Saved by a Dangerous Man (12 page)

“What’s there to stress about?” I said, my voice matching his. “Rob and I might only be twenty-four, but we’ve got twelve years of full-time experience between us. We
absorbed
this growing up, Dad.”

“Audrey has a point. You shouldn’t worry about us. We’ll be fine. We’re professionals.”
 

I shot Rob a grateful look, but Dad threw his head back and laughed as if it were the funniest thing he’d ever heard. And man, did his voice carry.
 

He reached down and pulled his briefcase into his lap, pinched out a yellow envelope and shook 8x10 photos onto the middle of the table. “I suppose that’s as good a segue as any into the evaluation portion of our meeting.”

The top picture was a clear shot of Rob slumped against a bar, his head in his hands as he stared up. Between the smile on his face and the long legs, stuffed into clear platform heels, that balanced on the bar in front of him, I had a pretty good idea of what he was looking at.

Rob snatched up the photos, his face reddening. “What the hell?”

“Look at the time stamp. You were supposed to be working. That,” Dad said, stabbing a finger at the photos, “is why I’m not leaving the business to you straightaway.”

I was rendered speechless with fury. “You can’t punish me because Rob went to a strip club.”

“I was
working
,” Rob protested. “It’s how we were able to get Syre so quickly.” He threw the photos back on the middle of the table and sat back, disgusted.
 

Usually I was the one butting heads with our father. If the situation hadn’t been so dire, I could have relished the experience of being the good child for once.

“It’s true,” I said. “The tip from the stripper led us right to Syre.”
 

“Maybe,” Dad said. “Seems to me he was having a bit too much fun. And what’s your excuse?”

“
My
excuse?”

He used a finger to swipe a few of the photos off to the side. One of them fluttered to the floor, and Rob scrambled to recover it before the approaching waitress saw.

When I looked back at the pile, I saw a photo of me. It was night, and I was turned away from the camera, but I recognized myself immediately.
 

I also recognized the man I straddled. His face was hidden because I had my hands buried in his hair.

I snatched up the photos, four in total. Corbin’s face wasn’t clear in any of them because the photographer was trying to capture me.

“He was keeping me company during a stakeout,” I protested, knowing how weak my excuse sounded. “We got Syre, and in record time. Isn’t that what matters?”

The waitress had deposited our drink order and left. I dumped half the glass of wine into my stomach while wishing I had a hole in the top of my skull so that I could pour the alcohol directly on my brain.

When I set the glass down, my hands were shaking. “You
really
crossed a line.”

“No, I didn’t,” my father said. Anyone watching would have thought he was sure of himself, but I knew he felt guilty. He stared me down. “I’m not saying that you were
wrong
to do what you did. The hours are long, and I get that it’s not much fun to always be working on Friday and Saturday nights. But I don’t think the two of you are ready to manage a company on your own.”

“We wouldn’t be on our own,” Rob protested.
 

Exactly. “There’s Katrina,” I said triumphantly.
 

“And the part-timers,” Rob said.

“Let’s back up. Audrey, you really hit the key a moment ago.” Before the last word was out of his mouth, he took a swig of beer, and I knew I was going to hate what followed. I racked my brain, trying to figure out what I’d said that could be used against us.

“You did get Syre in record time,” our father said. “That’s the most important thing. I agree.”

“Maybe not the most important thing,” I said, trying to backpedal even though I didn’t know what the trap was. “Safety is—”
 

“Which is why I’m bringing in the fastest bounty hunter I know. He’s got a great record, and I believe you know him. He undercut you by a week, Audrey.”

“What? Undercut me? I have no idea what you’re talking about. No one has
ever
undercut me.” It was like I’d been entered into some competition against my knowledge, and that made me furious. No one had worked harder than me, and if I hadn’t loved Rob so much, I would have pointed out that I consistently put in 20% more time than he did. But I wouldn’t turn on him. “This is so…” Words failed me, and the anger that coursed through my veins made me dizzy. “You’re being stupid. Don’t you
dare
bring in an outsider. It’s not right! We sacrificed too much for this!” Tears blurred my vision. In ten minutes, my father had turned me ten years younger.

