had turned over to them, she paid no attention that he was the driver. He liked her smart mouth and had to suppress the childish urge to taunt her just to get her going. In the end, she always laughed. He could use the sound of her laughter after hearing Atwater’s admission that he’d waited to call for help even after his daughter had been taken.
“Leopard Boy, Atwater is supposed to be this brilliant mathematician. I read all about him online. Numbers don’t lie. If someone is stealing and doing it consistently, eventually there is a pattern to it. Even if they try to hide that pattern, it will come out. Harold said Atwater checked the books of every business deal weekly. He knew those books intimately. I don’t see how it’s possible he couldn’t figure out who was stealing from him.”
She ran her hands over the cover of the top book again and again as if she couldn’t wait to delve into it. “Did he seem particularly brilliant to you? He could barely speak on his own. Harold did most of the talking.”
“Clearly, he was on some substance. I got close enough to him. It wasn’t alcohol.”
“Harold was covering for him, you think? Or do you believe Harold is part of the conspiracy and that’s why the bugs were in the conservatory?” she asked, leaning her head back against the seat.
Gedeon tried not to notice her silhouette as he drove toward the heart of the city. He had become just as possessive of Meiling as Slayer was. She brought him so many different emotions, all very strong. Some overwhelming. She kept Slayer under control, which gave him peace. There were times when he did wonder if she made the ferocious burn for sex even worse.
When they were in New Orleans, he went to the club every night and hooked up with a woman to see to his needs. One woman had usually been enough for the night, but it wasn’t any longer. He couldn’t make his cock stand down and the sex was getting rougher and more violent. Slayer protested each time he found someone else to try to take that terrible edge off, yet it was Slayer who often seemed to drive him with his sexual needs as well. The protests were ugly and frightening in that the leopard would wait until the moment Gedeon finally managed an actual release. At that moment the cat would throw himself at the man, determined to take over their form in order to kill the woman. Each time Gedeon was with a woman was dangerous, but if he tried to go too long without, he became dangerous. It was a vicious circle. The only time he got any real peace was when he tricked Meiling into sleeping in his bed. Slayer subsided, and even if Gedeon lay awake all night with his cock as hard as a rock, he was content.