Liam: The Lost Billionaires, Book 3

by Allison LaFleur

  I realized she had a notebook in her lap, a cheap yellow legal pad, one of the ones Ben had sent me. She struggled to write with her left hand, covering the page with messy squiggles. As I watched her, it dawned on me that she was writing a new song. Here she was, hunted by a psycho, injured, stolen away from her life, and she was still working.

  The sun finally crested the horizon, and its rays bathed the valley in early morning light, painting gold highlights in her red hair and across her delicate features. This Maggie was not the Maggie Lane in the tabloids and the news. This was a part of herself she hid from the public. I liked this Maggie, this vulnerable woman; she had depth and soul. She was nothing like plastic party girl I thought she was.

  I looked around me. It felt strange to be there in that house again. When I’d locked the door five years ago, I never expected to return. I’d thought it would sit there, empty forever. I idly rubbed my thigh at the thought of that day and limped slightly as I stretched the kinks out of my legs and went to refill my empty coffee cup.

  Maggie

  I didn’t like it when people watched me sing. I know that sounds strange for someone like me who performs for a living, but when I am working on a new song, it’s private. It’s mine and no one else's. It surprised me I didn’t mind Liam watching, and I didn’t know why. I trusted him, but maybe he shouldn’t have trusted me.

  I furtively looked back at the cabin. Liam would have been mad if he knew I’d borrowed his sat phone. I snuck it out from under the blanket I was wrapped in and dialed Julie. I couldn’t let her think I was dead. She had done too much for me to leave her hanging.

  Indigo is an odd group; we are all so different. I’m obsessive-compulsive—a fraud who made good. Julie was slightly crazy, but super organized and good at her job. Elijah and the guys in the band all had different backgrounds. Eli had attended the New England Conservatory of Music to study the cello. Levi washed dishes in the back of the bar I’d played in, and just by chance, he’d come out to fill in one day in an emergency.

  I listened to Julie’s phone ring and hoped she was awake answer it.

  “Hello?” Her sleepy voice was quiet over the line.

  “Julie?” I whispered, keeping one eye on the cabinet.

  “Maggie? MAGGIE?! Are you okay? Where are you? The goon squad here won’t tell me a thing. They’re all rushing around on their fancy ear mics, searching everyone, and barking orders at us all. What happened?” She cried, her voice shaking. God, it was nice to have someone worry about me. My parents were older when they had me. They were from a different generation, and they couldn’t understand my decisions. Confused and disturbed by the course of my life, they’d given up and checked out. Sometimes it seemed like Julie was the only one who still really cared.

  Thank God Julie turned down the recording deal she was offered. I felt bad that she wasn’t on stage alongside me, but it was a godsend for my career. She was an amazing manager.

  Success is fleeting. I have no idea why so many people came to hear me sing, but they did. I was going to ride it as long as possible, until they realized I really had no idea what I was doing. I needed Julie to keep up the illusion.

  “Shhhhh, Julie. Liam doesn’t know I’m calling you. He’s got us up in the mountains at some cabin.”

  “You have to come home right now! What are we going to do about the tour? You can’t disappoint your fans, Maggie. They are here to see you.”

  “I know, I know.” I took a deep breath, but it didn’t help. “I’m doing the best I can, but Julie, I got SHOT!”

  “What?!” she screeched. “No way! You always were a drama queen, Maggie. If you want some time off, you can have some when this tour is over, but you have responsibilities. You can’t leave me to clean up your mess again.”

  “I’m serious, Julie. I went to a club, and some idiot in the crowd shot me. Liam barely got us out alive.”

  “I need to come there. You tell me where you are right now.”

  “Julie, I have no idea where I am.” I heard Liam’s footsteps in the hall. “Oh, he’s coming! I’ve got to go!” I quickly pressed “end” and shoved the phone under the blanket again as Liam walked by, a faraway look on his face.

  I closed my mouth, cutting off the last note, and crossed out a few lines. Wrinkling my brow, I tried to think of a better verse. I chewed on the end of my pen and stared out over the water. After scratching down a few more words, I dropped my pen on the notepad and reached over for a sip of coffee. Glancing back in the house, I thought about the man inside.

  Liam was hot. Smoking hot. I was stuck in a cabin with a sexy special ops soldier. Too bad I was shaky and weak. I was single. He hadn’t received one call from a woman in the whole time I’d known him. If I’d felt better, I would have considered our confinement a sign from heaven. I hadn’t had a relationship in a while… a long while. This tour was the longest dry spell I’d had since I was sixteen and slipped under the bleachers with the captain of the football team. I was sorely tempted to recreate that magic with Mr. Special Ops and let him meet my needs.

  Liam surprised me. He was a lot sweeter than I’d expected. Kinsey hadn’t led me to believe he could be so tender. Gently changing my bandages, helping me with my shower, he had shown a side of himself I think he usually kept hidden. I wondered about that Liam, the one he kept sheltered behind a cold, stony facade.

  I blinked, realizing I was a little loopy from the meds. Okay—a lot loopy. I felt floaty. I could still feel the pain, but it didn’t hurt. Instead, it was locked behind a door, present but not a problem. The door wouldn’t open until the meds wore off.

