“I guess I’m early.”
Spinning on the spot, all of her thoughts jarred to an abrupt halt when she identified the man who had spoken. “Oh my God,” she whispered, forgetting to inhale before she sealed her lips.
“Kahlil Samara,” he said, coming into the room with his hand extended.
Her body went into lockdown. She was so stiff, she couldn’t move, though her eyes were doing a crazy job of trying to find any troops he might have brought with him. He got over to her and stopped, lifting his hand higher as he smiled.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, casting off her surprise so as not to betray how he’d caught her off guard.
She and Kahlil had met months ago in the Grand Hotel conference room during Grant’s negotiations into selling Game Time. But she’d been aware of him before then after overhearing a meeting between her boss and this man. Having believed that she’d made a discreet escape, she was then attacked by Kahlil’s security men in the CI parking garage. She’d been green and didn’t know how to extricate herself. So it had been lucky that Raven was watching because he’d swooped in to save her ass.
How much Kahlil knew about that night, she didn’t know. But Raven wasn’t here to save her this time. Grant wasn’t even around to offer a buffer. This was her and a terrorist alone in a room. They were probably the only two people in the building who had any idea about Game Time. Kahlil’s master was unsuccessful in his bid for Game Time, so maybe this was him taking a second shot now that Grant wasn’t able to hamper the deal.
Kahlil’s hand dropped in time with his sigh. “I heard about Grant. I wanted to extend my condolences.”
No way that was the honest reason for his visit. Offering commiserations gave him a smokescreen for whatever his true motive for the visit was and it gave her an explanation to feed Julian if he should ask about this meeting.
She had met Kahlil once and their interaction had been brief. He had no reason to care about how she was dealing with the loss of Grant. If the sympathy was a professional courtesy, he should be talking to a board member or one of the company’s lead lawyers, like Julian. But she had to accept his offering, even if it was false. The less she did to aggravate the man who had no compunction about causing harm, the better.
“Take a seat,” she said, stepping aside and pointing to the guest chair at Grant’s desk.
Putting a large piece of furniture between them would make her feel more secure. But she also didn’t need his attention on her as she activated the miniature voice recorder in her watch. Darting across the room to close the office door, she used the chance to twist the face of the watch to the one position, setting the tech to record.
She’d found the piece in the manor supply room when she’d gone snooping. At first, she just thought it looked nice and she needed a timepiece anyway, so she adopted it for her wrist. During one of her moments admiring it, she noticed that the face frame moved and that the number inset in the face began to count. Moving the arrow on the frame to different numbers did different things: record, play, rewind, and so on. She didn’t know if there was a transmitter that would allow the audio to be picked up remotely. But the point was moot because no one would know she needed them to tap into it.
Having this meeting on tape would be useful, she could play it for the other Kindred members, and hearing it for themselves would mean no detail would be missed. She didn’t know how much recording time there was on the device. To maximize what she had, Zara hurried to the desk and sat in Grant’s chair.
“Why did you want to meet me?” she asked, spreading her hands flat on the desk to pull herself in.
Kahlil was bright eyed with a clear complexion and a stylish suit that was a faded purple color. His choices suggested he was a confident clotheshorse. But Zara had come to learn that the image portrayed by some didn’t always fit what was beneath the choreographed façade.
“We met, in the Grand, on the night of the demonstration,” he said.
He was loose, sitting at an angle in his seat, lounging with an arm draped over the back. His positioning suggested confidence. There wasn’t any hint of hesitation about bringing up the meeting where illegality had been discussed.
Dancing in this mental parade, she stayed relaxed because she’d learned it was just as important for her to be assured and unhurried. If Kahlil thought she was uncomfortable then she’d cede the advantage, which could be crucial later.
“Yes,” she said. “I know who you are.”
He wasted zero time getting to the point. “When Grant told us we’d been unsuccessful in our bid for Game Time, we were surprised.”
The vultures were circling. Taking her lower lip into her mouth, she licked it and freed it again. It had been months since Grant had made his decision that Sutcliffe was the successful buyer. “I am sorry for that, but that project was tied up long ago.”
Pinning his eyes onto hers, he stayed silent for so long that she almost began to squirm. But he was measuring her, testing his opponent, and she couldn’t fail his examination. A smile slid to his face. “I have something for you.”
He opened his jacket to pull an envelope from his inside pocket. The long white paper was thick and of good quality. When he slid it across to her, she was reminded of the time Grant had given her a check in a similar envelope.
The offering intrigued her. “What’s in there?”
Smug yet casual, he was proud of himself. “A new bid,” he said and her chin darted up in another bolt of surprise. This one wasn’t so easy to conceal. “We know that Albert Sutcliffe did not use the device. Grant returned his payment. Exclusivity is still on the table.”
“How could you possibly know that?” she asked, on the ropes.
It was difficult to maintain her cool, but she was doing it. Keeping her expression neutral and her body upright in a pose she’d seen the arrogant business people who did their work in this building use, Zara was thrust from the past to the future. As far as she knew, no one had re-opened bidding for Game Time.
