Lost Faith (The Firm Book 1)

by April Zyon

  When she walked back out she was in his shirt and it literally went to her knees. Thank god, it gave him some relief from seeing all that skin. “Since you are on the bed you will need to get out so that I can get in first again. That way you are closest to the door and I’m against the wall.” He could tell by her words she slept better by the wall, especially when he recalled that she didn’t like heights, at all.

  Rolling off the bed he moved to the side and let her crawl onto the bed. Once she was under the blankets Tobias laid back down next to her not at all surprised when she wiggled closer. Extending an arm, he wrapped it around her shoulders and held her in close. A second later he flipped off the lights to plunge the room into a murky darkness, the blinds not quite good enough to keep out all the daylight.

  “Thank you for this. For holding me close and treating me as well as you are. Thank you for not thinking that I’m the devil incarnate.” She rubbed her cheek against his chest and then shifted so she could all but wrap her body around his. He didn’t know why she trusted him so much, it made no sense at all, but she did and he was going to repay her by killing her father.

  “You are an innocent in all this, Gabriella. Don’t argue with me, I know what I’m talking about here. You had no idea the scope of your father’s enterprise. I truly believe that had you known you would have done something about it. For that reason, I’m going to do everything I can to keep you alive, and give you a shot at something beyond this nightmare we find ourselves locked into. Right now, you need to sleep whenever you can. When this finally comes to a boil we’ll be moving fast and there won’t be much time for anything but survival.” And her survival was becoming paramount to him. Tobias didn’t know why or when the need to protect her had really kicked in full strength only that it had. He would do whatever was necessary to end her father’s life, but not at the expense of hers.

  “I hope that you are right and you are able to pull a magic trick out of your hat so that I can live. If you can’t, I get it.” He noticed she snuggled in closer to him however. How in the hell did this woman trust him so much? He didn’t understand what he had done to make her trust him but he wasn’t arguing it, at all. He liked it, truth be told.

  Adjusting the blankets over her he turned toward her more. “Sleep,” he whispered against her temple. Her fingers clutched at his back before relaxing. “No one is getting to you while you are with me, Gabriella. Take the time to relax, rest, and we’ll figure the rest out when we have more information to go on.”

  “But you won’t always be there.” Her fingers were stroking over his chest and causing him to go just a bit crazy. She was getting under his skin and he didn’t understand how or why. First, when they were in the kitchen and now lying in bed with her. He wanted to be inside of this woman, right now. He wanted her more than he wanted his next breath. When her pointer finger began to trace around his nipple he found himself shifting just a bit so she didn’t feel how she was affecting him.

  Tobias caught her hand and pressed it flat to his chest, keeping his over top. “No, I won’t always be there, Gabriella. Doesn’t mean I won’t teach you what you need to know to survive. I put you in this situation by not realizing how far off the rails your father really is. I doubt anyone could have really figured that out without something this drastic being put into play. Now, we know and we’re going to do what needs to be done on all fronts.” What he didn’t say was he was actually thinking about how to keep her safe. And he wasn’t sure it was an idea she would want to hear or that he was ready to say aloud. But it was definitely one he was becoming a little too comfortable having it floating around in his head. He knew that she felt something for him too or they wouldn’t have had the make out session they had in the kitchen that had only stopped because of the phone call he had received.

  “Sleep is something I should really do, isn’t it?” She yawned and that relaxed him. She was exhausted, he needed to leave her alone, that’s what he needed to focus on. She needed rest. When she rubbed her cheek to his chest and then he heard it, the show breathing that signaled that she was sleeping. Thank god, she was asleep or else he might have had to explain some very definite issues to her.

  Letting her hand go he moved his hand to cup her head. He stroked her hair lightly letting it thread through his fingers. Tobias listened the smooth rhythm of her breathing, timing his strokes to her hair to keep in sync. She was getting under his skin and he didn’t know what to do about it.

  Cherilyn had commented on it earlier, not when the others were around, thankfully. She was an observant woman though and knew something was off with him. And she was right. Gabriella was throwing him off his game, making him question nearly every decision he was making on this job because of how it might affect her. He knew she understood why they were there to kill her father but he also knew she would never forgive them for it. It left him in an uncomfortable position. Tobias’s conscience wouldn’t allow him to let the fucker live to hurt another family the way he had hurt so many before. But could he order the shot to kill the man whose daughter was starting to mean something to him? He was finding himself wrapped into a catch-22 situation. Damned if he did, and damned if he didn’t.

  He thought the problem through from several angles while she slept in his arms, soothing her whenever she needed it but otherwise soaking in the sensation of her in his arms. By the time the sun began to set, three hours after they’d laid down, Tobias could only see one solution for his problem. And it really all depended on her.

  He wasn’t an idiot who thought he could charm anything female on the planet to his way of thinking. Tobias had skills but that wasn’t one of them. If she stopped him in his tracks then he’d go back to the original plan to kill her father, get her prepped with a new ID and background, and ship her off to some place no one would think to look for her. But if she was on the same wavelength, then there really was only one course of action. Send in another team to make the kill with all the information his team had gathered to smooth their path.