  I cocked my head and looked back at the house. Maybe I should have listed to Liam from the beginning. Maybe he was right, and someone really was after me. I mean, getting shot at that club wasn’t random. Was it connected to the letters and the break-ins? I sighed. It would have been too much of a coincidence if it wasn’t. I had to face reality. What’s more real than getting shot?

  I thought about the last few months. I got boxes of fan mail every day. Julie went through most of it. I provided her with signed photos for the autograph seekers. She answered most of the mail, only setting aside the ones that needed a more personal touch.

  Threats had started arriving roughly three months earlier. There were always kooks sending me mail; most were determined to be harmless. We’d turn their letters over the police and move on.

  These threats were different. They were toxic. They started once a week and escalated to once a day. Then the break-ins started. That’s when I confided in Kinsey, and Mason contacted Liam. Julie had used rent-a-cops for years, and I was perfectly happy with them. They left me alone. They kept the place secure… for a while.

  Looking at Liam, I felt guilty about that folder hidden under my bathroom sink. I should have taken the photos more seriously, but without music, did I really have a life?

  Chapter Fourteen

  Liam

  “You need some more coffee?” I opened one of the sliding doors leading to the porch and joined Maggie in the early morning light.

  “Sure.” She held out her cup, and I topped it off. Setting the coffee pot on the table, I settled into the chair next to hers. Side by side, we sat peacefully watching the sun continue its climb up into the sky as we sipped our coffee.

  “How is your shoulder?”

  “Doesn’t hurt too much, but I took those pills you gave me.”

  “Mmmm.” I savored my coffee, enjoying the high quality brew. In country, we drank whatever was easy to get, but Kona coffee was my favorite. Ben needed a raise. “Let me know how the pain goes. I don’t want to give you too many pills. It’s easy to get addicted.”

  “This is going to drive my publicity team crazy. They hate bad press.” She hung her head. “I can’t image what me disappearing and leaving them to cancel the tour is going to do. God, Julie must be going nuts. She flips out if we change the schedule.”

  The manager again. That woman was everywhere in Ma
ggie’s life. “What's the deal with you and Julie?

  “Well… We grew up on the same street. I went off to boarding school in fall, but summers I’d go home. Then for college, I came back to town, and we just sort of always drifted together. Some guy she was dating wanted to start a band, so we sang together in his garage. I discovered I loved to sing. I think that was the summer between freshman and sophomore years of high school. He didn’t last long, but by then I knew what I wanted to do with my life.”

  I took a sip of coffee and watched as a bird flew alone over the surface of the water. “How did you know?”

  “When I stood in front of the microphone and let the sound come out, I felt so free. Everything else in my life was controlled right down to the minute, but that,” she turned her smile to me, “that was mine.”

  “But doesn’t Julie do the same thing to you on tour? Controls you right down to the minute?”

  “Businesswise, yes, but I need that structure. She makes sure we make money and don’t lose it on stupid stuff like fines or paying for a second day because we’re late. I need that, and I don’t want to do it myself. It’s more like I get to control me—where I go, what I do, how I spend my time.”

  “Boy,” I laughed, “you must really hate me and my team.”

  “You’re not my favorite person. You guys are everything I ever wanted to avoid. It’s like living with my parents again.” She screwed her cute face up and threw on a nagging tone. “’Margaret, you should be doing more with your life. Margaret, where are you going? You need to study to get into a good college. Margaret, why are you wasting your time with that singing? Margaret, you need to be focused on your future. Margaret, Margaret, Margaret.’”

  “And here I come in to tell you what to do, how to do it, and when… and cancel your tour.”

  “Yep.” She pursed her lips and nodded. “So, yeah. I fought you every step of the way. I’m sorry.”

  “What?”

  “Oh? You gonna make me say it again? I’m sorry. I should have listened. I shouldn’t have made you take me dancing. You were right.”

  I had to pick my jaw up off the floor. “I’m sorry too, Maggie. Sorry we made you feel so out of control and turned your life into a prison.”

  She shrugged. “Yeah, but you were right. It was dangerous. I’ve been doing this so long I forget that the kooks can be real threats.”

  “That’s my job—to assume everyone is serious. That’s what I do. If you’ll let me do what I do best, we can neutralize this guy, and then you can go back to the life you love.”

  Maggie didn’t say anything in response. We sat in silence a little longer. A tiny hummingbird came up and flitted from flower to flower in the blooming honeysuckle vines that wrapped around the porch rail.

  “Liam?”

  “Yes?”

  “Why do you do it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “This. Why did you choose this? Security… protecting people.”

  “Well, it wasn’t my dream or anything. I was a lost kid. A throwaway. I grew up on the bad side of town. My dad was a drunk. My mom was an addict. I ran the streets and got involved with the wrong people. I was stealing cars and other shit. and one day I got caught.”

  “Oh, Liam, I’m so sorry.” Her big green eyes were full of genuine pity.

  “No. It made me who I am. I lucked out and got a good judge, one with some common sense. My friend Luke’s dad. Luke and I didn’t meet until later, but his dad, the judge, he saw something in me. It was a fluke I got caught, really. I was very good at it. I was practically running the gang. I used my brain, and I guess he saw that. He made a phone call and sentenced me to Noah’s boys.”

