The Billionaire’s Secret Joy

CHAPTER ONE

ONE YEAR AGO

William Skeffington was happy.

He buckled his little angel in her car seat that sat in the middle of the backseat and kissed her on her puffy fat cheeks.

She still held her Pop Star Barbie he had just purchased for her, and was holding her as if she was her brand-new baby now.

Which made him smile. Her mother would have said she could swallow those skinny legs on that doll or a piece of the doll’s clothing, but he knew his child was smarter than that.

She’d been under her mother’s strict restrains long enough.

It was high time she had a little fun. “What’s next, boss? ” he asked the four-year old.

“Candy,” his daughter said cheerfully as her legs kicked back and forth.

“If it’s candy you want,” he said, “then it’s candy you shall have.” He closed her door, walked around, and opened the driver side door. It was his first day with full custody of his daughter and he was going to make it a memorable day for her.

But as he slid onto the driver seat of his Bentley and was about to close his door, a gunman quickly opened the back passenger door, jumped onto the backseat, and pointed the gun at the side of his daughter’s head.

“Daddy!” she started screaming. “Daddy!”

William turned around quickly. When he saw that gun and that stranger in his car, his heart dropped.

“Drive!” the gunman yelled even louder than his daughter was screaming. “Drive or I’ll blow her fucking brains out!”

“I’ll do what you say. Just don’t harm her.”

“Drive!”

William Skeffington quickly turned around and drove. He pulled away from that curb and drove. But as he was driving away, he was also pressing the button on his driver side door, just beneath his door handle, and his Ruger .380 fell into his hand.

From his rearview mirror, he could see his clandestine security detail car, the security he constantly told his staff he did not want, pull from the curb further back and began speeding up behind his car. They had apparently saw the gunman jump in.

William’s heart was hammering, but he knew he had to keep his wits about him for the sake of his child. “It’ll be okay, sweetheart,” he was looking through the rearview mirror and saying to his child. “Look at Daddy, baby. Kaitlyn, look at Daddy.”

“Stop looking at her and drive!” the gunman demanded.

But William did both. “Look at Daddy,” he said. He knew he had to calm her back down.

When she looked at him with her big blue eyes that were already filled with tears as she sat helpless in her car seat, his heart grew faint. But he had to keep it together. He even managed to smile. “It’s going to be just fine, Katie, okay? It’s going to be just fine.”

“Drive faster!” the gunman yelled as he kept looking behind him to see where that security car was located. “I’ll kill this bitch if you don’t drive faster than this! I’ll kill you both if you let that security car catch up with us! Drive faster!”

“I’m driving as fast as I can,” William said anxiously. “Just don’t harm my child.” But the fact that he knew about his clandestine security concerned him. This wasn’t some random act. This was carefully planned. Which made him want to panic. But he couldn’t. For his child’s sake, he couldn’t.

“Their getting closer!” the gunman cried out with terror in his voice. “Lose those motherfuckers or she’s dead. Lose them I said. Lose them!”

William was driving so fast that he had already driven far away from the toy shop he and his daughter had just frequented and was now going as fast as his car and the traffic would allow.

He was speeding around car after car, and dipping in and out of traffic even when he didn’t have to, just to appease is abductor.

He looked through his rearview mirror again. His security team was still on their tale.

“Turn right here,” the gunman said anxiously when they got on a slower road, and William turned the corner to another side street as he was told. But he knew he could not let his car stop at a second location because he nor his daughter would get out of there alive.

It became even clearer to William that he decided, as he was turning that corner, that the next time that gunman looked back he was going to handle his business. He was going to take that asshole out.

He’d never so much as shot at another human being in his entire forty-two years on the face of this earth, but for the sake of his little girl, he’d mow down everybody in sight.

The gunman turned to look out of the back window again, and that was when William knew he had to shoot his shot.

And he did. He flung his Ruger from his left hand to his right hand, drove with his left hand as he turned his body slightly, and fired one shot straight through the chest of the abductor.

But just as he was taking his shot, an SUV sped around that same corner, drove up on the side of his security team, and began firing on this security guards as if it was a small army of men in that SUV.

Kaitlyn was screaming after her father shot that stranger in that backseat with her, but his security team was getting the best of the gunmen in that SUV, including taking out the driver.

The SUV sped out of control and drove a few feet forward to a natural stop. Everybody inside had to have been dead.

But William looked in horror as the driver of the security car, who had swerved to the right to avoid the rapid incoming gunfire, overcorrected and the vehicle went on two wheels, flipped several times across an open field, and then burst into flames on its final landing.

“Daddy!” Kaitlyn screamed again with such terror in her voice that William assumed she had seen what he was watching too. Then he realized could it be the gunman? He looked at her. He was certain the gunman was dead.

But was he?

But Kaitlyn wasn’t looking at the gunman slumped down beside her.

She was looking out of the front windshield and pointing with pure fear in her eyes.

And that was when William realized the shock of shooting somebody and seeing his own security guys likely dead put him in a stupor that made him forget he was still driving too.

He quickly turned around to regain control of his own car.

But it was far too late.

He had already left the street, jumped a curb, and was heading straight for a brick building.

He turned that steering wheel with every ounce of strength he had so that he could swerve away from that building and avoid a head-on collision.

But all he managed to do was cause the backend of his car to swerve right into that same building with a violent crash.

His backend of his car was halfway inside the storefront, and his front end was outside.

The crash was so violent that the neon sign on the building had dropped down and landed on top of his hood.

But it kept flashing Pumpkin Pies for Sale.

Pumpkin Pies for Sale. When he hated pumpkin pies.

His airbag didn’t even deploy because the front end of his car, thanks to his maneuver, wasn’t touched.

But when he quickly turned around to check on his beautiful little girl, he couldn’t see her nor could he see that gunman for the mangled mess that was the back of his vehicle.

His heart was pounding as he jumped out. Other motorists and business owners who had heard the crash of the security vehicle even before his car crashed, were running from everywhere coming to his aid.

He searched the wreckage. They searched the wreckage. The police and fire departments came and searched the wreckage too.

But when William got a peep of his little girl some of that mangled metal was removed, he knew they had been searching in vain.

And he remembered, as if it was a telling tribute to just how fucked up a father he was, that it was his first day as the custodial parent of his daughter since the end of his long, drawn-out, messy divorce.

The very first day.

Which meant his ex-wife was right: He was too irresponsible to take care of a little girl. All he knew was work. How could he care for a child?

The well-meaning shop owners tried to console the man they all knew in Westchester County as one of the richest men in the world.

But what were they consoling him for when it was all his fault.

He knew none of this would have ever happened had he not been so selfish as to demand full custody of his daughter just to spite his cheating ex-wife when he knew he had no time to be a fulltime parent.

When he knew he was ill-equipped to take care of anybody. And they were trying to console him?

He didn’t then nor ever would deserve consolation.