“Anytime,” he said.
Nate entered and waved, then said something and the meeting started, the voices of my colleagues not able to penetrate the chaos of thoughts flooding my mind. They were an effective team, and I was thankful for the opportunity to have worked with them.
With a twisting sensation in the pit of my stomach, I checked that the book was still inside my handbag, just as ominous as before, and just as cursed for ruining my life.
The clock ticked.
It was time.
Fighting the nausea bubbling up inside me, I made my way to the underground parking garage. The air was cold down here and a shiver ran down my spine, but my mind spun in a feverish trance, my stomach twisting like an evil snake. I reached the first level and stopped, realizing Robert Mayfield had never told me where to meet him. That’s when I recognized the guy with the “I love NY” T-shirt peering from under a suit jacket. His blond hair was combed back in a slick style, revealing the smooth face and stony features of someone who I guessed never smiled. When he noticed me, he gestured at a black sedan with tinted windows.
I scanned the area even though I hadn’t really expected Robert Mayfield to turn up.
“Get in,” tourist guy said.
My heart pounded hard against my chest as I slipped into the back seat and he slammed the door shut, locking me inside. He jumped into the driver’s seat and started the engine, but didn’t drive off.
“Do you have the book?” His English was perfect, not even a hint of an accent to suggest he had ever lived anywhere but in New York. I had been an idiot to fall for his trick, believing he was a foreigner. My glance met his in the rearview mirror.
“Yeah.” I reached into my handbag and retrieved what he wanted, then handed it to him.
“Did you tell anyone about this?”
I shook my head.
“I’ve kept my part of the bargain,” I replied through gritted teeth.
“Do you see the black leather briefcase?”
It was at my feet—a huge ugly thing—the sort you see in movies with money in it.
“Everything you need is in there,” he said. “Open it.”
I lifted it. It was heavy and locked, and something I didn’t want to touch. “I don’t know the number combination.”
“Put in the zip code of the Empire State Building.” He smiled, self-assured, probably thinking I wouldn’t know the zip codes of the only five buildings that were large enough to have their own codes.
My jaw jutted up. “That would be 10118.” I typed in the number, and the case opened with a click. Robert Mayfield hadn’t lied. Stacked inside were documents and a new passport, as well as cash and a few credit cards. I opened the passport and stared at the photograph I had provided to get my staff ID card. The name read Carol Laura Harley.
Was that supposed to be my new name? I scanned the rest. Even my birthdate and birthplace were different. In my new identity I was two years younger and born in Oregon. I turned the passport around. It looked old and genuine, and the corners were slightly flaked as though it used to belong to someone else and my picture had somehow been inserted inside. Robert Mayfield wasn’t the clean and genuine guy everyone made him out to be.
Judging from the driver’s impatient glance, we were on a schedule. I put the passport away and folded my hands in my lap, unsure what to do. The driver kept watching me, and for a second I thought I detected pity in his expression. Maybe his job was more demanding than I thought. Being Robert Mayfield’s driver probably also included the duty of beating the crap out of people—or worse.
Don’t go there. Don’t even think what this guy could do to you.
“Ready?” he asked. “Your flight leaves soon.”
“Yeah.” I buckled up the seatbelt. He started the engine and pulled out of the parking lot.
That’s it, Stewart. Say goodbye to your life.
From the periphery of my eye I caught a dark blur heading toward us. I turned but too late. The car hit us sideways with a loud thud. My head banged against the window. In the same moment the seatbelt tightened across my chest, crushing all the air out of my lungs.
It all happened too fast. I peered around me, too shocked to fully grasp the situation, when the front door was yanked open. Hands pulled out the driver, and a stifled gunshot echoed. I froze, unsure whether to jump out of the car or hide. In the two seconds it took me to decide a guy slumped into the driver’s seat. Our eyes connected in the rearview mirror. In his oversized sweater and ripped jeans, he didn’t look like anyone Robert Mayfield would employ.
I snorted. Seriously? I was being car-jacked? I opened my mouth to scream for help when the front passenger door opened and a guy jumped into the passenger seat, pointing a gun with a silencer at me. I whimpered, but the sound remained trapped in my throat.
“We got her,” he said slowly into his phone.
My heart began to race against my ribcage at the realization this wasn’t a random car-jacking, or an accident. They were after me. Judging from the guy’s smug grin, they had planned this move.
PART 2
PROLOGUE
Jett
IT ALL SEEMED like a memory, a dream, hard to grasp and to explain, and so difficult for her to accept, as if she couldn’t allow happiness to happen to her. Right from the start, I knew Brooke would have trouble trusting me. But breaking up with me when things were going well made no sense.
