The Law of Motion (Law Series) (79 page)

             
“What are you—”

             
I sighed. “I know that it was you Roman, you ordered for them to kidnap Juan and me.”

             
“I would never— I didn’t even know you before you came.”

             
“I was honest with you, so for once, try being honest with me.” I demanded.

             
I listened to him shuffle in the leather seat in front of my desk. “What do you want to know?”

             
“I want to know why you—”

             
I didn’t finish my sentence, because of the whirlwind that flew past my head and the storm that followed into my office. I didn’t feel any pain, only a whisk of air and my heart racing. Kristen was in in the same second, a gun pointed to the man next to me, both Roman and I voluntarily pressed against the large window.

             
“Drop it Roman.” Kristen ordered making her way over to the book case but never taking the gun off of his head. “Alyssa move away.”

             
I moved only as far as my desk before turning my back away from him. He was still holding the letter opener from my desk in his hand. It took another second to realize that an attempt on my life had been made.

             
“Yeah Adrian, I got him. You should have been up here already.” Kristen hissed opening the door. Doc was the first one out with her gun pointed at him too. Shock went across Roman’s face more than ever, Tink filing out behind her. “I said drop the fucking letter opener, Roman!”

             
He complied this time, and Doc rushed to him first kicking it away, and then using the butt of her pistol to smack him across the face. I flinched each time it made contact. “That was my son you took from me,
mine
? Why? Why would you do it? And involve a
child
?”

             
Roman grunted on the floor with each hit, his arm doing a poor job of shielding him. Adrian and the others were in the room within the next thirty seconds, my fiancé rushing to my side at once. “Are you hurt, Honeyface?”  He asked looking me over as the others rushed in and someone shut the door.

             
I shook my head. “No.” His hands trialed down my shoulders, stopping at a tear in the silk at my collar bone. I didn’t notice it until he pointed it out. “I’m ok.” I repeated.

             
Adrian murmured a stream of curses before walking over to Roman, picking him up by his collar, forcing him against the glass window. “You and me…”

             
“Son… sit him in the chair.” Liam ordered pulling the leather chair into the center of the room.

             
Adrian looked to his dad and then to me, before forcing him effortlessly into the chair. “We promised we’d leave this up to Alyssa.”

             
“He tried to kill me.” My voice rasped looking around at the room of my friends and crew.

             
Tink pulled back the hammer of her gun pointing it at Roman’s head. “Well that answers that.”

             
“Margaux,” Jackson chided taking her gun out of her hand, pulling her away from Roman, and slowly releasing the hammer back to its place. “I think there are a few unanswered questions we need answered first Darlin’.” He stored the gun in the small of his back while Margaux huffed.

             
Jackson and I both knew that he didn’t give a damn about the unanswered questions, and if someone were to shoot him blank right there he wouldn’t lose sleep over it. However, it couldn’t be Tink that did it. She was the only one amongst us that had never taken a life. She had an innocence about her, that would be lost if she ever did and Jackson, he planned on keeping her that way if he could help it, and I wasn’t against it myself.

             
“Why would you involve my
son
in all of this?” Ross hissed, barely keeping Doc at bay. He didn’t say anything at first; his head hung low only showing the bloody pulp that was the side of his face. For a moment I thought he was unconscious.

             
“If you value your life, I’d answer the woman.” Dario cautioned threat laced in his Italian accent.

             
“I thought he was Alyssa’s…” He rasped in a low voice.

             
Danny scoffed in discuss. “And that makes it better?” 

             
Roman looked down at his Rolex, and he seemed to be deliberating in his head.

             
Jeff chuckled. “If you’re thinking about blowing the bottom floor out of this building, we’ve already removed your bomb. The only thing you have on your arm now is an expensive watch.”

             
“How did you figure it out?” Roman asked, looking in my direction. This caused most of the room to tense.

             
I wasn’t afraid of him. I let my guard down earlier, mainly because he was old enough to almost be my grandfather, but I was more than prepared for anything now. “You were very good at not bringing suspicion to yourself, only a few mistakes lead us to you.”

             
Doc took the reins. “The first, using the same private investigator that the Neil’s used to investigate Alyssa. The man you hired, the one that talked to Adrian at Margaux’s wedding, I recognized him. I saw him once when we were first opening the Gravity office, a few weeks later, Paul showed up at the grand opening.”

             
“She never forgets a face.” Ross added. “So when she saw him at the wedding, it took her a while, but she put it together.”

             
I stayed wrapped in Adrian’s arms as I spoke. Finding comfort in his over protectiveness, “The only other time, was when we were talking alone in my office. About why you helped me, you said that you helped Paul with whatever he wanted that you were to help me with whatever I wanted, and you would do the same for my son when it was his time. Juan has never been in this office, and only the kidnappers made that mistake.”

             
“That’s when she asked me to look into you more.” Tink went on. “You see, when Paul wanted to keep C&K open, despite what the board suggested, Paul attempted to personally finance until business went up, and you did the same, wanting to support his attempts. It went under any way, and you lost close to thirty-million in the process.”

