He looks up and stops speaking, shock sliding over his face. “Eric.”
We stare at each other, two bulls in a stand-off over the same red flag and that flag is power. In some way, shape, or form, a play for power has always been between us. Not love. Not friendship. Not father and son. Power. It’s always been about power.
Today that power is mine and we both know it.
It was mine the minute I decided to change my routine. The minute I showed up here and faced him instead of walking away.
“You wanted my attention,” I say. “You have it and I even brought coffee.” I offer him the heavier cup, the one Savage hasn’t been drinking from, his cup.
He says nothing, but he accepts the coffee and steps back, offering me entry into his suite. I move forward into an elegant living area, with a desk to the right and a television to the left. He motions to a door at the back of the room to the left. I’ve been in enough Ritz Carlton hotels to know that will be an office where he wants to sit behind a desk and play the power card.
I sit down in a chair, letting him know this is how we’re doing this: my way, not his.
He grimaces. “Okay, son. Have it your way.” He sits down on the couch, his spine stiff, his tone formal, but he’s dressed in his casual gear which for him is a crisp white button-down shirt and dress pants, with his thick head of hair neatly styled.
He glances at the cup in his hand, smirks as if this is a peace offering and he’s won a war, before he takes a drink. “Now what?” he challenges and then he’s grabbing his throat, gasping. He’s starting to choke.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Eric
The coffee cup falls from my father’s hand and crashes to the floor, splattering with impact, liquid droplets hitting my face and arms. Choking sounds come from his throat, fear etched in the eyes of a man that feels no emotion. A desperate plea for help swims in the depths of that fear, directed at me. I wait to feel remorse. I wait to feel panic over the potential loss of my last living parent. I feel none of those things. In fact, I have several seconds in which I contemplate letting the bastard die and burn in hell. In which I want to tell him: Everyone dies. Get over it. Then an image of Harper flashes in my mind, Harper looking up at me with love in her eyes, with expectations that I be better than the man whose blood runs through my veins.
My father falls to his side and starts to jerk, his vomiting a sure sign that he’s been poisoned. Aware that there isn’t much I can do for him right here and now, besides get him help and make sure his throat remains clear, my jaw clenches and I set my cup down on the table, standing up, and charging to the door. I yank it open to find Savage exactly where I expect him to be, by the door, despite me telling him to stay at the elevator. “Get an ambulance here now,” I order, knowing that his team will bypass the millions of questions I don’t want to answer right now.
Savage curses and I’m already turning away when I hear him directing his team to order emergency services. I race back inside the room and Savage catches the door as my father rolls off the couch onto the floor, crashing between the couch and the coffee table. I walk to the table, move it and flatten him on his back, kneeling by him to rotate him to his side, pressing his shoulders to the couch and pulling his leg forward. “An ambulance is on the way,” I tell him, not so much to comfort him, but out of obligation. He damn sure didn’t comfort my mother through her cancer.
I’ve done what I can do for the man. He’s now in a recovery position, a position that prevents him from choking to death, despite all his groaning and panting. Savage kneels beside me and eyes the coffee cup on the floor. “Do I need to get rid of that?” he says, obviously as aware as I am that poison is the culprit in my father’s ailment.
“Genius doesn’t mean stupid,” I snap. “No, you don’t fucking need to get rid of the coffee cup.”
“Fill me in here, man, and do it like I’m stupid. I’m in this room with you trying to cover your ass.”
I settle back on my haunches, my hand on my knee. “He took a drink. He started choking.”
“Like I said. Do I need to get rid of the fucking coffee cup?”
“And like I said. No, you don’t need to get rid of the fucking coffee cup. He started choking in ten seconds.”
He frowns, clearly seeing that as a timeline that doesn’t connect.
“What you need to do,” I add, “is to think beyond the obvious.”
