“I’ve tapped into the audio feed and it seems she was picked up by a couple of feds. I’m running voice recognition from the audio feed.” Max explains hurriedly.
The audio feed was my idea. In her office, we placed a small hearing device which enables us to hear what’s going on around her. We don’t activate it at all. Apart from special emergencies. There is also another one in her briefcase.
Her disappearing move was a damn emergency and so we activated it.
“And? What are you getting?” I ask as take a left, I’m a few blocks away from the Diamond, I don’t have much time until I meet with the FBI.
“They are the same agent as those that are waiting for you. Special Agent Mark Felix, who seems to be young and eager, Chloe really put him in his place, you should have listened to it. She was epic! Oh, and Special Agent Alec McGuire” Max says, a bit of humor in his voice.
I can’t help but imagine my beautiful, sexy, fire-spitter putting someone in his or her place. She is amazing and she doesn’t even know it.
“Give me a run down on what was said.” I say as I stop at a traffic light.
“Well, they want her to cooperate with them, Stefan Demetri is under some bigtime investigation from the looks of it. Also, they think you are trying to coerce her into sabotaging Demetri but she vehemently denied that. When asked the nature of the relationship between you two, she declared that you two are in a romantic relationship.” Max informs with a smile in his voice that I can clearly imagine.
Smart girl, I think to myself. She is fast on her toes.
“Good cover” I say, ignoring the tightening in my chest, as if my heart strings are being pulled at the fact that she not only defended us but she told the feds that we are dating.
“Hmmm, yeah. I think they want to match stories. Probably going to remind you of the ongoing investigation on Black House.” Max explains further.
“Okay, got it.” I say as I ease into the circular parking spot and stop directly in front of the revolving glass doors.
“Make sure she is alright. Double the security on her, I want that back alley at her work place and her dingy apartment covered.” I instruct in a rush, no way is she going to be ambushed again.
Not on my watch.
“Already done. Nothing will slip through the cracks this time.” Max assures. He knows this one is non-negotiable.
“One more thing, Gideon. Play nice. I think they know things that we don’t, especially McGuire.” Max says.
I pause and take in his words. I guess I have been forewarned. I think back to corporate espionage that Chloe and I participated in, getting that financial box from Roach.
We are still going through the files and accounts in that box, the money trail ties and webs connected to Demetri are just too wide and too many to actually pin point on how everything connects with my company, but I know Max is on top of it.
I will exonerate my company, then I will crush him to a filthy pulp. While the world watches.
“Thanks.” I say and we hang up.
I open my car door, stepping out of my favourite car, a black Concept s-class coupé Mercedes Benz.
I tug on my suit jacket and make sure that I look presentable. My father always says clothes do make a man, but the clothes shouldn’t own him.
I have lived under that rule my whole life. I am the son and the grandson of pioneers, captains of industry. My family has contributed wealth upon wealth to this country.
I know my place in this world, I know I have the same responsibility. To fight for my family and the large company they built. I will not let any wolf and sick, twisted snake slither in and destroy it.
Tom waits for and I pass the keys to him, he inclines his head to the doors. Beyond the front doors awaits a couple of federal agents. The same agents that tried to trap me by going through Chloe, instead of just coming directly to me.
But something tells me that they have something else brewing. There is only one way to find out though.
As I cross the threshold, my eyes immediately lock on the agents. It’s late, there is no one in the lobby aside from my security team and the two mis-matched agents.
One older and wiser from the looks of it, the other one younger and a bit edgy. Too eager for action. No wonder Chloe gave him a few rounds.
The thought brings a smile to me, but also a bit of anger when I remember that they want to use her, use her as bait. But now is neither the time, nor the hour for that.
They both stand from the couch they were seated on when they catch me coming towards them.
It’s showtime.
Chapter 21
Chloe
I SHOULD BE SLEEPING but as always, I can’t.
I’m much too unsettled and I have no peace for me to be able to sleep.
The ambush from the feds earlier was something I was not expecting. I wasn’t expecting to be randomly targeted and then picked up by a couple of feds.
I’m grateful that they weren’t hostile with me nor did they demand substantial, indefinite cooperation from me.
It almost felt like we were friends, well apart from Special Agent Felix, he was just plain rude and one could tell that this was probably his first time in the field.
The whole time while I was in their presence, I pretended to know exactly what I’m doing, pretending like my palms were not wet with sweat or that nervousness wasn’t eating at me in my tummy.
It’s a wonder and a great mystery that I was able to sit there stoically while they asked me various questions but never in great detail. It was all in a suggestive kind of way, as if planting seeds in my mind, letting me know that they are aware of something, then moving on to the next inquiry.
I guess no matter how they put it, I was under interrogation.
They asked about my damn boss, but not in detail or the major questions one would expect. Then they asked about Gideon.
I made sure to dispel their earlier assumption that we are working together to bring down a common enemy. I told them that it wasn’t true and when they asked further about that I made sure to give them something plausible.