“I invited him at the last minute… oh, and here he is!” Dad stood—he hadn’t bothered standing for us, and the observation was fuel on my anger. I followed his gaze, and my heart stopped.

Oh.

My.

God.

I wanted to stand up and scream and scream and scream until I woke from this nightmare.

Beaming, Dad pumped Henry’s hand.
 

Working for the family business had never been what I’d call empowering, but I’d put up with all the bullshit—the long hours, the deplorable pay that would have been illegal in any other country, the subtle but constant denigrations by my dad—as an investment in my future.

And this was what he did. He brought in an outsider. I couldn’t even process that it was Henry. My brain refused.
 

Never had I felt so used. So helpless.
 

I looked at Rob. He seemed stunned but not terribly upset otherwise. He shook Henry’s hand, immediately falling into his role. Rob wasn’t about fights or drama, even when he was wronged. His unofficial motto was “go along to get along.”

“Hello, Audrey,” Henry said, extending his hand across the table.
 

I pointedly leaned back and crossed my arms. Irritation shot across Henry’s features, almost too quick to see. But I saw.
 

“Audrey!” my father said.

I turned to him. “It might interest you to know that Henry has been pursuing me. And now he’s my coworker? Or is he our boss?”

“Hold on…” Dad started. He cleared his throat, changed tacks. “Henry reached out to you professionally. Is that incorrect?” The way he said it, it was clear he wouldn’t believe me. It would be too inconvenient.
 

“As friends!” Henry insisted.
 

“We just got back from a trip to Florida.” I looked at Henry. “He pretended it was to capture some big bounty, but I think it was just a ruse.”

“She’s dating Cory,” Rob said. He was trying to be helpful, letting Henry know that I wasn’t interested. Well, he succeeded, because Henry’s eyebrows shot up.

Fuck.

I shoved the photos back in the envelope and slid them between my ass and the chair. Luckily, Henry wasn’t paying much attention to my hands. Instead, he was watching my eyes, a look of sudden understanding on his face.

But what did he understand? That I was seeing someone. He couldn’t have connected Cory to Corbin. He couldn’t believe that if I were dating a fugitive, I’d introduce him to Rob.

His lips twisted, then he forced his sneer into a smile and launched into a rehearsed speech about how excited he was to join our team. I forced the muscles in my ears to tense, the resulting dull roar drowning out Henry’s babbling. It was a juvenile tactic that I’d perfected as a kid after getting into trouble for plugging my fingers into my ears.
 

It was either that or throw something. At someone. Hard.

“I think that Stroop Finders is going to reach new heights of success,” Henry concluded. He raised his water glass.

I doubted anyone was surprised when I opted not to toast.

“The transition should be finished in another two weeks,” Dad said. “I’ll still be around as a consultant from time to time.”

“Wait,” Rob said, his eyes narrowing. “So what happens to us?”

I nodded. He was
finally
catching on.
 

“Well, I hope you’ll stay,” Henry said. “After all, the Stroops are a big part of Stroop Finders.”

“Of course they’ll stay,” Dad boomed.
 

“Contracts expire in the fall,” I reminded him smugly.
 

“I’m aware,” Henry said. “And I plan to make it well worth your while to re-sign.”

I snorted, and Dad slammed his fist on the table. “Henry is investing a lot of his own money into the business. He’s going to expand it. He’s bringing decades of contacts and contracts with him. Stroop Finders will
grow
. I realize you have difficulty controlling your little temper tantrums, but you are not a child, Audrey. Show some respect.”

“Fine.” I stood. “I respectfully quit.”

“Audrey—” Rob grabbed at my hand.

I looked into my brother’s brown eyes and felt a stab of misgiving. But there was only so much I could take.
 

“Let her go,” Henry said. “She’ll come around.”

“Fuck you, Henry.”

“Audrey!” my father bellowed.
 

I peeled the envelope of photos off my chair and left.

No one followed me outside—I checked. Not because I was hoping that my father would run after me and apologize (though some foolish part of me did hope that, very much) but because I didn’t want anyone to see me getting into Jennifer’s enormous truck.

