by Linzi Baxter
I will take a look. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. He texted back immediately.
“Did they find anything?” Alex asked as we exited the elevator. I’m sure he wanted to know what was going on with his money.
“No, but they changed all the security passwords and added additional security protocols to the accounts that were compromised. I want CJ to look closer into Charles Davis’s background. I think he is behind this whole thing.”
Chapter Seven
Bridget
At Saint Martin’s hospital, the loudspeaker announced code blue, and the room number they stated was my mom’s. I took off running toward her room and saw my sister outside. She had tears running down her face. The hospital staff wasn’t letting her into the room.
“Cassandra, what’s going on?” I asked in a panicked voice, trying to keep it together.
“I don’t know. They won’t let me in. The alarm was going off when I got here, and the nurses and doctors blocked me out.” She looked as though she was about to vomit.
I didn’t want to lose my mom. She was only in the hospital because of an odd rash. From the earlier discussion with her doctor, she was supposed to be getting out today.
Then I heard my mom’s voice screaming at the doctors from inside the room. “Does it look like I’m having a heart attack? You dimwit, get those paddles away from me!”
I peeked my head into the room and asked, “Mom, are you okay? What’s going on?” There had to be around six doctors and nurses in her room.
“These idiots think I’m having a heart attack and tried to kill me with those paddles. They didn’t check to make sure I was okay before they decided to shock me.” My mom is not the nicest person to the medical staff. When they wake her up or don’t give her what she wants, she gets cruel.
Dr. Black was in the room. That man could give Alex a run for his money in the looks department. He’d been my mom’s doctor for the past five years. “Bridget, it looks like one of your mother’s heart rate monitors malfunctioned. It made it seem like she had a heart attack. Ms. Boggs, I’m sorry for the confusion.” The doctor and nurses made a quick exit before my mother started to scream again.
“Okay, Dr. Black. Is there anything else we need to do?”
“No, she’s good. I should be able to release her tomorrow.” With a nod at me and Cass, Dr. Black left.
“Hey, Mom.” I slowly walked into her room, trying not to get yelled at. After I told her about the Rosses, she’d probably yell at me anyway. “I need to talk to you and Cassandra about something.” This was going to be a lot harder to talk about than I had originally anticipated.
“Out with it. It’s not like we have all day.”
“The Ross family found us,” I whispered, hoping no one outside the room could hear me.
“So?” That was all she said, like I had just told her the sky was blue.
“Mom, that means our identities are out in the open. We can be found again.”
“Listen, Bridget, it’s been years. They aren’t going to care about us anymore. Don’t worry about it.”
I noticed my sister fidgeting over on the other side of the room. She looked as though she wanted to say something. I started to get a strong feeling that I knew how the Ross family had found out our identities.
“Is there something you want to say, Cassandra?” I could tell by her body language that she was hiding something from me.
“I went to see Dad.” Out of all the things she could have possibly said, that wasn’t what I expected. Mom didn’t look startled by the news, so she must have known.
“You guys didn’t think to tell me you went to see the sperm donor?” I was pissed. I had worked hard to hide our identities and pay for Mom’s living and Cassandra’s school. Cassandra looked on the verge of tears, and I felt sorry for snapping, but I didn’t understand.
“I wanted to know why he stole that money and made us pay for it. I wanted answers. You work so hard for us, and I appreciate that. I just wanted to know why.” She was so young when we’d had to go into hiding, and she hadn’t understood what was happening. For years, I felt sorry for the life she had lost.
From the look on her face, she had been hurt more by seeing him. “I take it he didn’t answer your questions?”
She shook her head, and there was nothing else I could say. Cassandra didn’t need to be hurt anymore, so I was going to drop the issue and make sure to keep my eyes open for potential problems.
“The Ross family wants us to come over for Sunday dinner. They didn’t leave us an option, really, so we are all going.” I noticed Cassandra still looked upset. “Cass, we have each other, and that is all we need. I will always love you. I’m not angry at you for what you did. You wanted answers. I do too, and someday we’ll get them.”
