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“I guess you could call it that,” I confirm with a quick nod. “I didn’t plan on them taking out a hit on me in retaliation.”
Polly gasps, her eyes go wide, and she simply stares at me. “What?”
“True story.” Jesus, just the thought of it makes me want to sweat. “It was a few months after the buyout was finished, and suddenly, someone else was attempting to break into my condo in Manhattan. Because of the incident before, I had hired my own private security, so they were thwarted.”
“They were caught?”
“No.” Grimly, I sip my wine. “They got away, but they weren’t successful. And they didn’t stop trying.”
“Jesus Christ,” she mutters, still holding onto my hand.
“After about three months of this, I decided it was in everyone’s best interest if I moved back to Montana. I’d already built my house, and it was just sitting here, waiting to be lived in. At first, I was stubborn, not wanting to give anyone the satisfaction of running me out of New York, but it became clear that I wasn’t safe there.”
“Ryan, my God.”
I swallow the bile that wants to come up and continue, purging out the rest of it.
“I hadn’t been here more than a few months when my team started seeing signs of someone trying to get onto my ranch. We installed cameras and added more men, and right before Christmas?—”
I pause and drag my hand down my face.
“It’s okay,” she says, her eyes full of turmoil. “You don’t have to tell me any more.”
“No, I’ll finish it. They tried to get onto the property by jamming my cameras. And, they succeeded. Thank fuck Jake was with my parents that day because they got into my house.”
“No.”
“My men apprehended them. I wasn’t home. I was in town, actually. I saw you that day.”
She frowns over at me. “Was that on Christmas Eve?”
“Yes.”
“I still have your gloves.”
I feel my lips twitch, and my gut loosens as she smiles at me. “You can keep them.”
“I plan to; they’re warm. So, what happened?”
I blow out a breath and reach for more cheese. “Well, they were arrested. It was a hitman that the other company hired to teach me a lesson, as he put it, but it was clear that he’d planned to kill me.”
“How do you know?”
I think of the weapons they found on the son of a bitch, the torture implements, and shake my head.
“We just know. I’ll leave it at that.”
“But he’s in jail?”
“For thirty years,” I confirm with a nod. “And he sang like a canary, had documented all of the communication between him and those who hired him, and they went to jail, too.”
“Thank Christ,” she says with a sigh. “I’m so sorry you went through that.”
“It was scary,” I reply. “And I don’t really scare easily. We’ve beefed up security more because there were rumblings out there that there might have been a second man hired, in case the first failed.”
Her eyes widen in alarm. “Ryan?—”
“There’s been no attempt at anything. We have ears on the ground all over the world,” I assure her and lift her hand to my lips, kissing her knuckles. “But we keep an eye on things, just to be sure. I don’t want to relax and then get a surprise.”
