Dangerous Proposition

by Jessica Lauryn

  Holding his breath, Colin made his way to the door at the end of the hall. He pushed the glass doors open and approached the secretary’s desk.

  The woman sitting behind it wasn’t anyone he recognized. She had long, platinum-blonde hair and glasses. She couldn’t have been a day over twenty-five.

  “Pardon me,” he said. “I’m here to see—I mean, I have an appointment with—”

  She gave him an assuring smile. “Go right in, Dr. Westwood. Mr. Westwood is expecting you.”

  “Thank you.”

  Feeling a bit of relief, Colin released a breath. He second-guessed his burst of confidence as he approached the door and silently mulled over the fact that his father had been informed that he was on his way up to see him. Having been given a heads-up, he’d had time to think over whatever it was he planned to say.

  As he turned the doorknob, he held his breath. He let it go, pushing the door open the rest of the way.

  Looking around the dimly lit room, he noticed that several things about his father’s office had changed. Though the space was as large as ever, the bookshelves that had stood behind the desk had been moved to the right-hand side, making the enormous area seem even bigger than it was. The couch that had once been beside the door was no longer there. In its place, two leather chairs stood in front of the desk.

  Behind the chairs, at the end of what seemed a tunnel of endless space was a man with thick black hair that was sprinkled with gray. He was dressed in a wool sweater, and he wore a pair of reading glasses on his face. The frames were something the older man would have considered a sign of weakness during his prime. But even with them there, Colin could only see his father the way he had when he was a boy. Dynamic. Powerful. Positively frightening.

  “When Maxine told me that you were downstairs, I thought for sure she was mistaken,” his father said, looking up from his laptop with a taut, emotionless expression. “Apparently not.”

  “Is it really so hard to believe?” Colin asked, taking a hesitant step toward the desk.

  “That depends, doesn’t it? On whatever it is you’re looking for.”

  Colin took a seat in one of the leather chairs. Though it wasn’t the same object he’d sat on all the other times he’d been summoned to his father’s office, it felt just as cold. “I need your help.”

  “Naturally. As you and I both knew that one day you’d come back here, crawling on your hands and knees.”

  Tension seeped through Colin’s nostrils. He slipped his hand into his pocket and grasped his keys, a poor substitute for the thing he really wanted to throttle. “Which I’m sure you’re enjoying immensely.”

  “You’ve been an embarrassment to my family for thirteen years. Precisely what would I have to gloat about?”

  He knew his father had always seen him that way. But he could never get over the way he just blurted out his opinions. He supposed he’d do best to make his case quickly.

  “As much as I’m sure you’d like to sit here insulting me all day, I came here for a reason.” Drawing a breath, Colin said, “A man in my employ, someone very close to me has been abducted. His daughter, Julia, as well, she—”

  “And naturally you have no problem dropping on my doorstep and asking me for favors.”

  Colin froze, as did the room around him. It was as though a knife was being plunged into his gut, turned, and twisted through his insides.

  He didn’t know why he’d expected more. But he wasn’t stopping, not without getting out everything he’d come there to say. “Do you think that it was easy for me, coming here to see you after all these years? It took every ounce of courage for me to walk in here and ask you for anything.”

  “Pride, you mean.” His father stared him down. “So you think your coming here after all these years entitles you to some sort of reward?”

  Colin laced his shaking fingers. “I know that my coming here doesn’t entitle me to anything. But there are innocent people whose lives are in danger.” He swallowed. “I realize that you and I aren’t exactly on the best of terms, but I thought that maybe we could—”

  “You thought wrong. Don’t you see, Colin, that every decision that you’ve made has brought you to this very moment? Since the day you walked out of this office thirteen years ago. When you said that you didn’t need a father. That you wanted to be free, to be your own man.”

