Billionaire's Trust (Standalone Book) (Billionaire Bad Boy Romance) (25 page)

CHAPTER
SIXTY-THREE

Dax

I
put the pedal to the metal and hauled ass to the marina, hoping that
Jordie
had done as I'd asked and called the cops.
Riza
was on the loose and she was dangerous, and I didn't
want to take any chances that she was actually going to harm Brooke.

"Foolish!"
I yelled as I slammed my fists against the steering wheel. "Foolish and
stubborn and reckless!"

I could feel the
panic rising in my chest as I thought about what Beck had told me and how I'd
entrusted everything to the one person who was intent on bringing me down. I
couldn't understand why
Riza
was so angry and
resentful. I'd done everything her father had ever asked, and I'd made sure
that the business stayed intact, despite the fact that running drugs had never
been my choice for how to make a living.

But
Papi
had saved us. He had made a home for us when no one
else could or would, and I owed him. I was loyal and I did what I said I would
do! Now, I was being punished for decisions that hadn't even been mine to make?
It wasn't fair!

I was furious with
Riza
. Why hadn't she talked to me about how she felt?
Why hadn't she said she was mad that
Papi
didn't
leave the business to her? I would have found a way to make it right! Instead,
she spent years nurturing an unnecessary grudge that now threatened to end in
violence. My heart felt heavy just thinking about it.

And, poor Beck had
been the pawn in her game. He hadn't wanted to be a junkie, but she'd made it
so easy for him and encouraged his habit, even when he'd wanted to quit. What
kind of person destroys the people who love her?

"Dammit,
Ri
! You should have told me!"
I yelled in the empty car. I felt angry and sick, and my feelings were bouncing
back and forth between rage at
Riza
for what she'd
done and worry over what she might still do. I had no idea where Brooke was or
if she was okay. Come to think of it, I had no idea if
Ri
was working alone or with others. She might have
an entire posse of people who were helping her pull this off. I slammed my
fists on the steering wheel and pushed the car up to the outer range of
acceptable speed on the highway, hoping that the cops wouldn't stop me.

I pulled into the
parking lot at the marina in record time and was frustrated when I didn't see
any cop cars. I saw several cars, but none looked familiar. I wondered how
Brooke had gotten to the marina since she didn't own a vehicle. I peeked in the
windows of the cars in the lot and quickly found the one that Brooke must have
borrowed. Her briefcase was in the front seat and next to it was her cell
phone. I cursed her for leaving her phone in plain sight in a locked car and
made a mental note to scold her for it.

I walked over to
the manager's office and pounded on the door. When no one answered, I went
around back to the door that Mick, the manager, used when he didn't want to
deal with people. He'd let me in on the secret because, as he'd said,
"You're not an annoying asshole."

I pulled open the
door and cursed under my breath when I saw Mick lying next to the backdoor out
cold, bound and gagged. I pulled him off the floor, put him on his bunk, and
untied the ropes around his wrists and ankles before I removed the gag. Mick
started to come to as I went to grab a glass of water for him.

"
Wha
…what the hell?" he said in a groggy voice as he
reached up and rubbed the back of his head. "Who the hell are you?"

"It's me,
Mick,
Dax
Malone – you know, the one who's not an
asshole?" I grinned as I handed him the glass of water.

"What'd
ya
hit me for?"

"I didn't hit
you," I said. "I came out to the marina and when you didn't answer
the front door, I came around back to check that you weren't having a heart
attack or something."

"Somebody hit
me," he said as he raised the glass and sipped gingerly. "Man, my
head fucking hurts!"

"Yeah,
that'll happen when you get smacked," I nodded. "Any idea who hit
you?"

"Nah, I was
working the front desk and I came back here to grab another cup of coffee and
whammo
!" he said slapping his free hand down on the
bunk next to him. "What time is it?"

"It's about
half past six," I said. "Why, you got a date or something?"

"Actually, yeah,
I do," he grinned. "Good looking chick with long black hair said she
wanted to take me to dinner and a movie."