I stayed and talked with Mom and Cass about the Ross family for a while longer. Around nine, I decided it was time to go home. I kissed Mom and Cass goodbye and walked out to my beat-up blue Toyota Corolla that got me where I needed to go.
Still in a daze from today’s events, I wasn’t paying attention to my surroundings when I walked up to my front door. Someone grabbed me from behind.
Chapter Eight
Alex
“Have you ever met that one woman, and then everything just clicks into place?” I asked Scott. After walking Bridget to her car, I came back up to my office. Scott left his office across the hall and decided to come have a Scotch with me.
“I came in here to have a drink and talk bullshit. When did we start having therapy sessions?” Scott replied.
“I’m serious. I think Bridget might be the one.”
“Well, if you’re into the short, nerdy type, go for it. I personally will never be ready to settle down. I like a different flavor every night.”
“You’ve wanted to settle down in the past, if I remember correctly.” Scott had been in a long-term relationship with his high school sweetheart. They’d split, and he had never wanted to talk about it. I figured one day he would.
“Been there, done that. Never again. So, when are you going to ask Bridget out?” I knew he was changing the subject because Rebecca was someone we never discussed.
“We’re going to dinner after work tomorrow. I’m thinking about taking her some dinner tonight, though.” Damn, I have it bad.
Scott was laughing at me because I wanted to see her again so soon. “Good luck, man. From the story you told me about how she reacted when you snapped at Jessica, I think she’s going to make your life entertaining and keep you off the pedestal you put yourself on. I wish you both the best. See you tomorrow. I think I’m going to go look for a new flavor of the night.” With that, Scott downed his glass of Aberfeldy and walked to the elevator door.
I needed to decide if I was going to wait until tomorrow to see Bridget or be a lovesick puppy and go tonight. I guessed she was still with her mom, so to burn some time and excess energy, I ran a few miles on the treadmill and caught up on the local news.
After my run, I decided I would go see Bridget. I picked up my phone to call my brother, knowing he would have Bridget’s address. There was no way he worked with CJ all day and didn’t get all the information he could on her. “Hey, big bro. What do you need?”
“I was wondering if you had Bridget’s address.” I was pacing back and forth, worrying he might ask questions.
“I had an inkling you would call for her number.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I will text you the address and phone number,” he replied with a hint of laughter in his voice. I could hear CJ talking in the background.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you we figured out it was Mr. Davis who stole the money with the information Bridget sent us. We compared it to the video feed. The other information Bridget was able to pull makes it look like he’s working with an outside source. We’re trying to figure out who the outside source is. Also, she likes Chinese,” Asher stated all at once.
“Is there a
reason you waited to tell me now instead of when you discovered the culprit?” I was livid. I really wished I could have fired my brother.
“Well, let me see… we only figured it out about a half an hour ago. Once I had concrete evidence, I reported the issue to my friend Lieutenant Malcolm at the police department. They put out a BOLO on him, and we were assisting the police to see if we could find a digital fingerprint. Mr. Davis knows we are on to him, so be careful. I’m surprised Dad hired and kept him with the record this guy has. We might need to look at rerunning all the employees’ backgrounds. The strange part is he might be tied to Samuel Highmore, so Bridget might be in danger.”
Apparently, I had jumped to conclusions when I thought they were slacking. Just in case Mr. Davis had figured out Bridget’s team uncovered his part in the embezzlement, I needed to make sure Bridget was okay. It was possible I was just using it as an excuse to see Bridget, but I didn’t care. “I’ll go check on Bridget, and I’ll bring her up to speed on the new information.”
“Oh, and thanks a lot, fucker. You owe me a hundred bucks. I had a bet with CJ and Antonio that it would take a week before you asked for her information,” he said, trying to hold back laughter. “CJ said you would be calling today, and Antonio told me you wouldn’t ask.”
