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“You two are becoming quite entertaining to watch.” He enters the elevator and Carmelo and I follow, not another word spoken on the matter. We ascend to the sixty-eighth floor, and the doors open into a spacious living space with nothing but a large conference table at the center. The room has floor-to-ceiling windows that line the outer walls from one side to the other, the view showing us a slightly overcast day with an uninterrupted view of city landmarks and skyline.
Mr. Bennett sits at one end of the table while the guard is placed at the center, tied to a chair and gagged. His face is swollen and a tooth is missing, and while both men hold enraged expressions, one person is missing.
The wife. The victim.
“How is she?” Malcolm asks, sitting down at the other end while I take my place right across from the aggressor. “Will she be joining us?”
“No.” Kyle doesn’t explain further, and no one probes. Instead, we turn to look at the one person who does owe an explanation. “Speak,” Bennett hisses through clenched teeth a minute later, and the man flinches a bit before composing himself. “Tell me why you earned the bullet in my gun.”
Nothing. No answer.
And all it does is piss me off. More so because no matter what country you’re in, it seems that disrespect is a common trait that all assholes share.
There’s a paperweight at the center of the table and before anyone asks him again, I pick it up and throw it. It lands near the bridge of his nose and a gash appears, the blood rushing to the surface before falling to his lip and filling his mouth.
“The next blow, I’ll aim for your eye with my knife. Answer him,” I say, tone even and low.
He trembles, his fear palpable. “I love her.”
“What did you just say?” Kyle stands, the chair scraping harshly against the floor. His hands come down atop the glass table, the force making it shake while his lip curls up into a snarl. “Repeat that, Douglass.”
Douglass swallows hard, coughing a bit. “I fell in love with Mrs. Bennett.”
“Did she reciprocate?” Malcolm asks, holding a hand up to Kyle who moves in Douglass’s direction. He pauses with a minute nod and waits. We’ve already discussed how to handle him. Get what we want. “Or is this a gut feeling?”
“I knew the day she hired me.” Douglass smiles. It’s wistful, yet there’s ire lingering beneath the surface. His disdain for Mr. Bennett is clear. “She’s sweet and kind. Nothing like this asshole who spends more time making enemies than paying attention to his wife. I was there when he wasn’t. I saw the smile slip from her face each time he canceled a dinner date or weekend away.” No one misses the way Kyle flinches slightly back at that, and it further fuels Douglass. “It was me,” he sneers, and I find his backbone almost comical. Any other man would’ve pissed his pants by now. “Always me.”
“So, she led you on?” At my question, all three look at me, but my focus is on the guard. “Are you saying she’s a—”
“Don’t you fucking dare!” He’s struggling against his bindings, the rope cutting into his skin. “Clarissa is an angel.”
“How so if she’s toying with your emotions?”
“She’s too innocent and pure to realize I’ve been—”
“Planning to kill her husband, kidnap her, and then force her into a relationship while you gain access to their millions?” Silence. Utter silence. Malcolm asked me to dig and I did, finding out more than they expected. This runs deeper than a simple infatuation. “Or does the name Jorge Wendell ring a bell?”
Kyle’s head snaps in my direction. “What does my business partner have to do with this, Javier?”
“Why don’t you explain, Douglass? Tell him what Wendell’s secretary told me for a few thousand dollars.”
“She wouldn’t.” His voice wavers.
“She did.” Carmelo steps forward then. He hands Malcolm the two files I gathered in the two hours before arriving here. “Cindy was more than willing to fax me what I needed, too.”
“No!”
“What the fuck is going on?” Kyle growls out, storming toward Douglass and fisting his hair. He pulls the dark blond strands hard, forcing the guard’s head back while staring at me. “Tell me.”
Malcolm slides the folder over; it’s open and the top page shows the forged signatures on paperwork, making it seem Mrs. Bennett is unstable and needs a guardian. That Kyle was putting Wendell in charge of everything if anything happened to him.
“The plan was to kill you via robbery gone wrong.” The disdain in my voice is noticeable. I take offense to shitty criminals playing the bullshit badass role. “With you out of the picture and then the filing of this paperwork, Clarissa would’ve been under their thumb. Wendell gets the company and other business ventures/assets, while Douglass gets your wife and a 50/50 split of the money. The sick fuck is obsessed with her, and more so, after being ignored. Isn’t that right?”
“Fuck you!”
Kyle turns his head up to the ceiling and takes in a deep breath. He holds it for ten seconds, his hands clenching twice before his right hand pulls a gun from the back of his pants.
We don’t stop him. We don’t even draw our weapons.