             
“But why? You could have easily made more than that, hell you have since Alyssa took over here.” Kristen sneered pacing in front of Macon.

             
He wiped the blood off of his eye with his handkerchief, “I know that.” He snapped a tad gruffer, tired.  “I pulled away, called it off. I was suspicious at first, when she showed up here.”

             
“You had any member of the actual Neil family that you could have ransomed off at any time. Why
her
?” Adrian demanded roughly.

             
He didn’t answer at first, keeping his head low, until Macon yanked it up to look in the direction Adrian and I were standing. “Answer him old man.”

             
“It was Paul.” I answered for him.

             
He looked at me, as did everyone else in the room. “Did we miss something else?” Danny asked confused, speaking for everyone.

             
“It was, wasn’t it?” I asked looking at him, making sense of his thought process. “You wanted to get back at Paul right.”

             
“I’ve worked for this company since I was twenty-one. Paul Sr. hired me ten years before he retired. I’ve worked with Paul for over twenty years, covering for his indiscretions, making risky business plans, and taking heat. I did all of that, and when he gives up being a CEO, he doesn’t pass it along to me, and instead he offers it to you. He confided in me several times about your relationship.”

             
“It made you angry.” I guessed.

             
“It made me furious.” He corrected. “I risk everything for this company.”

             
Liam sighed pinching the bridge of his nose. “So you decide to use innocent people in your personal issues with Paul Neil, and Neil Industries? Do you understand what you’ve done to this family? You traumatized two children for god sakes!”

             
“I didn’t know that he wasn’t—”

             
“And that makes it better?!” Ross snapped.

             
Silence. Roman Maxwell had nothing more to say, and he dropped his head again.

             
“Are you done with your questions Alyssa?” Danny asked pushing away from the wall with his foot and walking over to Adrian and me.

             
I nodded.

             
“Then your time is up.” Doc hissed pulling a silencer out of her pocket and screwing it on. “I want this shit done so I can get back to my
son
.”

             
“No, no, please.” He begged as Doc stalked over shoving the barrel against his temple. “Please, please, please” He rushed as she clicked the safety to the opposite side.

             
Though I had seen death countless times and didn’t blink in its presence, I shoved my face into Adrian’s chest my hands clenching his shirt. I heard the click that came along with making a gun able to fire and I couldn’t take it anymore. “Doc please no!”

             
My voice carried over a lot louder than Roman’s pleading, and it got all of my crew’s attention. Adrian grabbed my shoulders and pulled me back enough so that he could look at me. “Honeyface?”

             
I looked up at him, and his sweet eyes were a mixture of concern and confusion. “Jail…please.”

             
“Are you serious? You don’t want to kill him?” Jackson asked in disbelief.

             
I walked over to Roman, kneeling at him. He barely looked at me, but Doc gaped at me in disbelief. “Roman.” I called again, looking up attempting to make eye contact with him. “Roman look at me. If you value your life listen. You will let them take you to jail. You will plead guilty to everything you were charged with and hire no one to come to your defense and give you any deals. You will spend your life in jail but you’ll live.” Roman weighed the pros and cons for a brief second, and when it seemed like he was going to decline my offer I pressed forward. “Please, don’t reject what I’m offering you. They
will
kill you Roman.”

             
Doc grabbed me by my arm pulling me up and to the side closer to her. She whispered in my ear, “You can’t be serious Alyssa.”

             
“Please Doc.” I requested, because I knew that only part of his asylum was mine to grant.

             
Doc looked over her shoulder at Roman, her chocolate colored eyes angry. Then looked back at me with confusion, “How can you want that, after everything we’ve done? Everything
he’s
done. This is Juan we’re talking about Alyssa.”

             
I nodded, understanding that though I knew part of how she felt I would never know the full extent. “You’re right Tawny. Do as you wish, just don’t become me in the process.”

             
Doc looked at him, and then at me again. She held up her gun, in his direction again. I turned away again, waiting for the silenced sound, and instead I heard the clicking of a safety returning to its place. “Call Cam and get him out of here. The only way I don’t shoot him now is if he’s sent far away from me.”

             
“I think that can be arranged.” Liam coughed picking up the phone and making a call to Agent Riley.

             
“Marry me, Alyssa," I whispered as my lips pressed to her temple.

"Yes, Adrian," She giggled, rolling her eyes at my umpteenth proposal, because now, it was just a joke.

Paul regained control of Neil Industries a little over a month ago, and her ring was back where it belonged; on her finger.  With everything that happened on her last day, my poor girl was dragging her feet towards the chopper. The team and I took the liberty of loading up all of her things ourselves, so at the end of the day we could just make our exit. 

We still hadn’t gotten back into normal cases, mainly because Alyssa wanted to give us all a break due to the past few months of not getting much of one. Alyssa was focusing on getting back to normal within our group as a whole before we moved on. It could take another week, another
month; hell another year before she decided to get back to work and it wouldn’t make any difference to me.

“How many days are you going to ask me that?” She laughed pulling herself into my arms.

I kissed the top of her head and then tilted her chin up to look at me.  “Until the day we say ‘I do’ baby.”