“Everything good?” she asked.

I shrugged. “It will be.”

Even though I was still shaking, a cold fear was already settling in. Namely, a belated awareness of my situation.

My father didn’t pay us well. Again, the assumption had always been that Rob and I would take over one day. As a consequence, I had very little savings.

Our safety net was our family; for example, I could have borrowed money to buy a home or a car. Rob had done this, but it had never sat right with me.

But my net was now so riddled with holes that it was about as useful as the tightrope I’d just dived off of. Because I would never speak to my father again. And I couldn’t in good conscience ask Rob or our mother for help.

Back at my gilded prison, I crawled into bed and pulled the covers over my head. I
hated
Henry. My body vibrated with it. He had played me. All along, he’d known he’d be my boss one day. It had been a trap. I fell asleep to a procession of increasingly dark conclusions.
 

The door opened, jerking me out of a deep, dreamless sleep. “Sorry to wake you, but I’m taking off. Will you be alright for the night?” Jennifer asked.

I pulled myself up to sitting and tried to order my scattered thoughts. Then I remembered what had happened. “Uh… yeah. I’m not going anywhere.” It wasn’t like I had a job. “See you tomorrow?”

“Of course,” she said.

A few minutes later I stumbled out of bed. The apartment was empty and it had gotten dark outside, but Jennifer had left on the hall and living room lights. I stuck some leftover pizza in the microwave to heat—I hadn’t eaten all day—and tried the front door.

Locked. Apparently Jennifer wasn’t taking any chances after finding me outside the apartment once. And she had seemed so nice. Next she’d be putting sedatives into the hot chocolate.
 

If I had to be locked in a building, this was as good a place as any. I sank into the couch, a cold can of root beer squeezed between my knees, and turned on the television.

“No,” I whispered when I realized what movie was showing. It was the same crappy testosterone-buzz male fantasy that Corbin had been watching before our first kiss.

I snorted, suddenly getting it. DVD. He’d gone out and bought this piece of trash because he knew that it would amuse me.

All afternoon, I’d felt like I was being attacked from every direction, that I would never smile again. I hadn’t been prepared for this, a silly bit of teasing from the man who had made my life so damned complicated. Not only did I smile, I laughed.
 

How could I not adore him?

I let the movie run for ten minutes—the time it took to finish the pizza and soda. Then I turned off the DVD player. Because I got the joke, and Corbin would receive his points. But I’d already had too much punishment for the day, and that movie was in violation of the Geneva Convention.

While I watched a TV show on parakeets, I thought about my options. Being in this apartment for a few days… maybe I’d gotten lucky. At least here I was being fed and kept warm. Hundreds of television channels to distract me. The last thing I needed was to sit alone in my gloomy apartment.

But being alone here was depressing, too.

I reached for my phones. Rob had called and texted, and so had my mother, who was in a frenzy, threatening to strangle my father and worried that I’d end up on the street.
 

That made me smile. My mom never got worked up, just like Rob. It was how she’d put up with my father long enough to have kids with him.

It felt good knowing that someone was fully on my side, that I wasn’t being irrational, that I had, in fact, been wronged.
 

But Rob was the one I called. “What’d I miss?”

“Lots. First, it’s not just Henry coming on. There’s also some ex-FBI partner of his.”

“Ex-FBI?”

“Yeah. Guy named Butch. About twelve feet tall, hands the size of a polar bear. I don’t mean a polar bear’s paws. I mean the whole bear.”

“I met him briefly,” I said, wondering if that was the reason Henry had asked Butch to drive us to the airport.
 

“Dad’s in a meeting with Henry and Butch, but he wants to talk to me about reassigning your workload.”

“Sorry. But look on the bright side. You can keep the rubber band ball.”

“Henry seems motivated, though. That man is all about his contacts.”

“So will you and I get anything?”

Long pause. “Dad’s pretty pissed at you.”

“The feeling is mutual. In case I was subtle earlier.”

“You weren’t.” There was a note of pride in his voice. “Dad says you can’t come back until you apologize.”