  “You’re thinking too hard.” She whispered to him in her sleep. He could tell she was still sleeping because her words were slurred and slow. “You are far too handsome to worry so much. It’s okay, Tobias. Just hold me and life is good.” A shiver from her had her moving in just a hair closer to him. “I love it when you hold me. I feel safe, I’ve never really felt safe but I do now. You are good to me and for me.” Another yawn to her sleepy sounding self. She was definitely still sound asleep and he found it cute that she was talking in her sleep as if holding a full conversation.

  Tobias pulled the blanket up higher on her back. “I worry because it’s part of who I am. It’s ingrained in me. It’s likely why I’m the boss.” Pressing his cheek to hers he rubbed his hand up and down her back. “I want to keep holding you for a long time to come,” he admitted. He knew she wouldn’t remember the conversation when she woke up which made it safe for him to tell her that much. It was huge for him to reveal even that of much of himself, but it felt right even with her still mostly asleep.

  “I would like that a lot. I’ve never let anyone this close but I like you this close. I want to keep you.” Another yawn from her and a very quiet snore from her. “If only you would keep me.” She murmured with her sleep filled voice. This was an intriguing and very new thing for him, learning that she was a sleep talker. “I like you, Tobias, more than a lot. I shouldn’t but I do. I wish you would keep me.”

  Oh, the information he could get out of her in this state. But he was going to play nice, and not take advantage no matter how much he was tempted. He did have one thing he had to ask, pure curiosity. “If I said I wanted to keep you, to take you home and have you forever in my arms and bed, what would you say to that?” The answer was oddly important to him. While he knew she may never talk about it when awake, at least he’d have this piece to carry with him wherever life took him next.

  “Yes.” She whispered the one word quietly. “Ask me when I’m awake, please.” She
added and then her breathing smoothed out once more, she began to snore just a little bit more as she did so. “I would be safe with you, only you. Always. Just don't hurt my heart, I think only you can.” She added with another yawn, he was smiling at her words.

  “Not going to happen, if I can help it.” Now all he had to do was figure out how to avoid causing her emotional pain that would, in essence, hurt her heart. Giving her a squeeze he stayed quiet to let her drift back off to sleep. His mind spun with possibilities while he held her close. The sun had nearly set. Another day gone and her father was still breathing. This had to end, and soon, before the man came up with something else to further ruin her life. But he couldn’t make the call on anything until she was awake and conscious of what they were both saying. The minute she was though, he’d be getting answers. He only hoped they were the same ones she’d given him already.

  Chapter Nine

  Two days later...

  Gabbie looked up at Tobias as they sat in the kitchen eating breakfast. “Your men took care of the people who came too close to the house a couple of days ago?” She had been sleeping with Tobias and they had suddenly been shocked out of sleep when one of his people slammed into their bedroom with full battle gear and head covered in the ski mask as well. All he had said was that they had problems. She hadn’t known what the problems were until Tobias came back hours later bloody. She had been terrified for him but thankfully none of it had been his.

  “And you, are you okay?” He had taken a blow to the jaw but other than that she was pretty sure that he was okay, at least she hoped so. He’d had a big bruise on his jaw but he seemed to be eating okay so that must not have affected him as she had figured it would. “Has there been any word from my father? I know that he’s now called the contract on my head as a dead or alive, but do you know anything more?” Thankfully, his team had found the caverns and thought they found a weak spot to use to take out her father but she was still fighting it. She was hurting because he was her dad, after all.

  “I’ll live,” he said. Taking a sip from his glass he watched her over the rim. “Your father has been calling in all his associates for meetings. There has been much yelling and even more ranting. He also killed three yesterday. We’re assuming it’s a message to the others not to trifle with him. We believe it’s to do with the searches he’s conducting in country believing you are still here. While we tried to make it appear you’ve left without any choice with federal agents he’s obviously covering his bases since he has nothing but a paper trail to follow. That way he thinks that you were taken by the Feds and not taken because of slipping out of your house to go clubbing. And since it was all done under code names and smoke screens and he’s a paranoid sort with a psychopath, as his right-hand man, he’s not going to stop searching any time soon. And no, we didn’t use any real identities on agents. All the agents were fashioned after my team which means that Juan can’t find them because they don’t actually exist.”

  “Good.” She said with a smile. “And if he’s killing his people then he’s slipping even more. That means that either someone will take over from him or else they will kill him. He’s seriously gone off the rails.” She reached out and found herself touching his hand. “Who knows, maybe one of them will do the job for you?” She smiled wanly, because she knew the truth. They were going to have to do it. “What if,” She trailed off. No, no she couldn’t say anything like what she was thinking. She was thinking of very bad things, like a bomb that would explode and contained inside of her father’s glass tomb he built for himself.