I was panicking slightly and scrambling for answers, so I grabbed hold on one thought that kept buzzing around in my head, and I blurted out that Gideon and I are dating.
The silence that followed that sudden ‘admission’ is what’s keeping me up at almost midnight, pacing the length of my small living room, wondering if the two feds believed me.
I wanted to call Gideon after they let me go but I know they are probably still monitoring me. I wasn’t even sure how far their monitoring was going to be so I didn’t say anything to Fred and John when I surfaced twenty minutes later from the office building.
Now, I don’t even know how to reach him. I wanted to go out and buy a burner phone so that I could at least have a means of communication with Gideon but I feel paranoid, as if even now, I’m being watched.
I don’t know what it is but I don’t feel safe. Not anymore.
A sudden knock comes at my door, startling me out of my reverie. It’s really late at night, who could that be?
I’m so done with surprises, I can’t take it anymore today.
So much has been happening around me these past few weeks, I’ve been under a lot of stress and pressure. Both from work and also from being near the sexiest man alive.
My head is spinning. I remember the way Stefan’s goons were looking at me earlier. And that was followed by my discovery of the cryptic, strangely placed note from the feds. Then meeting the feds and being interrogated or whatever they want to call it.
And now there is another knock on my door? Urgh, I’m going to ignore it.
Another knock comes, this one a bit impatient. Doesn’t the person know that I might be sleeping? Or maybe he/she heard me pacing, wearing a hole into my beat down, old floor.
I make my way to the door, fatigue hanging over me like a cloud of doom, yet I can’t sleep even if I try.
I slightly open the doo
r and I think I’m now dreaming. I look again, yep, I’m definitely dreaming. Maybe sleepwalking. What is he doing here? Is he real?
“Are you going to let me in?” his soft voice carries above the pounding of my heart, straight to my ears.
I almost collapse at the way his strong, sure voice affects me.
I don’t know what to say, I just open the door wider to let him in and as he passes through the threshold, I notice Fred and Tom standing outside like guards.
Gideon notices my line of sight and he turns around and I guess gives both of them some kind of wordless signal since both of then turn and make their way down the hallway, towards the stairwell. The elevator in this building isn’t working.
Gideon looks down at me and sees that I’m still frozen in place, so he closes the door himself. Softly, so silently that I wonder if he can hear the pounding of my heart at having him in my personal space.
I mean, he’s here. In my small, dingy apartment that I hate but it’s the only place closer to Manhattan that I could afford.
“What are you doing here?” Is all I manage to crock out as he looks down at me, taking me in. Standing before him, dressed in my favorite pair of boy shorts and a sleepshirt.
My hair is down, not in its usual tight, professional bun, the curls bouncing off of my shoulders, flowing down my back. I have no make-up on my face.
Everything about me in this moment is bare, raw and so vulnerable, I want to run and hide from his intense magnetism that is taking me in now.
At this very moment I’m not the smart young woman that has a clear head and will negotiate with a man who doesn’t negotiate with anyone about equality.
Right now, I’m not that strong, quick witted woman he knows, coming up with different angles of a strategy on how to take down Stefan Demetri.
I’m neither version of that Chloe, and as he keeps staring at me. I realize in horror that I’m also not wearing my contact lenses.
My bare, real eyes are right there for him to see.
No wonder why he is just staring at me.
I turn away from him so quickly and put a lot of distance between ads I cross to the other side of the room so fast, it almost seems like I ran away from him.
“What are you doing here, Gideon?” I ask, this time my voice is hoarse.
This man unsettles me and now he is here. Oh God.
I can’t even look at him and I cross my arms over my chest and I realize another fault of mine. I’m not wearing a bra underneath. Now my voluptuous fullness is on full display.
“I came to see you. See how you are doing after the FBI ambushed you.” he says.
I look up at him, see his eyes already waiting for mine to connect with his. There is something different about him in this moment.
He is sharper and much more...raw and real than he has ever been. It’s almost as if he is going through something that is stressing him. Just like I am.
His voice is still that same, low, sexy cultured deepness that I love hearing in my dreams. Now, I’m experiencing it in my personal space.
“How do you know that?” I ask, shocked that he knows already.
He takes a few steps in my direction, away from the front door, and because my apartment is really, really tiny, he is suddenly just a few feet away from me.
Two more steps and he’ll be in my personal space. A couple more and he’ll pin me to the wall. Yet, I already feel like I’m pinned to the wall by his scorching gaze.
“When Fred and John couldn’t find you, Max activated a tracking device that we put in your bag.” he says, not batting an eyelash while he talks about tracking devices and my bags.
“What?” I guess I really shouldn’t be surprised at this point, I know I’m not really surprised but it’s all just too much.
“It was a precautionary measure. Just in case things like this happen.” he says, unapologetic, just clean, sterile facts.
“But how did you know that I was with the feds?” I ask. I mean as far as I know, trackers are just GPS chips that tell the position of something or in this case, someone. How the hell does he know I was with the FBI.
