Chapter 3
Ford
Out of the corner of my eye, I watch the exquisite creature next to me reach for her handbag, rustling inside before pulling out some bills and leaving them on the bar. She slips off the stool gracefully, squeezing past me, leaving a faint scent of cherry blossoms in her wake.
Don’t abandon me here, alone with my thoughts.
She’s a rare find, like sparkly painite hidden deep within the earth.
“Thank you for the conversation this evening,” she purrs. Her sultry voice made of strings of luxurious silk wraps around the base of my hard cock.
“Ford,” I supply, offering this stranger an anchor of truth.
Her full red lips part, revealing her cunning smile as the delicate apples of her cheeks round further. “Genevieve.”
She’s truly the perfect specimen; the kind of beautiful that some scientist somewhere might want to study, while a modeling agency would kill to have her in their portfolio.
A well-defined Cupid’s bow draws me in, imploring me to run my finger through the divot there.
Her elegant, feminine facial features are perfectly proportionate to her head, with round, almond-shaped eyes, and a halo of short, platinum-blonde hair that gives her a sleek, angelic appearance.
Contrary to her appearance, something about this woman says that she’s zero percent saint, one hundred percent sinner, one oozing sexual magnetism.
“Perhaps I’ll see you around, Genevieve.”
We stare at each other for a moment, the air sizzling with something white-hot, like lightning building within an epic thunder cloud. And while I haven’t experienced this sensation in ages, I have no doubt that it’ll shock me to death in the same manner it did all those years ago.
I’m certain that I’ll once again find myself addicted to the intoxicating electric jolt.
Her hazel eyes narrow marginally as she studies my face, her gaze zeroing in on me. “Goodnight, Ford.”
With that, she spins, her slender frame strutting out of the bar and into the night, leaving me with the scent of her spicy perfume and an isolating void I haven’t felt in a long fucking time.
Once the door closes on the blonde beauty, I toss back the remnants of my scotch and catch the attention of the bartender. When he returns after running my credit card, I ask, “Have you seen the woman who was just next to me here before?”
He shakes his head, collecting the bills she left for him. “Nope, never seen her.”
Slipping my hands into my pants pockets, I exit the bar, the magnificent laughter of the mysterious woman playing on a loop in my mind.
I hope I never forget it. The smoggy night air kisses the exposed skin above my shirt collar, a lingering chill wafting through the evening.
I approach the black SUV at the end of the block, my driver hustling to hold the door to the backseat open for me.
I nod at James, who returns the gesture before slipping behind the wheel.
“Home, please,” I instruct him as he pulls out of the parking spot.
Reaching for my phone, I find a text from my best friend, Drake Elwood.
Drake: Since I’m a great friend, I should ask if the drink helped, but I already know that it did, so there’s no need to tell me I’m right. The only cure for dealing with Jackson is alcohol.
I roll my eyes, huffing a silent laugh as I hammer out a quick reply. While he doesn’t yet know the specifics of my lousy day, he knows it involves Jackson, and that’s enough. There’s not a single meeting with that asshole that hasn’t led to a shitty mood.
Ford: You’re my only friend.
His reply is immediate.
Drake: Not true. I’m just the only one still alive.
Shutting my phone off, I slip it back into my pocket, staring out the window at the city rolling by. Drake’s right; we used to have a core network of close friends, a family, but only the two of us are left. War has a way of tearing people apart.
“Mr. Crawford,” James says from the front, our eyes meeting in the rear-view mirror. “Your security team has just informed me that the police have blocked off your street. Would you like me to take you to the rear entrance, or perhaps somewhere else?”
“The rear entrance is fine. Did they mention why the street has been blocked off?”
With his attention back on the road, he shakes his head. “No, sir.”
I reach for my phone and log into the encrypted app, searching the name of my street in the FBI database. Within seconds, I learn that the press secretary, Vera Choi, was found dead in her home—a brownstone down the street from me—with a gunshot wound to the temple.
Pulling up my text thread with Drake, I send another message.
Ford: Are you on the Choi scene?
Drake: Yeah, want me to stop by your place on my way out?
Ford: Yes.
Thrusting a hand into my hair, I tug at the strands. I should’ve insisted that I quit. I should’ve focused all my time on taking over my grandfather’s company, like I planned. I never should’ve signed on for one last assignment: a decision I have quickly come to fucking regret.
After my cover was blown last year and I was left for dead, that should’ve been the end of my career.