  “Don’t make this about us. There are innocent people who are going to die if we don’t—”

  “Innocent? No one connected to you is innocent. As if smuggling stolen gemstones into the country could possibly be construed as innocent. You’ve taken people under your wing, disreputable, downtrodden individuals, to run a repugnant empire. Stolen and pillaged, all in the name of charity. You’ve made your choices, Colin. As have the men who were foolish enough to help you to get where you are.”

  “Julia Dyson is innocent,” Colin said, fury spilling into his voice. “She has nothing to do with Project Gemstone. The only thing she’s guilty of is loving her father so much that she was willing to risk her own life to save him.”

  “Imagine that,” Leighton Westwood replied. “Loving one’s father, respecting the things he stands for. Putting one’s family above one’s own selfish whims.” Setting his pen down, he eyed Colin carefully. “You’re in love with this woman. Aren’t you?”

  Colin’s breath caught in his lungs. For months, he’d been telling himself that he couldn’t possibly be in love Julia. That he wasn’t capable of having the emotion, that whatever ability he may have had to love had been lost long ago. But then he thought of Byron, how he’d been willing to help the man after seeing him as his enemy for so many years. And Tucker, the lengths he’d gone to, to rescue a guy who, though he meant a great deal to him now, would have meant nothing in the past. Julia was the one he wanted beside him no matter how difficult things got. He’d changed in the last four months. Something within him had changed. Without looking up, he nodded slowly.

  “Colin, Colin, Colin. What a sorry situation you have gotten yourself into.”

  “You goddamn son of a bitch. You won’t even help her, will you! All because of me. All because I wouldn’t work for your farce of a company! I may have made mistakes, but at least I did the things I did because I was trying to help people. It’s a hell of a lot more than anyone will ever be able to say about you.”

  “Helping people. By stealing from them? Turning them into criminals and using them for their labor?” Leighton Westwood stroked his stubby chin. “If you’re helping people, son, what precisely do you call what I’ve been doing for the last thirty-five years?”

  “Making a profit at the expense of your workers? Firing people because it suits your own twisted purpose? Seeing to it that your servants carry the burden of your empire, so that you never have to get blood on your hands?”

  An image of Julia’s face flashed in his mind, and Colin drew a short breath. He’d just crossed the line, as he had thirteen years ago. Only this time, there was something a lot bigger than his future at stake. He turned to his father with desperation in his eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know what got into me just now.”

  “I do. You’re still the same outspoken little bastard you always were. And if you think that I’m going to help you to continue in your misguided ways, then you, my son, are about to see the brunt of my twisted purpose firsthand.”

  “Please,” Colin said. “I know I’ve made mistakes. But you’re the only one who can stop this. I’ve messed up, and Julia and her father are going to die if you don’t step in. Whatever differences you and I have, let’s just put them aside. You can save them. You can save Julia and her dad. I’m asking you. Please.”

  “No, Colin,” his father said after a long moment. “I’m not going to do that.”

  The older man stood, and for a second Colin thought he was going to change his mind. Walk over to him and embrace him as he had when he was a boy and he’d woken from a nightmare. But he didn’t do th
at. He went to the door and stood in the frame. After remaining there a couple of seconds, he turned off the light, leaving him alone in the room.

  Colin was stunned. Not by the fact that he’d lost his temper, but by his father’s reaction to everything he’d said. All those years they hadn’t spoken, he’d told himself it was because of an argument, something they could one day get past. But even under the most extreme of circumstances, his father had refused to step in, to help people who desperately needed his aid.

  Nevertheless, this wasn’t his father’s fault. He was the one who’d set this thing into motion the day he refused to tell Julia the truth. He loved her. And by attacking his father’s character, he’d destroyed his last hope of saving her.

  A tear trickled down Colin’s face. With his head hung, he leaned over and closed his eyes.

  Chapter 23

  Having walked back through his father’s office building the way he’d come, Colin got into his car. He sped down the country roads to Portland Airport, wasting no time in doing so.

