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“When will his men be here?”
“Less than an hour.”
I glanced at my old worn messenger bag already packed and situated by the door.
“Then we have time for lunch before I leave.”
I pushed my father’s well-worn big leather chair away from his desk and stood when a memory assaulted me. I’d been with my father a week when he caught me at his desk drawing. He was standing in the doorway watching me just as he was right that moment. He’d looked reflective then, too. The difference was twenty years ago I was an orphaned twelve-year-old little girl scared out of her mind, not knowing if I was going to be in trouble. Now I understood Charlie. But that memory of him watching me draw had never left me.
Then and now he looked like he wanted to tell me something.
Then and now he simply smiled at me before he turned and left me at his desk.
I knew one day he’d tell me his secret. But like with everything else with Charlie, it would be on his time.
ONE
I was uncharacteristically nervous. Uncharacteristic in the sense I didn’t get nervous—not ever. Showing fear or uncertainty got someone like me dead.
This was not the first time I was being escorted into a meeting with powerful men. Nor was this the first time I was going into an unknown situation.
Yet none of those men were as dangerous or unpredictable as Zane Lewis.
Perhaps it was the hours of silence. No, I was used to that; criminals didn’t tend to chitchat before a sit-down.
Maybe it was because I’d opted for casual. That had to be it; my jeans and flip flops were throwing me off my game. The normal clicking of my heels on the tile was absent—weirdly, sound centered me before I faced down the filth I normally sat across from.
Theo Jackson stopped to place his hand on a fingerprint scanner. As I waited I looked around the empty reception area. The space was oddly bland—a typical receptionist’s desk that, from my view, didn’t look like it had anything on it but a phone. A boring two-seater leather couch, two chairs, and two end tables. No signage above the desk. No magazines to read while you waited. There wasn’t even a plant to liven up the room.
Nothing in the room gave away this was the Z Corps office.
But what struck me as odd was the lack of an elevator. We’d come in from the garage by way of stairs and there was no elevator in there either.
A car honking drew my attention to the street. Large, framed plates of thick glass on either side of a glass door gave an unobstructed view outside.
“Polycarbonate ballistic windows,” Easton Spears weirdly stated.
“I’m sorry?”
“They’re bulletproof.”
Of course they are.
I didn’t get to respond—not that I had anything to say about bullet proof windows—before Theo opened the door. Easton wordlessly gestured for me to enter the hallway. For the first time since Zane’s men had picked me up, real apprehension curled in my belly. I was well aware I was unarmed and entering a windowless hallway with two very big men. For some reason being in a plane with them hadn’t felt this concerning, neither had the silent car rides we’d taken to and from the airport.
But here, in this tight space, there was no escape. No one to help me. No weapon on my person to defend myself with.
I tried to remember my father’s earnest expression and the relief I heard in his voice when he explained his plan. He’d said Zane’s call to him had been serendipitous and was the in we’d needed. That might’ve been true, but I wasn’t feeling the same relief my father was feeling. There was too much at stake. Too much that could go wrong. If I didn’t maneuver this just right everything would implode and I would be the cause of it. One wrong move and I could be the Yoko Ono of Z Corps.
My last call with Maddon had been subterfuge except the part about Zane. Fudging the truth with a man like Zane wasn’t the right way to go about this. Keeping secrets from him from afar was one thing—up close and sitting across from him was entirely different.
This was not a good idea.
We stopped in front of an elevator. Theo turned and pointed to the scanner on the wall.
“Place your hand on the screen.”
The guy obviously didn’t like me, not that I could blame him. He thought my father posed a threat to his fiancée Bridget Keller. That was the flaw in my father’s plan. We should’ve come clean. I should’ve requested a meeting with Zane so I could come clean and tell him the truth. Keeping up appearances would do me no favors.