I fucking told Jackson that I wasn’t going to be a good fit to infiltrate an illegal states-wide weapons ring, but the idiot gave me the assignment anyway. An undercover joint task with the ATF, and guess who took the fucking hit when the leaders got suspicious?
But here I am, three gunshot wounds later, taking more instructions from the same handler who refused to pull me from the last op.
Regret is useless. I didn’t say no, so here I am after five months of physical therapy and rehab and an additional month-long hiatus in the backcountry of Alaska hunting Dall sheep. In the field once again, only this time, with a new assignment.
The sooner I can complete this job, the sooner I can quit—permanently this time.
James maneuvers through the traffic, dropping me at the rear entrance of the parking garage of my building. I take the elevator up to my penthouse, my chest loosening when I step into the foyer.
The first thing I did when my grandfather died in January was sell his brownstone and move into the penthouse of this building—which I also conveniently inherited—so that I could start fresh, without his ghost lingering in every corner.
My grandfather, Oliver Crawford, hit it big in real estate, owning much of Washington, D.C. and New England. He turned around and started the biggest investment firm in the country, all of which I happened to inherit this year.
Luckily for me, my grandfather was nothing if not business savvy and curated a team to run things until I could take over—a team that’s, unfortunately, still in place due to how divided my time is at the moment.
He was never supposed to die this early, though.
I was meant to have the opportunity to learn from him, but my tenure with the Federal Bureau of Investigation fucked that up.
If I could do it all over again, I would’ve skipped that chapter of my life—can nearly a decade be considered a chapter?
—just to have more time with the man who was both my parent and my friend.
Although, my grandfather only ever encouraged me to pursue my own dreams, and he’d tell me not to change a single thing about the path my life took.
An hour or so later, there’s a ding coming from the direction of the elevator, and when I get there, I find Drake standing in the foyer, clad in a sharp gray suit.
“Fuck, you look tired,” he comments, following me to my study, where I pour us both a drink. “What’d you think of your new bar?”
“I’d go back. I’m certainly not going to pull funding,” I reply as I settle into one of the tufted leather seats adjacent to him in front of the gas fireplace.
I’ve been on a mission to visit every business that my grandfather’s company—my company—owns. That, in and of itself, is a full-time job.
“What happened to Choi?” I ask, cutting to the chase.
Drake snorts, then takes a sip of his scotch before answering. “Single gunshot wound to the temple at point-blank range. Kimber 9mm in her hand. Gunshot residue present. Textbook suicide.”
“But…” I prompt, reading my friend.
He smirks. “But the front door was unlocked with not a single fucking fingerprint on the door or handle. Back entrance was clean, too. And I can’t understand why she’d choose to take her own life in the middle of the kitchen, right in front of the stove.
Why there? Why not the bedroom? Or her office? Smells funny, if you ask me.”
Shaking my head, I sigh. “But they’re ruling it a suicide.”
“Yep.”
The scotch slides down my throat, suddenly tasting like sour battery acid.
Gazing into his glass, he asks, “Did you get the details for your new assignment?”
“Yeah, I’m infiltrating a sex ring.” I cross my ankle over my knee, getting more comfortable.
The corner of Drake’s lips quirks. “Damn, at least that’s exciting. I’m out here picking up suicide cases that are not suicides.”
“I don’t know if exciting is the word I’d use.”
While he might be right, he’s also wrong.
Is something truly thrilling if you don’t want to be doing it?
I told Genevieve the truth; I don’t lead an exhilarating life.
I wake up, work out, attempt to wrap my head around Oliver Crawford’s billion-dollar business, brush up on the files sent to me by the FBI, fill out paperwork, go to sleep.
Somewhere in there, I fit in meals and visiting the slew of businesses I’m invested in.
I’m bored; not the least bit interested in taking down a sex ring.
The firelight makes the golden-amber liquid in my crystal tumbler glow like a harvest moon, and I swirl until it resembles a tornado as I tell Drake, “Someone with some power has it out for this Madam, though. From the looks of her file, it seems like maybe she knows things she shouldn’t.”
“At least it’s interesting, and it certainly beats the bullshit I’m tasked with.”
It’s not lost on me that the FBI only begged me to stick around for this case for my—my grandfather’s—connections.
I’m sure it helped that I have a track record of always doing things the right way.
Fortunately, this should be an easy sting.
Get in, get the lay of the land, learn the whereabouts of the little black Rolodex of clients, and get the fuck out.
Shouldn’t take more than a month or two. Three tops.