26. Travis
The goons jerked me forward roughly when I tried to steal a glance at Emily. Jonathan led her in a different direction from where I was headed, toward a small guardhouse across the field from the warehouse.
“Keep moving,” one of the men said in a gruff voice. He poked his gun into my side and shoved me around the side of the warehouse.
Please let her be okay. I knew it had been a risk to visit her alone, without security, knowing what I did about her. But this was worse than any outcome I had imagined.
I had no idea where we were. The barren terrain stretching beyond the wire fence gave me no clues. The goons walked in grim silence on either side of me.
They didn’t intend to kill me. I could at least be fairly sure of that. Not when a ransom was worth so much. But Emily…
Another guard was standing in front of a door toward the end of the building. He swung the door open when he saw our trio approaching.
They ushered me down a hallway dimly lit by flickering fluorescent lights, its walls lined with closed, foreboding doors.At the far end of the narrow corridor, the men rapped sharply on a metal door. Someone peeked out of the crack in the door before opening it to admit me and the other guards into the room.
An older man sat on a metal chair backing the door. A bulb hung grimly over the table before him, casting shadows around the room.
I didn’t need to see his face to know who it was. Bryce Blackwell. A ghost from the past. My father’s old “friend.” The two had been birds of a feather.
The guards forced me into the chair in front of him. Someone yanked my arms from behind, then looped a rope around my hands, binding me to the metal chair.
I glared up at Bryce Blackwell. He was watching me intently. Deep crow’s feet lines were etched in the corner of his eye, and a few liver spots dotted his shiny forehead. His salt and pepper gray hair was pulled back in its usual design, bound into a ponytail behind his head.
Somehow, the way he reminded me of my father was the most terrifying thing of all.
Smoke from his cigar drifted upwards, filling the air in the small room. He ran a tongue across his teeth before taking a long pull from the cigar.
He gripped his cane with one hand, and his dark eyes bore into me. I had no doubt that the look had made hundreds of men squirm, and he’d had decades to perfect it. Unfortunately, my only concern was far outside of this building.
Emily.
I noticed movement out of the corner of my eye and turned sharply to the corner. I’d not noticed at first, but Bryce Blackwell had his son, Kurt, present in the room as well. Kurt and I had once played at being friends, before I’d realized what he really was. Before he’d realized that I wasn’t like my father, and his.
Kurt stood silently, with his hands crossed in front of him. There was a glint of metal in his hand as the dim light caught the gun he was wielding. He watched me with fascination, as though I were a trapped animal.
I turned my attention back to Bryce Blackwell to find that he had produced a dagger from somewhere. He traced a finger along the sharp edge of the blade, his eyes never leaving me.
So he had a flair for the theatrical. I wondered if I could use that against him.
He leaned forward, his eyes glinting with a mix of malice and amusement. “Ah, Travis Ross. Fate does enjoy its cruel games, doesn’t it?”
I frowned. “Listen, Bryce. I already told you that I want nothing to do with you. What’s all this about?”
He pulled on the cigar again, blowing the smoke slowly into the air above my head. He pointed the dagger at me. “See, the thing is you’re making the same mistake that your father made, bless his soul. The same mistake that cost him his life.”
I narrowed my eyes, even as I felt cold sweat drip down the back of my neck.
“What are you talking about? My father died of a heart attack.”
He chuckled softly. “Oh, you didn’t know, now, did ya’? There are poisons that can stop a heart. Poisons they never test for in the city morgues. Your father’s business so heavily relied on me, and the special sort of services that I offer. Your empire was built squarely on my shoulders, and those of my syndicate.
“We helped Ross tidy up all his dirty laundry, helped him secure contracts that needed some extra persuasion, and moved the world around under his feet so he could sit high and mighty on his bloody throne.” He turned a palm facing upwards. “These hands are stained with all sorts of dirt for your father, boy.
“What did I ask for in return, you wonder? Well, nothing more than I deserved. A seat at the bloody table. Nothing more. A percentage of the shares of a company that I helped build. I didn’t even want a controlling stake, no. Just a slice of the cake I made for him.
“I’m not a greedy man, no. I worked hard, I did his bidding without question, and I pursued the same goals as your old man. What did I get in return? The poor bloke had the audacity to tell me that he didn’t want to sully the good name of his prestigious company by putting me officially on his books.
“He said that if we were to give me any shares and I became a part of the company, then the company would be associated with the mob, and that, he claimed, was bad for business. The scurvy rascal. Nothing has ever made me more upset in my life. Even now, as I think about it, I have the urge to do him over again, only if I could.
“How stupid could he be? How pretentious of him to say such a thing to me, after all the things that we did together? Fancy that it wasn’t dirty when he needed rivals to disappear in the middle of the night, but it was dirty when the time came to give me a share of the spoils.
“Suffice to say, I learned that I needed to fend for myself.”
Bryce Blackwell grinned wickedly. “So, I got rid of him, and good riddance. Best decision I ever made in my life. And the way you’ve been going, I reckon you’d join him sooner rather than later, boy.”
“What do you want?” I asked guardedly. If all he wanted were shares of the company, then getting out of this might be easier than I’d expected. “You won’t get a dime from me if you harm Emily. I promise you that. But if you release her safely…”
”Blackwell’s laugh was cold, cutting through the tension like a knife. ”Trust you, boy? After all your self-righteous crusading against your father”s legacy? You’re the worst kind of fool?the kind who mistakes his ego for virtue.”
“You’ve spent your time in power seeking people we dealt with decades ago, digging up old graves, in the name of giving reparations.” He spat on the floor and narrowed his eyes at me. “Your father must think you’re an absolute disgrace.”
Blackwell’s voice dropped to a menacing whisper, each word laced with venom and years of festering resentment. I could see the hate in his eyes as he spoke about my father, and I knew that everything he’d said was true. He had no reason to tell a lie that could come back to bite him.
My brothers and I already had an idea of the rot my father had left behind, but we didn’t know how bad it had been. While Bryce Blackwell had been meaning to sting, telling me that my father thought of me as a disgrace was the highest compliment he could have paid me.
I could not bring myself to regret my father’s death, but no one in the family had ever thought to check for murder. He’d had a known heart condition, and he’d died in his bed, not in a car crash or at the wrong end of a bullet.
There could only be one reason for Blackwell to own up to it so confidently, and that reason chilled my bones. He didn’t plan to let me out of this alive. He thought he stood to profit more from my death than from my ransom.
I thought about Emily and swallowed the panic that bubbled up my throat.
“And what do you plan to do with Emily?” I tried to keep my voice cool “She has nothing to do with any of this, Bryce. And it’ll look bad if she disappears after working for your little operation.”
“The journalist girl?” Blackwell chuckled. “Oh, Ross. Don’t tell me you actually care for her? Well, what do you know? You’re an even weaker bastard than I thought.
Blackwell”s smirk twisted into something more sinister. ”Well, since you”re so invested, let me enlighten you. The journalist has a talent for charming billionaires, doesn’t she? We intend to harness that... skill. She”ll be quite the asset in our little conquests.” He leaned in closer. “She’ll play the rest of Wall Street in just the same way she’s played you. And she’ll enjoy every minute of it.
That couldn’t be true. It was a lie designed to hurt me. But…for what reason? Blackwell could do anything he wanted to me here.
It couldn’t be true.
Could it?