For the past few hours I had been trying to focus on the spreadsheets on my computer screen. At some point they had become nothing but a big smudge of unrelated numbers because my mind kept circling around the thought that Brooke was hiding something. I had seen it in her face, heard it in her voice. She wasn’t a particularly good liar. In fact, she couldn’t lie if her life depended on it. She might fool the people around her, but she couldn’t fool me, and I had every intention of making it clear tonight at dinner. I’d put a stop to her nonsensical fears because she was my woman, and if that meant literally forcing her to sit down and talk, then so be it.
“Please take a seat, sir. Mr. Mayfield will be with you shortly,” one of my assistants said to a board member in the hall. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”
I glowered and wished I had closed the damn door and pretended I wasn’t available instead of having to deal with yet another client who was afraid he’d lose his money once the shares crashed and burned. Ever since the news broke about my father’s death, people had started to question the credibility of the company, as though it hadn’t been I who’d brought in most of the major deals ever since I joined Mayfield Realties.
In the past few weeks I had been working on setting up my own company. I had invested everything I had—my money, my apartments, my shares in Mayfield Realties—and was ready to start transferring the staff I wanted on board when a routine check came back with devastating news that could cost me both the new business venture and my credibility. Infusing confidence into the new company and my abilities to build an empire away from my father’s influence would have been an easy task, were it not for the fifty million dollars missing from the Mayfield Realties accounts.
I squeezed my eyes shut and rubbed my forehead to get rid of the pressure building inside my head. The last thing we needed was board members and shareholders panicking and demanding to see the financial reports. I couldn’t make the books public until I figured out what was happening. The spreadsheets on my screen were supposed to shed light on where the money had disappeared, only I couldn’t focus with Brooke occupying my mind.
“Mr. Mayfield? You—” My receptionist’s voice echoed through the intercom. I pressed the response button to cut her off.
“Send him in.”
“Right away, sir.”
A knock on the door, and a man in his fifties entered. One of the assistants placed a file on my desk and then closed the door behind us.
“Take a seat.” I pointed at the seat opposite from me and read the name on the file:
Clarence Holton
The name sounded oddly familiar. I pondered for a moment, and then it hit me. I had read the same name on the hit list in the black book. There had been a Holton, no doubt about it. I just couldn’t remember the first name.
My gaze brushed his salt-and-pepper hair and tanned face before settling on the sleeves of his tailored suit. My father had told me that all members of the elite club wore special cufflinks to recognize each other. They were silver round buttons engraved with a symbol that looked like leaves growing over circles and ended in a sharp “V”-split tail in the form of a lizard’s tongue—the symbol of parasitic animalistic power growing over physical matter.
“Thank you for seeing me,” Holton said. He lifted his hands, then crossed them on the desk. My gaze fell on the cuffs. They were smaller than I remembered, but the spitting image of those my father showed me.
I looked into his eyes, my face a stony mask.
“I’m a busy man.” My voice betrayed a mixture of boredom and annoyance—a winning combination in the business world. It was the kind of voice I had learned to use during my time in a gang; the kind of voice that always earned respect and let people know they couldn’t mess with me.
“I never got the chance to tell you how sorry I am about your father’s demise.”
“Don’t worry about it.” I drew a sharp breath and let it out slowly—another one of my tactics to signal to get to the point. The spreadsheets were waiting, and then there was also my tiny problem with Brooke. I had no time for small talk, and particularly not with someone like Holton.
“Your father and I were very close,” Holton said. “Now that he’s no longer with us and you’re in charge, I hope we’ll become friends.”
The way he said the word “friends” made me recoil with disgust. I had no intention of being his friend, not even an acquaintance.
“I’ll think about it,” I said. “If there’s nothing else—” The invitation to leave hung heavy in the air. I knew he could feel it by the way his eyes narrowed a bit, which he downplayed with laughter.
“Like father, like son. Triad magazine’s having its annual September issue party.” He raised a brow meaningfully, like I was supposed to know what the hell he was talking about. When I remained silent, he continued, “We’d love to have you as a guest of honor. You’re single, as far as the world knows. Plenty of attractive models will be attending. Maybe one will catch your eye.”
“I thought you were a magazine, not an escort service.”
My statement caught him off-guard. His eyes shimmered with annoyance, and in that instance I realized Clarence Holton wasn’t here because he was worried about the company or his shares; he had been instructed to recruit me. Maybe my father had left the club, but Holton was still an active member.
“I’ll think about it,” I said, standing. He followed suit, and I accompanied him to the door. For obvious reasons, I couldn’t kick his ass out of my office. The shareholders couldn’t sell or the shares would plummet to an all-time low. His connections to the media prevented me from making rash decisions. And I hated it, because it felt as though I supported his dark and twisted secrets and lifestyle.