His eyes narrow on me and he seems to get the message. He reaches for his weapon and stands up as I do the same, reaching to draw my Glock from the back of my jeans where I put it. I motion Savage to the right, down a hallway to what I believe is the bedroom. I go around the couch to the office, where I find a pot of coffee on the desk, as well as condiments and a half-eaten pastry. I pull my phone from my pocket and shoot photos to prove these items exist.
I don’t linger to search the office. Instead, I exit the doorway and cross the living room, traveling down another hallway. There’s a bathroom to the right that’s clear and untouched. A few feet down, there’s a dining room with a conference table as the centerpiece. I walk past it into a small kitchen and check for evidence. I open the refrigerator, but it’s empty. I rotate and retrace my steps, returning to the living room as Savage returns from his portion of the search as well, and gives me an “all clear” motion.
The doorbell to the suite rings. Savage and I both put away our weapons and Savage, standing just beside the door, doesn’t wait for approval he wouldn’t need. He opens the door.
The EMT crew—two men in uniform—rushes in, asking for details even as they kneel beside my father and start administering rescue services. Blake walks in moments after I finish delivering the update. “Join me in the hallway,” he orders softly.
I nod but I look at Savage and make sure that Blake can hear. “Office. Pastry. Coffee. Recent. I need to make sure that doesn’t disappear.”
Savage nods and Blake and I walk to the hallway, stepping to the side of the doorway. “We have about sixty seconds until law enforcement gets here,” Blake says, “Talk to me.”
“He was poisoned and he’s alive because I decided to show up to talk. He’s alive because I called the EMTs.”
“Did you poison him?”
“If I decided to kill my father, I wouldn’t have second thoughts and call the EMTs. I also wouldn’t make myself the prime fucking suspect by choice.”
His lips thin. “That’s not a fucking answer. Give me a direct fucking answer.”
“I didn’t kill my father.”
“Did you try?”
“Had I tried, he’d be dead, Blake. I brought coffee. He drank his own before I got here, along with eating a portion of a pastry, but I can promise you he’s not going to test positive for poison.”
He narrows his eyes on me, and it’s clear that he thinks I just confessed to setting this up. I open my mouth to respond to the assumption, but it’s right then that a rush of activity erupts at the end of the hallway, shouts lifting in the air. Blake and I both eye the force of three officers rushing our way and Blake lowers his voice. “This conversation isn’t over.”
“The one you’re having with yourself or the one you’re having with me?”
He glowers and we both turn to greet the officers. It’s chaos from there, and I answer a few questions before the EMTs exit with my father on a stretcher. “I’ll be at the hospital,” I tell the lead officer. “You can ask me anything you want there.” I don’t wait for his approval. I follow the EMT and confirm that my father is indeed stable. Had he been alone at the time of his incident, he’d be dead.
I follow the emergency team into the elevator, standing next to my father, but I don’t look at him. I text Davis, not because he’s an attorney but because I want to head off bad press for the company and Grayson: Need you. Meet me at the St. Francis Hospital ASAP. More soon. Can’t talk.
Oh fuck, is his reply. Need you? What the hell is happening? On my w
ay. Call me if you can before I get there.
I inhale and stuff my phone back into my pocket, my gaze falling on my father’s pale face and I once again wait to feel anything but hate for this man, but I don’t. I hate him. If he dies, I won’t grieve, but he won’t die. Because I, the bastard son that I am, saved his fucking life, by calling for help. But if I find out that he’s the one behind the attempt on Harper’s life, he’ll wake up and wish he’d died today.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Eric
I start to calculate the who, what, when and why of what happened in that hotel room on the ride down in the elevator, while my father’s heartbeat on the monitor pounds a steady beat. He might live. He might die. He was poisoned and organ damage can happen rapidly and fatally. The question is who poisoned him and why?
Nothing about my father being a target makes sense.
Who benefits from him dying?
Me because I hate him.
Isaac gets rich.
Harper’s mother also gets rich.
I go back to Isaac.