  He made the jet ride back to the City then raced down Broadway and left his car with the valet. He entered the hotel and went upstairs, unlocking the door to his room. Looking toward the bed, he halfheartedly expected to find Julia shouting at Sunday evening politics. But the blankets and pillows remained untouched.

  He shut the door, eyeing the table in the corner of the room. In one sweep, he thrust its contents onto the floor. He pounded his fists against the table’s surface.

  Julia was gone. He had no idea where she was or how to get to her. The last hope he’d had of finding her had gone up in flames. Julia, the one person who had ever really known him and understood sides of him that no one else did, could die.

  She was one person he would have given his own life for.

  Kill—he wanted to kill those sons of bitches with his bare hands. Rizzo, Rossler, Strycker. He didn’t know how he would do it, but they were going to pay for what they’d done to Julia. He was going to see to that personally, no matter what psychopath was pulling their strings.

  Julia Dyson was at the center of his nightmare. Sweet, innocent Julia, whose only crime had been loving her father too much. She’d risked her life, not only for her father, but for him as well. Him, a man who’d lied to her about everything and forced her to agree to sleep with him against her choosing. Not that he’d had the gall to follow through on such a preposterous request.

  Julia had stuck by him through the insanity. She’d risked her life, knowing he might be the man responsible for her father’s abduction, maybe even his death. This was how he repaid her. This was how he showed her his gratitude.

  Colin clasped his aching temples. Feeling as though he was going to die of a blood pressure spike, he collapsed onto the bed. Something striking lay in the middle of the comforter. He eyed it, scooping it into his hand.

  It was Julia’s pendant necklace, the oval-shaped locket she always wore around her neck. In the time he’d known her, he had observed it was the one thing she was never without.

  She must have lost the necklace last night and not realized she hadn’t had it on when she left the hotel this morning. He clutched it in his fist, rubbing the golden medallion with his thumb. It was almost as though he believed he could bring her back by squeezing the metal until it cracked.

  A knock came at the door. Barely noticing, Colin stared at Julia’s necklace, feeling closer to her by doing so, wishing with anything that she would come walking through the door. Seconds later, the knocking became pounding, and the sound of it brought him back to reality. Hope flooded through him. He charged to the door.

  As he opened it, his eyes nearly fell out of their sockets. A stubby man wearing a baseball cap and a denim jacket stepped toward him.

  “Desmond?”

  “I know I’m not welcome here,” his former employee said, taking a hesitant step in Colin’s direction. “It’s just…well. I’ve been doing some thinking.”

  “I’ve never been happier to see anyone in my life,” Colin said. He embraced his friend, giving him a swift pat on the back. “Man, I can’t believe you’re here. How did you know where to find me? I’m not even sure why you wanted to when you had every reason in the world to walk away.”

  “Except the promise I made to you twelve years ago,” Desmond said.

  “Promise?” Colin blinked.

  “When I signed on to Project Gemstone, I made a promise to you that I would stand behind the cause no matter what danger came my way. That was right after you made a promise to protect my welfare, as you said you would protect the welfare of all those in your employ. So long as we were faithful to the principals the organization stood for, we would always have a place on your team.”

  “I remember,” Colin said, thinking back on the moment he’d said those words. Desmond had been just twenty-one and had a wife even younger than he was. He’d been laid off from his position tending bar, and with his wife’s high-risk pregnancy, his bills were stacking up fast.

  After pointing Desmond in the direction of one of the best OB-GYNs at Memorial Hospital, Colin had wanted to do more. And so he’d made Desmond an offer he couldn’t refuse. After signing on his newest recruit to Project Gemstone, he’d promised him that neither he, nor anyone else in his trust, would ever be dismissed for any reason that wasn’t a reflection of his actual job performance.

  After Desmond entered the room, Colin double-bolted the door. He grabbed two waters from the refrigerator and handed one of them to Desmond. “Tucker’s in even more danger than we thought. Griffin Strycker, John Rizzo, and Dylan Rossler are all working together. My security team has been searching for weeks, unable to get a lead on their whereabouts.”

