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“No,” he said so calmly it sent a shockwave of chills rippling through her. “Lying will get you into even more trouble. I’d prefer you come to terms with the fact that you’ll be happier on my side; then, there’s no reason to lie or spit useless sarcasm at me. Jesting with me is fine, dove, but only to be playful. Understood?”
“Yes, Jed,” Genevieve seethed through her teeth, edging his name with fury. Did he really think she’d roll over now that she understood his true colors?
“All this sassy defiance aimed at me.” He chuckled menacingly. “This is new. What to do, what to do. I’ll have to think on that. In the meantime, I’ll ask that you aim that opposing attitude at anyone other than me unless you’d like to discover what I come up with. I love your spice, dove, but in line with mine.” Another deliberate pause, and he continued, “Now, back to the Camry. Your mother won’t be needing it anytime soon. As long as you cooperate, my men will drive her anywhere she wishes to go. Understood?”
Genevieve pinched the bridge of her nose, wishing she could defy him again—as he so offputtingly defined it. Would it encourage him if she did? Her unsettled stomach churned as she thought through his responses. Did he get off on her compliance? On controlling her? She turned the receiver away from her mouth, pulling air in sharply as she coiled an arm around her middle. Had he always been like this, but she’d been too lovestruck to care? She slowed her breathing, letting the cool air flow deep down into her lungs, attempting to calm herself enough to finish their twisted conversation.
His voice dropped in a warning. “Don’t make me wait for the words, dove.”
“Yes, Jed,” she forced out in an even tone. “I understand.”
“There you go. That’s better. You’re learning. Now, on to my plans for you. One of my top men will escort you to my side, so if you’re thinking of trying anything, don’t. He’s stronger than an ox, faster than a lion, and smarter than he looks. You won’t best him with any plan you have brewing in that quick-witted mind of yours. Oh, and my dove,”—he paused—“don’t be late. Forty-eight hours or you’ll wish you didn’t keep me waiting.”
The phone clicked off, and Genevieve held it to her ear, frozen in place as she listened to the buzzing signal. Several loud knocks on the door, and she slammed the phone down, adrenaline pulsing through her. What a waste of adrenaline! She couldn’t take advantage of it with Jed’s thugs at the door. So much for her hopeful plan to run, but deep down, she’d already known Jed would be staged and ready, paging his men to enter their apartment the second he ended the call. After years of practice, his every move was deliberate. She never should have dated a man fourteen years her senior straight out of college when she was so gullible and fresh to the world. But would Jed have taken no for an answer?
Genevieve flung open their apartment door and let three men—a tall one, a bodybuilder-like one, and a stocky one—enter without a fight. Now was not the time. She didn’t look any of them over too closely. They were all just muscle with empty brains, except perhaps whichever one Jed had just praised, but she had the smarts to take him on—just perhaps not with three warrants ready to put her away.
Her mom grabbed their extendable feather duster out of the coat closet and whapped each of the men upside the head while they all stared at her as if they didn’t know what to do.
“Fuck, you’re Roxy?” the stockiest man asked, dodging her and rubbing his temple. “The one Marshal says Genevieve calls Momma?”
“That’s right, you scum.”
The tall guy glared at her mom like she was a rare foreign substance. “Too bad the boss says we can’t lay a finger on you unless you try to run.”
“He did, did he? Good to hear.” Roxy resumed her aggressive pummeling with her duster until the bodybuilder guy ripped it out of her hand.
The bodybuilder flashed his teeth. “Enough of that.” He turned to face Genevieve, pointing first at her and then himself. “You and I will leave in the morning.” Swiveling to face his two less-impressive followers, he added, “Bryson, Zeek, the three of us will sleep on the floor tonight, me here in the entryway to block the front door and the two of you guarding the sliding door in the back. Marshal wants Ms. Genevieve and I driving his way at first light, so I suggest you get some sleep so you can look after Roxy.”
Her mom ruffled back through the coat closet, grabbed a broom, and tried to whap the bodybuilder’s broad shoulders. “Don’t you dare tell my daughter what to do. She’ll do as she damn well pleases.”
The bodybuilder swiped the broom out of her mom’s hands like he was a trained warrior, and her mom was as harmless as a baby bird. Damn, he was fast, but he also had strict instructions not to harm them.
Genevieve beamed a sly grin. If her mom could fight, she could too. And she would—when the time was right.
Four
GENEVIEVE
Find an ally.
The next morning, after a tearful goodbye with her mother, the bodybuilder thug shoved Genevieve and her purple suitcase out the door and into her red Camry, settling his massive frame in the passenger’s seat next to her. She drove toward work with one goal and one goal only—to convince Mr. King to become her ally. After churning her mom’s sage advice through her mind half the night, she’d decided to bend her moral code. Right or wrong, she needed his help.
He was into her, right? She wasn’t imagining things? He’d come along and use his brilliance to help her and her mom out of this mess. She planned to cut off the snake’s head—Jed had made her life the living hell he’d promised, and she wanted to be the one to make him pay for it. But her mom was right—going things alone was dumb at best. Two brains were smarter than one. Mr. King’s sharp black-and-white mind would mix with her array of colors, and Jed wouldn’t know what hit him.
She’d had coworkers hint that Mr. King was interested—some bold comments about how she had to watch The Race for Riches or Romance, Tangle in the Tropics, but she didn’t want to see how easily identifiable she’d been, stressing for days that Jed’s men might track her down, so she never had. Mr. King said some ‘telling things’ a few of her lunch buddies told her. ‘Oh yeah, really? Just spell it out for me!’ she wanted to yell at them; instead, when she’d prodded politely, they’d commented that Mr. King asked for zero in-office gossip about the show. Again, her boss was smart and one step ahead of every issue, and he was her key to co-taking-down Jed Marshall. He was her ally.
“What the hell is this about?” The bodybuilder braced his elbows on the passenger seat armrests, shifting his large frame up. “Why are you stopping at your office? I told you, Ms. Genevieve, when you get tired, I’ll drive. We’re going straight through to Reno—gas stops only.”
Genevieve pulled into the front drop-off circle of BC King Enterprises, where Mr. King’s security guards would see her get out of the vehicle on his obsessive-compulsive number of cameras. When she’d first started working for Mr. King, the cameras unnerved her, the lenses catching her skittish gazes like Jed could somehow stare straight through them, but she’d since become comforted by her boss’s tight security measures.
Mr. King was a sweetheart—he only wanted to protect his business and employees—nothing more. This thug beside her had no chance of forcing her back into the car before she executed her plan, or Mr. King would have several equally intimidating bodybuilder types approach him before he could react. The confidence in the truth of that rang through her, propelling her ahead to ask the world’s most seemingly compassionate man for help.
“You need to start talking now,”—the bodybuilder gritted his teeth as she parked flush with the semicircle curve—“or I’ll have to put my hands on you, and the boss won’t like it.”
Genevieve reached for her door handle, and a frantic look crossed the bodybuilder’s angular features. In a lightning-fast move, he wrapped an iron grip around her forearm.
She raised a brow. “I need to talk to my boss and make up an excuse. He’ll eventually call the cops and report me as a missing person if I don’t show up for work.”