“The tracker has a built-in audio compartment. Max also activated it to make sure that you were safe. The tracker showed that you were behind the building, in the alley way, and it was dark.”
He is explaining as if for my peace of mind, but as I look at him, I know this is nothing to him.
Invasion of my privacy is not a thing that he should concern himself with.
I know he can easily go further than just putting a tracker in my bag.
“So, you know everything then?” I say despondently.
And here I was, worried out of my mind, wondering how I was going to contact him when all my devices are no doubt comprehended.
Everywhere I look, I’m being watched and monitored. I can’t do this right now.
This apartment feels even smaller with his large presence. The way he is watching me, coming closer to where I’m almost crumbling, it’s also unsettling.
I shake my as I look at him. There is just too much going on.
My parents are gone, I have to avenge them. I alone with my burdens, I can’t offload on anyone, I have to shoulder it all by myself.
My boss killed my parents in cold blood. I’m working towards bringing him down. He also works me like a dog, mistreating his employees any way he likes.
Then there is the way his goons give me the chills, not the good ones either.
And now the feds are on me. Monitoring each step that I take and my communications.
And then there’s him.
I’m strung up so tight in the presence of Gideon Black, I feel so tight and I don’t know how to let this out or even what to do with myself.
The way he is looking at me though, as if he is not at all surprised looking at my eyes. It hits me like a sledgehammer in that moment.
How could I have been so naïve and stupid to think that I could out smart a man with the best security team in the world.
Everything about him is the best of the best. How can he not discover anything?
Everything for me stops in that moment.
Time stands still, my heart stops beating and I look him dead in the eyes and utter a four worded statement,
“You know, don’t you?”
Chapter 22
Chloe
I’M ASKING BUT IT’S really a statement.
Maybe I’m wrong, I want him to say he doesn’t know what I’m talking but sympathy fills his eyes as he looks at me like I’m a wounded animal.
A wounded animal with nothing but hurt and pain.
This changes everything. All this time he knew who I was, who I really was but he never said a single thing.
What I can’t believe is the irrational sense of betrayal that floods my system. As if Gideon betrayed a bond between us.
As if him knowing my full name or my story is cause for a huge blunder against our relationship or whatever it is that’s between us.
It’s nothing big, I know, but right now my emotions are all over the place and he isn’t helping.
“How long have you known?” I ask “And what do you know?”
My voice comes out sounding so... foreign and alien to my ears. I don’t know who is speaking right now. Her voice is soft and trembling slightly, as if she is suddenly under intense scrutiny.
“I know that your name is Charlotte Chloe Hamilton Smith. That you grew up in Pennsylvania. That your parents died... were murdered, when you were nine.” He corrects himself when I look at him sharply.
He better tread carefully, this ground we are standing on is highly volatile.
“I know that Stefan Demetri is the man who ordered the hit on your parents. I know he snatched them away from you. I know how that feels”
His eyes grow flat and hard, his tone emotionless but I can still sense the pain he is trying to conceal.
Now I’m confused, his parents are still alive and well, enjoying retireme
nt. He has a big family, a sister he adores and his sister’s kids. Gideon is an uncle. He has everything that someone like me only looks in to see.
“I know that look. You are thinking that I haven’t lost anything in my life.” He says as he takes another step closer to me, that imaginary rope between us being tugged, pulling us together.
“That man,” Gideon begins again, his voice still soft and oh so dangerous, this man is capable of evil, I can sense it, “that man took away the one man who has ever believed me. Stefan took away my grandfather’s twin brother.” he says.
“So, if you think I don’t know lose,” we are now toe to toe, I’m craning my neck just to maintain eye contact with him and he is looking down at me as if he is starved, hungry and angry. “then you don’t know me at all.”
I’m breathing hard at his nearness, my heart is beating slowly, I don’t know why it does that whenever Gideon is around. Or maybe I just don’t have any bearing over my vitals whenever he is around me.
We look at each other silently, as if waiting for something. I don’t know what we are waiting for. All I know is this crazy chemistry and attraction between us has been building and mounting in leaps and bounds since the day we bumped into each other.
From the time he was stalking me.
I feel an odd sort of connection to him, like I’ve known him for a long time. Like his pain is mine. Like he knows and understands my burdens and pains.
His eyes are darting between my eyes and my lips. Lips that are dry and parched and it seems like he is having an internal battle with himself. To keep staring at me or to taste me?
Then, his sensuous lips form a breath-taking smile that traps my breath in my throat. I can’t help but affected by every move he makes.
Suddenly, he leans towards me, lowers his head, and presses his oh so soft lips on mine.
I think I die. Right there.
It’s like kissing an angel.
I’m stunned at his super soft lips and the tender way in which they are exploring mine. I feel his arms going around me and my body feels like it’s been electrocuted by some high voltage and I don’t think I’ll ever be the same again.
The Billion Dollar Plan: Incongruity Series Book 1 Page 15