"You sure
that didn't happen while you were out?' I asked as I quickly pulled together
the missing pieces and decided that it was most likely
Riza
who'd knocked him out.

"Nah, she was
a real live girl all right," he grinned. "She's been coming by here
every couple of days for the past few weeks and working on your boat. Hey, I
thought you'd hired her! She said she was there to clean things up and get it
ready for some kind of trip."

"What else
did she tell you, Mick?" I wanted to get as much information as I could
before I confronted
Riza
. She was angry and knew her
way around a lot of different kinds of weapons. At this point, I wouldn't have put
it past her to have stocked up the boat for a long trip straight out of the
country. What I was worried about was who she might, or might not, be taking
with her.

"She said she
was looking forward to a big dish of rice and beans and a cold Dos
Equis
down on the coast," he said as he drank a little
more water and swung his legs over the edge of the bunk.

"Take it
easy, sailor," I said. "You've suffered a blow to the head and you
might want to get that checked out."

"Eh, I've had
a lot worse in my day," he smiled as he rubbed the spot where she'd nailed
him. "This is just
gonna
be a good goose egg and
little bit of bruised ego."

"Mick, I need
you to do me a favor," I said as I quickly shifted tracks and thought
about Brooke. "I need you to get up and call the cops and have
them
come out to the Isabella."

"Why? What's
up?" he asked. "You done something illegal, son?"

"No, not
me," I said. "But I think your dark-haired beauty is about to, and I
need to stop her before it's too late."

"Aw,
man," Mick groaned. "I hate the cops."

CHAPTER
SIXTY-FOUR

Brooke

When
I came to, I knew Roger and I were in some serious trouble. I looked over and
saw him lying next to me, re-bound and gagged, and it looked like he was in
pain. I raised an eyebrow and he tipped his head toward the front of the cabin.

Whoever had done
this to us was still on board, and I could hear him moving around outside. It
sounded like he was readying the boat to leave the dock, but since I couldn't
see anything, I couldn't be sure. The back of my head ached from the blow, and
my arms and legs felt cold where the ropes had cut off the circulation. I
started to feel the panic rising in my chest, but I quickly calmed myself by
remembering all the times that Teddy had locked me in small spaces when we were
kids. I had become a regular Houdini out of necessity.

I focused on
dipping my head and slowly moving the gag out of my mouth. I needed to be able
to talk to Roger and then yell for help when the time came. I made quick work
of the gag and then turned my attention to the ropes around my wrists. Whoever had
bound me had excellent training in rope tying. I knew this because the summer
after Teddy had gone to Boy Scout camp was the roughest one, as I learned to
undo the expert knots they'd taught him.

"Roger, do
you know this person?" I whispered as I worked the knots. He shook his
head. "Have you seen him?"

Roger nodded
emphatically and then shook his head as he tried to speak through the gag, but
whoever had tied it had made sure that his tongue was immobile, and that
rendered his speech utterly useless.

"No, you
don't know him?" I asked breaking down the question into answerable parts.
Roger shook his head. "Does he know you?" Another head shake.
"Have you ever seen him before?" Head shake, this time more emphatic
as Roger continued to try and speak. "Hold on, hold on, I've almost got
this undone," I said as I bit down on my lip and pushed the knot against a
loose floorboard. That little bit of pressure was enough to loosen it so that
my fingers could work it apart. It was tediously hard work, but I was afraid
that if I didn't focus on getting us out of here, we were going to wind up on a
ship out at sea.

I quickly undid
the knot and then reached over and untied Roger’s gag.

“It’s not a man,”
he blurted out. “It’s a woman. Young. Tall. Dark hair. She’s mad about
something, but I don’t know what. I tried to talk to her and that’s when she
knocked me out.”

“Roger, who the
hell is she?” I whispered as I worked the knots around his hands before turning
back to the ropes around my ankles.

“I’ll tell you who
the hell she is,” a voice on the other side of the cabin said. “She’s a woman
who is sick and tired of getting the short end of the stick.”

“Uh, hi,” I said,
not sure how to approach the situation with a stranger who’d knocked me out and
tied me up. “I’m Brooke, this is Roger.”