  “Jesus Christ, Colin.”

  “There’s more,” Colin said, taking a gulp of water. “I know this is going to sound crazy, but I think there’s a very real possibility that someone has replaced Lucas in the organization. The bastard is very likely the mastermind behind this entire thing.”

  “Replaced Lucas? That’s whacked, Colin, he—”

  “Fell from a cliff? I know it sounds preposterous, but certain things have happened in the last few months. Things that fit the bill for Lucas’s twisted way of thinking. Like the noose at that party. And yesterday, I went over to the house where I signed on to Project Gemstone. I found Lucas’s cougar ring in the box under the floorboard.” Feeling as though the contents of his stomach were going to come into his throat, Colin said, “Julia disappeared from this hotel room earlier this morning.”

  Desmond swallowed visibly. “Do you think Strycker has her?”

  “Not unless she went straight to him. But I have a funny feeling that that’s exactly what she did.”

  “Man. That woman has balls—I told you she was something else. But don’t worry. ’Cause while you were keeping Julia Dyson cozy, I found myself working a little overtime of my own. I think I may know where Griffin Strycker is hiding.”

  “You do?” Hope flooded Colin’s veins.

  “I’ve narrowed it down to two locations. It didn’t even take me very long. Of course, it couldn’t have hurt that Strycker and I worked together for almost a—”

  “Desmond—”

  “Putting it together was really quite simple. I mean when you take into consideration the way the guy always used to hang out in those—”

  “Desmond!”

  Colin’s second-in-command paled. “Sorry, boss.”

  “That’s all right. Where are the locations?”

  Desmond took a piece of paper from his pocket. On it were two handwritten addresses, both located in shady parts of downtown Manhattan. They wouldn’t be especially hard to get to, but it was going take a good twenty minutes. Colin only prayed that would be enough time.

  “Say the word and I’ll notify the security team,” Desmond said. “Knowing how fast those guys can operate, I’m sure they can meet us there in less than half an hour.”

  “I’m sure they can,” Colin said, “
except that I have no intention of waiting for them.”

  “What exactly do you plan on doing?” Desmond asked. “Searching the locations yourself?”

  “Not exactly,” Colin answered with a smile. “More like I’ll be searching one, while you’ll be searching the other one.”

  * * * *

  Approaching a high-rise building with only one window, Colin hesitated. He ought to be afraid—this was a trap intended for him, and it was more than likely that Strycker’s men were standing inside, waiting to shoot him in cold blood. But he didn’t care. All he cared about was Julia.

  Taking a bit of comfort in the knowledge that Desmond was searching the other building, and that the place was only a few blocks away, he hurried toward the entrance. As he placed his hand around the knob, he realized that the door was locked. He kicked it with his foot, stunned to find that it wouldn’t budge.

  Why would the door be locked, he wondered, glancing up at the window. Had Desmond gotten the address wrong? The street number? Or was this just a part of the game?

  Eyeing the building more closely, Colin raised a thoughtful eyebrow. There was a drainpipe that ran along the side of the building. It went as far as the roof, and it was positioned very close to the window.

  On second thought, it would be suicide to climb so high. The building was over a hundred feet tall, and he couldn’t tell whether the window he was looking at was open or closed. But it appeared to be his only hope of getting inside. And he supposed if it was locked he could always shoot it open.

  Assuring himself that if Julia Dyson could climb the side of a building that he sure as hell could do it, too, Colin took a few steps forward. He clasped the white metal pole and leaned back. Taking a step up, he proceeded to climb the rest of the way, keeping his eyes on the window all the while.

  When he reached the top, he made his way onto a low section of the roof then grasped the rail of the balcony. Pulling himself onto the cement slab, he found that the barrier behind it was sealed. He pulled his handgun from his pocket and shot it. The glass smashed into pieces.