  “Noah’s boys?”

  “That’s what we called ourselves. It was an alternative to straight up juvie. Noah is a billionaire tech genius. He would take on some of the biggest juvenile offenders, the ones who had the potential to turn their lives around, and give us jobs—real, honest jobs—and train us. Business boot camp. If we screwed up, we were sent straight back to juvie and locked up until we were 21. If we stuck it out and got with the program, we went back to school, and Noah helped us pay for college. It wasn’t a handout. We had to work for it either with him or with someone else in a field we were interested in. But we got a top notch business education. I guess me turning that street gang into a profitable business enterprise got me noticed.”

  “Holy shit! I’ve never heard of anything like that!”

  “It’s not publicized. He doesn’t do it for the money. He’s got plenty of that. I saw it for what it was to me—a way to make something of myself. So I jumped in, finished high school early, started taking some business classes, and then I joined the army. I wasn’t ready to strike out on my own quite so early, not like Mason or Damon. I hadn’t found my passion yet.”

  “But you were ready for the military?”

  “The army extended my education. I discovered I was good at killing people. Hunting them down across the globe and wiping them off the face of the Earth.” I looked in Maggie’s eyes. “I mean really good at it. I flew up the ranks, and they sent me to every spook school that existed. Not only was I good at it, but people needed my skills. After 20 years, I got out of the service and started Scorpion Security. The rest is history.”

  “Wow. That’s pretty amazing, Liam. Where are your parents now?

  “Dad’s in jail, and Mom died of an overdose. I never saw them again after I want to juvie.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “I’m not.” I flashed her a smile. “Noah’s boys became my family. And now my guys in the company are my family. I don’t need anything else.”

  “You always need someone, Liam. What about a girlfriend?”

  “I tried that once. It ended badly. No woman can accept what I have to offer.”

  “I think you’re wrong.” She shook her head and stared at the distant trees on the other side of the lake. “You’re a good man.”

  “I’m not whole. There is something missing. No woman can accept that.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Maggie

  I set my now empty coffee cup down, reached over, and took his hand. To my surprise, he didn’t pull away. I was shocked by what Liam had told me about himself, impressed by it. His life made mine seem underwhelming. Sure, I had controlling parents, but I at least had them, and they cared if I lived or died. They were just older and didn’t understand my desire to sing. That’s just not what their generation did. Liam’s parents were of a different world.

  “This house is beautiful,” I said, feeling the urgent need to change the subject. “Whose is it?”

  He was silent so long I didn’t think he was going to respond. Then he seemed to come to terms with something, and he let out a long sigh. “It’s mine.”

  My head whipped around to look at him. He suddenly had my full attention, and the blue green hummingbird was forgotten.

  “Your house?” This gorgeous glass and steel cabin so beautiful it looks as if it’s part of the mountain is his???

  He chose his words carefully. “I… uh… built it for someone. It didn’t work out.” His face flashed with pain, and he tried to pull his hand back, but I wouldn’t let go.

  “Liam?”

  He pulled harder, and I released him. “I…” His words trailed off, and he stood and walked over to the railing. Leaning on the wood with both hands, his unfocused eyes looked out across the lake. “I was engaged.” I could see his jaw clench. The muscles in his face and shoulders bunched as he struggled with what to say.

  “When I came back from Afghanistan, the things I did… the things I saw… I wasn’t the same. I was injured. I was angry. She couldn’t take it.” He turned to look at me briefly before focusing back on the peaceful water. “She left.”

  The blanket fell from my shoulders as I stood and walked to his side. I laid my good hand on his shoulder. “She didn’t deserve you then.”

  “I wasn’t the man she fell in
love with.” His shoulders sagged.

  “Liam, everyone changes. War changes you. Life changes you. If she was the right woman, she would have changed with you.”

  “She didn’t sign up for this.” He gestured at himself and I saw how lost he was. Like the people I sing about, he was hurt, he needed to be loved to find his true self.

  “No one deserves what she did to you, Liam, no one. You are a good man.”

  Liam noticed my shivering and turned to help me back to my chair. “You’re cold. Here.” He wrapped the blanket back around me, and my skin tingled where his fingers accidentally brushed across it. “You shouldn’t be up.”

  “I can’t sleep anymore. I’ll take a nap later.”

  “I need to go in and do some research. I set up the computers last night.”

  “Can I come?”

  He shrugged, “If you want to.”

  “I really want to help you catch the bastard.”

  “Okay, but if you get too tired or you start to hurt again, tell me. I don’t want you to overdo it.”

  “Fine.” I just wanted to learn more about the enigma standing beside me. He’d gone from the silent, unreadable G-man who hid behind dark sunglasses to a human being capable of emotional pain. That wasn’t what I expected in the middle of all this chaos.

  He held open the door for me and settled me into an overstuffed armchair next to his computer setup. He even pulled up an ottoman for my feet. He sat in a straight backed chair and pulled it in close. He flipped a switch, firing up the computer, and all three monitors came alive.