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In the meantime, Adam drives me to my building in an effort to push the narrative that we believe that’s where Alana will be returned. Adam parks in an easy-to-spot location, being obvious about the distraction we’re creating. “Why are you here, and not with Blake, waiting on Alana’s return?” Adam asks, clearly surprised I didn’t fight him on this plan.
“Blake told me to come with you,” I point out.
“Oh, come on, man. You pay the bills, and you have no problem telling us, or anyone, no. What do you know that I don’t know but should? Why are you here?”
He’s not letting this go, and I don’t know why I’m even running in circles with him in the first place. “This isn’t going to go as Blake assumes,” I say. “My father will want to end this on his own terms, not mine. In other words, it’s not what I know that you don’t know. It’s what he knows that we don’t know.”
“I hope like hell you’re wrong.”
“I’m not wrong.”
“Then why do you seem so freaking calm?” he volleys back.
“I’m not even a little fucking calm, but the good side of all of this I hang my hat on is that my father doesn’t want me to call the press, and he believes I will. Somehow, he’ll find a way to meet my demand and return her that doesn’t feel as if it’s on my terms. He doesn’t want to, but he will.”
“And the bad?”
“He’ll hurt her if we give him the chance, and we’re giving him the chance.”
“Okay, then let’s talk changing that.” Adam glances at his watch and taps the glass. “He has thirty minutes to return her. From what I’ve seen, he’s not a man who responds well to being cornered. You’ve cornered him. If I were you, I’d be asking myself how you make him a hero.”
He has my attention. “What are you suggesting?”
“Per your assessment, he wants to teach Alana a lesson, and he wants to secure his throne. He wants to be king. Tell him you’ll call the press no matter what, and his actions decide if he’s a monster or a hero. The monster who had her kidnapped to punish her for her press conference, or the hero who negotiated her safe return.”
My rejection is fast and hard. “I’m not making that man a hero. I won’t do it, and he won’t believe I’ll do it, either. He’s manipulated that kind of press-created power, and it would come right back at Alana.”
“Give him a false sense of conforming. Then come back and bite him in the ass when she’s safe.”
My cellphone rings with an unknown caller. I answer with, “Damion West.”
“One million dollars,” the man on the other line states. “That’s the price. If you don’t have the money ready, she dies. Fuck you and your father. If you get law enforcement involved, we’ll disappear and take her with us until it cools before you get another chance to get her back. And we’ll use her anyway we want in the meantime. Get the money. Be ready.”
“You bastard,” I bite out, adrenaline grinding through me. This is at least one of the men who could have hands on Alana. “If you touch her, I will find you. I will kill you.”
“I am a bastard,” he replies. “Be smart, Mr. West, and you can have her home in bed with you tonight. Being stupid guarantees you feel the pain. If you know what I mean, and I think you do.” He disconnects.
My lashes lower with the warning that is a bullet in my gut, a memory of my father pounding at my mind. We’d been dealing with an investor who crossed us, and my father wanted revenge. “Make him feel the pain,” my father had told me. “Fuck his wife, and when she begs for more, you can promise him you’ll be the one to take more. As in everything he thinks he owns.”
I’d refused.
My father had done it himself.
“What just happened?” Adam demands roughly.
“My father just made sure I’m the one backed into a corner, not him. He had the kidnappers demand a million dollars yet again. I have one hour. I can gamble and risk using it to call the press, or choose to go to the bank and get the damn money.” I glance over at him. “Take me to the damn bank.”
Chapter Seventeen
Damion
Walker’s monitoring my calls, so I’m not surprised when Adam’s phone rings and he announces, “Blake,” before answering the line on speaker. I’m expecting him to have plenty to say about the ransom, but that’s not where he starts. “There’s an out-of-use basement in the building,” he announces. “It’s not included in the architectural designs and can only be reached by a service elevator that’s been broken for six months. We’re guessing it’s been repaired and used to hide Alana. That elevator is the only entry or exit to that space, which makes the odds of Alana being down there really fucking good.”
Hope flares inside me, and I don’t ask how he knows any of this. I just want Alana back, and unfortunately, that call I just ended is part of the equation. “The kidnapper called, asking for a ransom, and I have no doubt that’s at my father’s direction. He’s hiding behind the façade of a kidnapping while forcing me to pay the assholes who did it for him.”
Blake must have already known about the exchange because his answer is not only instant but calculated. “Grab the money, and then let Adam do the drop. He’s a master of disguise. He can make them think he’s you.”
Adam’s a big guy, and I cast him a skeptical look, not sure how anyone his size disappears. “I could make you think I’m a little old lady if I wanted to,” he explains. “A scrunched over, six-foot old lady,” he adds, “but an old lady.”