“You guys need more work to do so you don’t spend your time worrying about me.” I didn’t wait for him to reply. I knew he would send me the text with the information I needed.
On my way to Bridget’s house, I decided she was mine, and I wasn’t going to let anyone get in my way.
Once I pulled up to her white cottage-style home in a cookie-cutter neighborhood, I noticed the flowerpots in front were knocked over. Deep down in my gut, I knew something was wrong, so I called Ash.
“That was quick, bro. Did she turn you down already?”
Bridget was in trouble, and I didn’t have time for my brother’s jabs. “I got to Bridget’s, and something feels off. You guys should head over. I’m going inside to see what’s going on. Does CJ know if she has a hidden key?”
“Don’t go in. Wait for Antonio, me, or the police. If things look real bad and you have to go in, there’s a key under the planter by the driveway. Wait for us, though. We are on our way.”
I knew I could count on my brothers, but I wasn’t going to wait for them. If Bridget was in trouble, I was going to figure out how to protect her. Right as I made the decision to go in, I heard a blood-curdling scream come from inside the house.
I slowly walked up to the front of Bridget’s home. I couldn’t see inside because the drapes were drawn on the front window. But luckily, getting in was going to be the easy part of the night. The front door was open a crack. That was a win for team Alex.
I opened the door, trying not to make noise. I need the twins to teach me some stealth moves, I thought. They would come in handy right about now. I made a mental note to have them train me in self-defense, maybe even in shooting a gun.
Once I was in the house, I heard voices coming from the other room. I immediately knew who attacked Bridget. I didn’t understand why he went after Bridget and not me, though. I’m the one who fired him. There was no way he could know I was interested in her. I had just figured it out myself ten minutes ago, hence the reason I was attempting to save her and not waiting for backup.
Not waiting for backup is really going to make my brothers furious, I thought. But I didn’t like waiting. I just hoped we both made it out of this ordeal with no damage and a bad guy going to jail.
I texted Antonio that Mr. Davis was in Bridget’s house and had her tied up. Then I turned off my phone, not waiting for a reply.
I slowly walked around the corner, hoping to assess the situation. I needed to get a better look at what was going on. Bridget saw me coming around the corner. I gave her a nod, hoping she would take that as a cue to keep Mr. Davis distracted so I could come up behind him and take him out. While I was looking for something to hit him with, I heard Bridget start to talk.
“I don’t understand why you are doing this. Why are you going after me and not Alex? Alex’s brothers found you out, so I don’t understand why you’re in my house or why you are trying to attack me.”
I gave her an encouraging thumbs-up so she’d keep the lowlife distracted. I was curious why he’d come after her as well.
“Well, Bridget, I was only intending on taking out Alex and his family. But when I told my partner who was helping Alex, he said he wanted you taken out as well. Since you’ve hidden your family’s identity so well, he’s not been able to find you. But since your sister went to see him the other day, he’s found a lot out about you guys. He wants me to get some information out of you, and then he said we can take care of you.”
“You’re saying my lowlife sperm donor put you up to this?” Bridget screamed. It looked as though she were close to going all Hulk. I needed to fix this before she got hurt. Once we had the scumbag arrested, we could figure out what he was doing here.
I grabbed Bridget’s laptop off the table so I could hit Davis over the head with it. Bridget shook her head at me. I didn’t care about the computer. Hell, I could have bought her fifty computers. I just wanted her safe. But her actions made Mr. Davis take notice, and he turned around right as I was lifting the laptop above my head.
“Looks like the all-powerful Alex Ross is going to die today,” Mr. Davis crowed, aiming a gun at me. I didn’t know how I had put up with this jerk for all these years. He did well at hiding; I would give him that. But he was not going to make it past today if I had anything to say about it.