Kahlil was assuming a lot by coming here with an offer already on paper. He probably wanted to get in on the ground floor, guessing that with Grant gone and Sutcliffe ousted, Game Time would be up for grabs again.
“We are not without our own capabilities,” he said. “My superior was angry when we lost the deal. So angry that surveillance was ordered on Grant and on Albert Sutcliffe. We witnessed what happened in the Atlas warehouse and know that you are in possession of the device.”
“That was months ago,” she exhaled.
The Kindred had been so preoccupied by Leatt and what was left of Sutcliffe’s legacy that they’d missed the backdoor strike. They were watching the wrong fight! Leatt was long gone, and Rigor could handle any of Sutcliffe’s people who tried to return to their former home. Kahlil and his colleagues were coming for Game Time. They needed to switch focus, to find out what Kahlil’s boss wanted to achieve with Game Time.
Kahlil had to sense her bewilderment, but he kept the focus on business. “Yes. Grant wasn’t interested in accepting our new approach.”
So this wasn’t completely new. Grant had never told her about a subsequent offer for Game Time. Guessing that Grant had refused the offer without hesitation, she had to wonder about why Kahlil was trying again now that Grant was gone, he had to know that she had no authority over any of CI’s assets or products. But if he had witnessed what happened in the Atlas warehouse, he had to know that she had been the one to drive away from the site with the device in tow.
“What makes you think I will be interested?”
Linking his fingers, he rested his forearms on the desk. “Because you’re a woman,” he said, looking at her chest, which was concealed behind a conservative, fitted blouse.
Insulting the person you wanted to do business with was not a great starting point for negotiations. Suggesting that her gender made her more susceptible to his suggestion guaranteed that his hearing would not be impartial because she was already aff
ronted.
“So, I’m supposed to do what you tell me?” she said, making no secret of her displeasure. “I wouldn’t even consider a deal until you revealed the identity of your superior and his intention.”
For a moment, she recalled what Benedict Leatt had said about his superior, and she wondered if they could be answering to the same individual. That idea was quickly quashed when Kahlil made his next admission.
“The players have changed since we last met,” he said and for the first time she saw a crack in his nonchalance.
“What does that mean?” she asked, trying to decipher why he would be so affected by a change in his colleagues.
He exhaled and his mouth contorted at the same time he averted his eyes. The confident exterior slipped long enough for her to recognize annoyance. Knowing what ruled your opponent was an excellent way to gain advantage. Changes in his manner and expression could betray those weaknesses, and they wouldn’t be recorded by any microphone, meaning it was up to her to catalogue them. Brodie had quizzed her about such things in the past, and she wanted to have all the answers should he do it again.
“I no longer work for the same man.”
So it wasn’t a change in his contemporaries but a change in his superior that disturbed him. Hazarding a guess that the separation had been acrimonious, she probed in hope of revealing the particulars. “Why not?”
If he’d switched allegiance, then it was possible Kahlil had been the one to reveal Game Time’s existence and potential to his new employer, whoever that was. Word about the device was beginning to seep into a wider circle and that was dangerous for CI, and for the Kindred.
The device and corresponding viruses were locked up at the manor. She’d always been assured that the place was impenetrable and for a man on foot with a handgun that was true. But Kahlil had connections. That much was clear from how quickly he’d bounced into new employment and had exposed Game Time to this new party.
“My employer considered me inefficient,” he said and didn’t seem embarrassed to say it, making her think that Kahlil had an agenda of his own. Did he want to punish his previous associate? Or was this an attempt to impress the new boss in his life while humiliating the old one?
He was guarded enough that she recognized his reluctance to give her details and retreated so as to not aggravate him. “I’m sorry, but I don’t have the authority to make deals for Cormack Industries,” she said. “Any deal that we discussed—”
“No,” he said, shaking his head and letting himself lean into the desk. “We knew that Grant was conducting negotiations privately, using CI as a shield, a front to protect himself. No one else here knew about it. But Grant trusted you, he brought you inside.”
“If you saw what happened at Atlas then you know how our association was strained.”
“That works in my favor,” he said. “You have no concerns about loyalty. Grant is dead. You are free to sell the device.”
“Why would I want to do that?”
He smiled and pushed back in his chair again, restoring his confidence. “We know about your connection to the Kindred. About your affair with Raven.”
“You heard what was said in the Atlas warehouse?”
“No, we only saw it.” She didn’t like the knowing slant of his mouth. “But I have inside sources of my own.”
If he was trying to charm her into working with him or surrendering Game Time, then he was going about it the wrong way. “Good for you,” she said, pushing away from the desk with designs on rising, but he spoke again before she could get her feet under herself.
“I know the truth,” he said and she relaxed her arms.
“The truth?” she asked, wondering what he was going to declare.
“About who your Raven is.”
His confidence was warranted and she stayed glued to her chair. Knowing who Raven was changed everything, he could reveal that knowledge and bring Raven’s enemies to her and Brodie’s door. Kahlil had admitted to knowing what had happened in the Atlas warehouse. Therefore, it was also possible he knew about Sutcliffe’s compound and could know how Grant had died. He might even know about who Leatt was working for.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to be more specific, Mr. Samara.”