“I know who the
fuck you are,” she said as she moved across the floor and stood over us.

“
Riza
?” I said in disbelief. “You’re
Dax’s
right-hand, aren’t you? You came to see me in my office.”

“Yeah, I was and I
did,” she nodded as she looked down at Roger and me. I got the distinct feeling
that we were being sized up, and that whatever she decided in that moment would
determine how this whole situation played out. All the better to keep talking,
I thought.

“Why did you tie
us up?” I asked.

“Because I’m sick
and tired of being the one who does the dirty work and never gets the credit,”
she said matter-of-factly. “I’ve played second fiddle to
Dax
for most of my life, and I’m fed up. I’ve protected him and kept all the bad
stuff at bay, and he’s never once thought about anyone but himself.”

“And you’re angry
with him,” I said.

“Damn right I’m
angry,” she scoffed, then as an afterthought, added, “You might not want to
undo those ropes.”

“Why is that,
Riza
?” I asked.

“Because if you
try to escape, I might have to shoot you,” she shrugged in a way that made me
realize she might not be acting rationally. I had assumed that she knew exactly
what she was doing and why she was doing it, but as I watched her, I wondered
if she’d experienced a break with reality and was now living in some alternate
world where her sense of justice made sense.

“
Riza
, why would you want to shoot two people you don’t
know?” I asked. I didn’t want to provoke her, but I needed to know what we were
dealing with so that I could figure out a way out of here. Roger sure as hell
wasn’t going to do it, since he was still wrestling with the knots around his
ankles and looked like he might fall over at any moment. “Tell me why you’d
want to shoot me and Roger.”

“Because you’re going
to destroy everything my father spent his life building,” she said as if I knew
exactly what she was talking about. “You, or people like you, killed my
father.”

“
Riza
, how could we kill your father? We’re lawyers who are
trying to help
Dax
,” I said.

“Fuck him,” she
said as she stooped down and opened a lower cabinet and started moving things
around. “Fuck them all. I’m sick of being their go-to girl who does everything
for them.”

“Who’s them,
Riza
?” I asked. My brain was spinning as I tried to figure
out how I was going to get Roger and myself out onto the deck. It was the only
way we were going to be seen or saved, but I couldn’t move fast or she’d
suspect what I was doing and might decide we weren’t worth the risk.

“All of them,” she
said waving an arm across her body to indicate everyone. “I’m sick of it, you
know? Don’t you ever feel that way with this idiot?” She pointed at Roger and I
took a deep breath and hoped he would forgive me for what I was about to do. If
I saved us from being shot, I was pretty sure he would.

“Oh yeah, I know
exactly what you mean,” I said rolling my eyes and then shooting Roger a hard
look that said shut the hell up in any language. “They’re always making me do
stuff that they think is beneath them. I get sick of it, too. That’s why I
decided we were taking
Dax’s
case.”

“You decided
that?” she said popping up from behind the cabinet to look at me. “You made
that decision?”

“Yep, sure did,” I
nodded. “I told them that they had to stop dicking around and get serious about
our clients or we’d never make it.”

“And, how’d that
go over?” she asked.

“About as well as
you might guess,” I shrugged. I felt the knots around my ankles loosen and I
knew that I was closer to being free. I looked at Roger and hoped that he
understood I was providing cover so that he could keep working on his own
ropes. He nodded slightly and I inhaled deeply, knowing he understood what I
was doing.

“What made them
listen to you?” she asked.

“I just told them
my plan, laid out the map for how we were going to handle everything, and then
said they had a choice,” I said. “They could get on board or walk out the door,
either way, I was taking the case.”

“That’s pretty
ballsy,” she said.

“Yeah, well,
sometimes you just have to grab the bull by the horns and ride,” I replied.

“Too bad your
story is total bullshit,”
Riza
said as she rose up
from behind the cabinet pointing a loaded automatic rifle at us. My heart
dropped into my stomach and I scolded myself for having been arrogant in
assuming that she and I were on the same page.

Riza
and I were definitely not on the same page. Not at all.