  “We couldn’t get lucky enough, and we’d still have to deal with them. While they could ravage the company, we all know that without you, they can’t get everything. There are certain items your father has tied up the access yo. If you were married to one of them then they would have that access, yet another reason we need them all taken down. At least the top dogs need to be put down. Anyone that comes up after to replace them will be too concerned with keeping their turf and won’t be all that worried about coming for you. It’ll take them years to get back into any kind of condition to mount such an operation, and by then hopefully they have other concerns that keep them occupied even longer.”

  “I certainly can hope and pray that they completely forget about me. It’s my hope that maybe, just maybe, he will call a meeting in his rooms and,” There she was thinking bad things again. “Please don’t think that I’m bad.” She whispered. “What if on that thin space, they were able to put a bomb there and blow all of them to bits? The room would keep the explosion localized, right?”

  He was staring at her, his fork hovering an inch below his mouth. Blinking slowly, he nodded before setting the loaded utensil down. “If your details about the rooms are correct, and I’m totally inclined to believe they are, then yes the rooms would contain the blast. At least the initial blast. There would be massive structural damage, and that section would probably collapse but there would be little to no damage beyond the confines. I’ll have to confirm with my bomb guy and we’d need to run some simulations to be better informed, but yeah it could work.” Tobias frowned at her and reached over to take her hand. “Why are you suggesting this?”

  “It would be the easiest way to take him and his head men out, including Quan. Do I like it? No. God, I’m talking about patricide right now but everything that I’ve been learning about him,” She hesitated. “He’s not the father I knew. He’s been unraveling more and more over the years and I never realized it. If this will ensure that his dealings would be in chaos for a time, I’m all for it. Especially if it will take out most of his upper echelon of men.”

  “We’ll run the simulations to see if it’s plausible. If we can get it to work consistently on the computers then we’ll put it into play. Only problem is, we’ll need to also come up with a way to have all his associates there and their seconds. You know him better than we do, what might occur that could draw them all in while leaving their men out of reach?” He was rubbing his thumb to her knuckles slowly like he was attempting to soothe her. She’d noticed he’d done that several times over the last couple of days. Whenever he was either tense or she thought too hard about her father he would reach out to touch her.

  “If he thought that I was coming home to marry Quan.” She whispered. “I won’t, of course, but if he thought that I was coming home to marry his second in command then he would gather everyone so that they would witness who would be taking over for him.”

  “No, not happening, not even the thought that you’d go back. Think of something else, Gabriella. Besides which, as far as he knows you are under federal protection somewhere in the United States. A situation they would not be letting you free from nor one you could get out of without your passport to get home.”

  “Money missing.” She said suddenly. “I can get into his money and if suddenly there was money missing, and it was routed into his men’s accounts, I have a feeling that he would quickly call them into his house. Trust me, that would be something that would piss him off to the nth degree.”

  “Now you’re thinking smart instead of reacting, much better.” Squeezing her fingers, he stood to clear the table. When he was done, he took her hand in his and drew her up. “If he discovers money missing, how long would it take for him to call the others in for a meeting to finger the guilty party? And I’m going to assume we’ll be splitting the money up between all of them to ensure he draws them all in.”

  “Twenty-four to thirty hours. He wouldn’t sit on it, he would call them as fast as possible so that he could get them off their game. And yes, we will split the money evenly between them with one unknown, who took a much smaller percentage, as the person who actually took the money, or so he will suspect. It won’t take him long to find the money missing, so when I do it, you guys will have to be ready as soon as humanly possible. It might not even take twenty-four hours if he has his men there now.” She admitted.

  “We don’t want them there, we need the tim
e to set up for it. We’ll wait until they have all left this time to return home and then start to get things into place.” Cupping her face in his palm, he stared into her eyes. “I have to ask this again, Gabriella. Are you really sure this is the way you want to go? If not, we will pass on all information to another team, and pray they do it the way we would have, to end this. I’m willing to let this one go, for you, if that’s what you want.”

  She was confused. “Why would you let it go for me?” She asked softly even as she leaned into him. “But I’m sure. If you passed it off they might miss the chance.” She looked at him, she let him see her hurt and pain because she couldn’t seem to hide that from him. “I don’t like it, I really don’t, but it has to be done and it has to be done right. I understand that. I really do. It needs to happen, and as much as I hate it, I know that the burden must fall upon you and your team. All I can do is give you the information needed to ensure that he’s taken down and never harms another small child again.” That’s what she needed to keep in mind, she was protecting children by doing this. Protecting their innocence.

  “I would do this because you asked. I don’t like thinking I’ll be the reason you are hurting. I definitely don’t want you looking at me and seeing one of the people responsible for killing your father.” Stroking his thumb to her cheek he leaned in until their foreheads touched. “Especially if we’re going to continue to be in one another’s lives.”

  She closed her eyes and moved so that her nose could brush against his. “And is that going to happen?’ She whispered softly to him. “I don’t understand it, but these last few days have been far more than I could have ever expected and it’s because of you. I feel as if I’ve known you all of my life and that’s very strange.”