“Have many secrets, do you, Miss Bandini?” He arched a brow, but she wasn’t biting, so he came nearer to the desk. “I know who killed them.”
Again, she wasn’t sure who he was referring to, but if he ratted Brodie out to the cops for his work as Raven, it could destroy all of their lives. “Are you threatening me?”
“No. I’m offering you a chaser. Give Game Time to me, you’ll get a fortune in cash and the truth of what happened on that boat twenty years ago.”
Her lips were stuck together, but they unglued when her shock weighed down her jaw. “The boat.”
“Future’s Hope, that’s what it was called,” he said.
That was the name of the boat Brodie and Grant’s parents were killed on as the boys watched on from shore. Zara had been focused on what Kahlil knew about the present. She could never have guessed that he could solve a twenty-year-old mystery. But that did explain how he knew who Raven was. If he’d known for twenty years and kept the secret to himself then there was no reason to assume he’d betray it to anyone now. But he had kept another secret all this time, and she couldn’t begin to guess how he’d been involved in a boating accident that occurred two decades before.
“How could you possibly know that?” she whispered and there was no way she could disguise her amazement.
Kahlil was in no rush to satisfy her curiosity. “Do we have a deal?” he asked, straightening in his seat to meet her eye.
All joviality was gone and she saw nothing but a ruthless businessman in front of her now. Just as she’d suspected, the charming, stylish friend was a cover.
Sliding her hands together, one went over the other until she was covering the watch on her wrist. Touching it was acknowledging the link to her Kindred colleagues, and she needed a buoy while under Kahlil’s scrutiny.
Kahlil knew his opponent. Teasing her with the truth of Future’s Hope was a prime weakness he could exploit. Money wouldn’t tempt them to release Game Time. “You’ll tell me what happened to Future’s Hope?”
“You give me what I want and I’ll tell you who you’re looking for.”
Who. The person responsible for taking down Brodie’s parents could still be alive. “If you know,” she said, curling her fingers around the watch face. “Did Grant tell you?”
Could her boss have known something so profound and always kept it to himself? If Grant had kept the secret, she could think of no reason that he’d confide it in Kahlil. There was no affection between the men, and Grant had dismissed Kahlil’s original bid for Game Time suggesting no loyalty.
“No,” he said. “Nothing as simple as that.”
Both Grant and Brodie had told her they had suspicions about what had happened on the day their parents were killed, rather they’d expressed doubts about whether or not it was an accident. Now she had the concrete confirmation Brodie had never had.
They’d lost Art to keep Game Time from falling into the wrong hands. Grant died trying to steal its power from the one he’d sold it to. She couldn’t make promises to surrender it without getting authorization from her chief. But she questioned whether she should bring this development to his attention. Was he so desperate to know what had happened to his parents that he would damn innocent souls? Or would he be pissed that Kahlil was manipulating him and go on a crusade to find the truth another way after damning Kahlil to his grave?
Before establishing what she would do with this information, she had to find out what course it had already taken. “If you offered this to Grant, why weren’t you the successful bidder?”
In the end, Grant had proved himself selfish enough that if Kahlil had something extra that interested him, he’d give the man an advantage to gain what he wanted.
“He was never offer
ed this information,” Kahlil said. “The man I used to work for was involved in the demise of Future’s Hope. He had kept the secret for many years, two decades. He ordered me to keep the secret too. At the time, he had my loyalty, so I did what he said.”
“Your boss was involved?” she asked.
“Yes, and honestly, if Grant McCormack found out about his involvement then, our Game Time bid would never have been entertained.”
“But when you failed to obtain Game Time, your boss got pissed and fired you.”
With a slow blink and a nod, he maintained his calm. “That’s right,” he said.
“So now you want your revenge?” she asked.
Any information she got from this man would be biased and would downplay his involvement in whatever happened. But he couldn’t be more than ten years older than Brodie, meaning he’d have been in his early twenties when this incident occurred. Still, whatever he said would have some thread of truth, and it would give them a place to work from if Brodie decided he wanted to settle old debts.
Kahlil took a second to himself before answering. “My new associates and I have no reason to keep the information to ourselves. The only value the information has to us is its power as leverage. We can barter knowledge for what we want.”
And before they could even consider a trade, they would have to uncover Game Time’s ultimate purpose in the hands of these people. “Why do you want it?” she asked. “What’s so important about Game Time? You have lost the patronage of your previous superior. Do you plan to turn the device against him?”
He squared the seam of his slacks and cleared his throat before standing up and tapping a finger on the envelope. “Take that figure to your superior.”
“You said your new approach would work because I’m a woman,” she said, happy to keep her love as far away from this decision as she could.
“I didn’t mean to imply that you would be making the decision. But I know you have the ear of your man, the man who will appreciate this information. A man who we both know flouts conscience in favor of his own agenda.”
Cuckoo (Kindred Book 3) Page 6