Isaac was scared. He needed a fall guy. Harper and I didn’t work out.
Isaac did this, but that means he hired a professional.
The elevator doors open and I eye the EMT to my left. “I’ll meet you at the hospital,” I say, not about to ride with them. To do so would seem insincere, an actor in a movie of lies, and right now, the last thing I need is more lies.
Nevertheless, I walk with the EMT crew, exiting the building behind them, but the minute I spot the press, I cut into the crowd, dialing Davis as I start the short walk to the hospital. “Where are you now?”
“I just got to the hospital.”
“Exit the front and go right. Walk a block down.” I eye the corner. “There’s a Starbucks.” I disconnect. I don’t care about making a showing at the hospital. I care about getting to Harper before her mother or the press gets to her, which means I need Davis to do damage control.
I finish the short walk and Davis is there at the same time I am. He meets me at the right side of the Starbucks entrance and buries his hands in the leather jacket he’s wearing over a T-shirt and jeans. “What the hell is going on?”
“I went to see my father. He took a drink from the coffee I brought him and started choking. I called an ambulance.”
“Holy fuck, man.” He scrubs his jaw. “Does Grayson know?”
“No. Go to him. Help him do damage control. Keep this away from Bennett Enterprises.”
“That’s impossible. You’re heading up a bid on an NFL team, Eric. You’re high profile right now.”
“Just do it. Make it happen.”
“You need an attorney, a criminal attorney. Call the guy Grayson was going to use for that big scandal he was in last year.”
“I’m an attorney,” I remind him. “And there’s nothing they can charge me with. I’m not going down.”
He arches a brow. “You’re that sure?”
“Talk to Grayson. Do what you need to do to distance me from the company.”
“I thought you weren’t going down?”
“Don’t push me, asshole.”
“You’re negotiating the NFL deal right now.”
“You just said that. Move on. I saved my father’s life. Paint a picture in our favor.”
My cellphone rings and I grab it from my pocket and curse. “Fuck. It’s Grayson.” I answer the line to hear, “I called Reese Summer, that powerhouse attorney—”
I don’t ask how he knows what’s going on. I know. The Walker crew knows him. They do work for the firm, too. They called him. “Eric?” he presses, when I don’t immediately reply.
“I don’t need a powerhouse attorney,” I say. “That makes it look like I need a powerhouse attorney. I’m an attorney. You need to stay away from this,” I order, and it is an order. “Davis is coming to you. He’ll help you do damage control.” I hang up and focus on Davis. “Go get him under control.”
“He tried to hire that same attorney I suggested, right?” He doesn’t wait for an answer. “You do need a powerhouse attorney. You handed your father a drink and he all but keeled over. He might die.”
“Go to Grayson,” I order.
“I’m going, but we’re going to talk about this.” He steps forward and pats my shoulder. “Because we’re friends and, genius or not, you’re being stupid. You’re fucked right now, man.” With that positive reinforcement, he walks away and Savage, who was obviously following me, steps to my side.
“I have good and bad news,” he announces.
“The bad news is your team told Grayson what was going on. What the fuck?”
His lips thin. “I’ll get back to you one that. Right now. This. We have security footage of a man entering your father’s room to deliver the coffee,” he says. “No one at the hotel recognizes him. That’s good news. It lends to a suspect other than you.”
“What’s the bad news?”
“He resembles a man we picked up loitering around your building last night.”
Suddenly my father’s poisoning isn’t a singular event and everything I reasoned about Harper’s attack, I start reasoning in another direction. There was no set-up. I just happened to be there to save Harper’s life. I just happened to be there to save my father’s life. There’s a hit list and Harper’s on the list.
I start running.
***
Harper
Blake never shows up. I pace and wait, but ten minutes turns into twenty and then thirty. I could bug Smith again for help, but I don’t. I search Eric’s cabinets and find hot chocolate, which I make. I actually really love that he has hot chocolate, and I try to imagine him at the grocery store making the decision to buy that hot chocolate.