I might have been in over my head a tiny bit. He had a gun, and I had a laptop, and if I destroyed it, it looked as though Bridget would be mad. I’m saving her life. She’ll get over it, right? I hoped she would. I didn’t want to lose her over a stupid laptop.
“What do you want, Mr. Davis?” I asked. “We already figured out you stole the money.”
“If it weren’t for that bitch of an account manager, you wouldn’t have found it. All she had to do was keep her mouth shut.” Okay, so at least I replaced this douche with a good employee.
While he was caught up in telling Bridget how he had been skimming money off projects for years, I threw the laptop at his head. I’m not sure which distracted him more—the laptop hitting his face or the scream that came from Bridget’s mouth. I knocked the gun out of his hands and hit him with an uppercut, hoping Bridget would get free of her restraints.
Going into a house where someone is being held hostage with no backup was probably not the best plan. I was a real estate mogul, not a ninja warrior like my brothers. Maybe I’d be a ninja warrior in-training soon, but right now they really needed to step on the gas and save me from this lunatic.
I struck out with another punch. Charles landed a few good punches right back. Those were going to hurt later. He got hold of a lamp and chucked the flowery base at my head. I ducked to miss the lamp, lost my footing, and ended up on the ground. While I was scrambling to get up, Charles got his gun back.
Davis pointed the gun at my head. I hope he is a bad shot. “Any last requests, Alex? If you had stayed away, I wouldn’t have had to kill you.” I heard a loud gunshot and wished I had spent at least one night with Bridget.
Chapter Nine
Alex
I shut my eyes and waited for the pain to register, saying one last prayer and hoping Bridget would have a great life. Then I felt Charles fall on me. Asher had shot Charles in the arm and Antonio had hit him over the head, causing him to fall on me. Someone pulled Mr. Davis off and handcuffed him. I was covered in his blood.
“Hey, bro. Are you okay? Anything broken?” Asher asked while struggling with Charles. The twins had made it in time. I owed them big time. “What took you and Antonio so long to get to Bridget’s?”
Antonio just made a grunting noise.
“No, I’m fine. I need to check on Bridget.” I wanted to see her, but Asher wouldn’t get out of my way.
“You
need to clean your face and see a medic. CJ is with Bridget,” he said.
I could hear Bridget panicking in the background and didn’t care what I needed. I just wanted to get to her. I shoved my brother out of the way and went to Bridget.
I wrapped my arms around her and whispered in her ear, trying to calm her down. “Hey, sweet girl. It’s going to be okay. They got him. We’re fine.” I just kept rubbing her back, hoping to get through to her.
“He killed Alex. What am I going to do? I wasn’t able to tell him how I felt. I wanted to kill him for destroying my laptop. I was supposed to kill him for that, not Mr. Davis!”
I tucked that bit of information away. I knew she was rambling because of shock, but that statement made me happy—the part about not telling me how she felt, not the part about wanting to kill me.
“Sweet girl, I’m right here. You heard one of the twin’s guns. They shot Mr. Davis. They wounded him and knocked him out.” Her eyes finally looked up and registered I was alive. She lost it and clung to me while the paramedics looked her over.
Bridget
It was too much to take in while the paramedics were around. I had almost died tonight because of my father. I needed to come up with a game plan to help protect my family from that nasty man. It seems he could still reach us, even from jail.
It was late by the time the twins and CJ left my house. I told CJ I wouldn’t be in tomorrow, that he and Sophie needed to take care of the office. I was happy to see CJ and Asher hitting it off.
“Come on, sweet girl. Let’s get you in the shower or bath.” I didn’t want Alex to leave, but I was just a curvy short girl, and he normally dated models. “Okay. Guess I’ll see you Sunday.”
The devilish smile that appeared on Alex’s face was both sexy and scary. I didn’t know how something so scary could also make my panties wet.
“I will see you at Sunday dinner, but I’m not going anywhere right now. You are going to shower. It will make you feel better. Then we are going to climb in bed, and I’m going to hold you all night.”