I boil some water in the microwave and make the sweet beverage. I even find marshmallows. I sit down at the island in the kitchen with the bag of marshmallows, the cup and drop a handful inside. I snatch a pad of paper and pen I find in a drawer and I start writing the numbers and letters from that sequence we’d been given by the man by my house. I write them over and over, and they feel familiar. I eat half the bag of marshmallows trying to find the memory in my mind. There’s a memory. There are also enough marshmallows in my stomach to perhaps make it explode.
I stand up and start to pace, which leads me to the living room. I grab one of the Rubik’s cubes Eric uses and start spinning it. What do those numbers and letters mean? What do we deal with all of the time? Parts. VIN numbers. Banks accounts. Badges. I stop walking. A badge. Could it be a badge number? I don’t have my computer, but I saw one in the office. I hurry inside and locate the MacBook on top of the wooden desk. I power it up and use my access codes to enter the Kingston system. I pull up the employee badge numbers and type in our mystery sequence of letters and numbers. Nothing. I sigh. Blake checked this of course, anyway. I wasn’t going to find anything, but something about this premise of a badge number feels right in my mind.
Frustrated, I decided maybe I’ll just ask Smith to nudge Blake. I’m close to something. I feel like if I had his tech expertise with me right now, I could figure this out. I hope. It’s worth a try and I have to do something to keep my mind off the fact that Eric is with his father. If I let myself get lost in that thought, I’d picture his father dead right now.
I stand up, exit the living room and head to the door. I open it and oddly, Smith isn’t there. A chill runs down my spine. Something feels wrong about this. Something feels very wrong. I shut the door and lean against it. I lock the door, my instincts shouting at me. I dial Eric, but he doesn’t answer. Smith had to go to the bathroom. He took a bathroom break. I grab the coat Mia bought me and put it on. My gut is telling me to run and I don’t know why. If I open this door and he’s not out there, I’m listening to it. I’m leaving. I’ll hide. I’ll go to the Walker offices. I google their address and find the walk will be short. I have a plan. I’m probably being paranoid, but I can’t seem to
fight this need to escape.
I open the door again and this time I’m not alone.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Harper
“Eric,” I breathe out and any relief I feel is momentary as I take in the hard lines and shadows of his face. “What’s happening?”
Eric’s hands come down on my shoulders. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?” He backs me into the apartment and shuts the door.
He’s angry, really angry, which makes me angry. “Smith was missing. You weren’t answering your phone.”
“Smith was at the end of the hall talking to me. I didn’t answer because I was already here.”
“And I knew that how?” My fingers grip his jacket. “What is going on?”
“Where were you going?”
“Somewhere safe.”
“Because you’re not safe here with me?”
I blanch. “What? What are you talking about? What are you talking about?” I repeat.
His lashes lower, torment crossing his handsome features.
“Eric, talk to me.”
He lowers his forehead to mine. “I can’t lose you.”
His voice radiates with so much pain that I don’t know what’s happened, but I know it’s bad. He might have killed his father. I think he did. My hand goes to his face. “Is he dead?”
He pulls back to look at me, searching my gaze, his stare probing to the point that I swear he can see straight to my soul, and I hope, I pray, that he finds himself there. Because he is. He’s a part of me, all of me, in ways I didn’t know were possible. There are so many ways we’re bonded beyond time.
He swallows hard and cuts his gaze before he releases me and moves away. I rotate to find him stalking toward the window where he stops, pressing his hands to his hips. A moment later, he’s leaning forward, his fists pressed to the glass of the window.
Oh God.
He’s dead.
His father is dead.
I swallow hard now and I wait for anger or disdain or darkness to follow, but it doesn’t. He told me he would only do what he was forced to do and I believed him. I have to believe him now. Some part of me knows that he needs me to trust him that much. I need the same from him.
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