Chapter Seven
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T he blood drained from his face when he read the headline on the bottom of his laptop screen.
Woman gunned down on Oregon highway identified as Becca Sandoza’s personal assistant .
“What the fuck ?” He turned up the volume to listen to what the female reporter was saying during a broadcast outside a red brick building.
“Officials here at the Crimson Point Sheriff’s Department have confirmed that the female victim of today’s brazen attack is thirty-two-year-old Penelope Janec.
Janec was personal assistant to Hollywood superstar Becca Sandoza, who is reportedly in the area scouting filming locations for an upcoming movie set here on the Oregon Coast.”
He ran a hand over his face, fighting back a wave of panic. The personal assistant? It couldn’t be. How the fuck had this happened?
Within moments, his phone started blowing up. He ignored the calls, briefly skimmed the texts because he had to.
You seen the news? WTF??
You targeted the wrong person?!
“Calm the fuck down,” he snapped into the quiet, smothering another sharp surge of panic. “You all still got paid. Quit bitching.”
This wasn’t supposed to happen. Becca was supposed to be dead, not that nobody. How the hell had they not realized it wasn’t her?
Jesus. They’d all taken huge risks in doing this, to inflict maximum fallout on their intended target.
He turned his phone off and stalked to the bathroom, stopping to take a gulp of whiskey straight from the bottle on the way.
Setting the shower to as hot as he could handle, he stood under the spray, letting the water pour over his head and shoulders as he struggled to get control of his spiraling thoughts.
This was a setback. That was all.
You gunned down an innocent woman in cold blood.
His stomach pitched. This was surreal and way past the line of anything he’d done before.
Not that he was worried about being caught. Not yet anyway. There was no way they could ID him or the others because of the balaclavas, and all the weapons used had their serial numbers filed off.
When he got out of the shower twenty minutes later, he still had no answers, but at least he was calmer. Calm enough to think clearly and check his phone again. There was one call he’d missed that he couldn’t ignore any longer. He dialed the number, bracing himself for what was coming.
“What the fuck happened?” the angry voice snapped.
“We got the assistant instead of her.”
“Yeah, no shit. How the fuck did you manage that?”
“They look alike.” Dark hair, sunglasses, similar builds, leaving from the same damned house with a bodyguard. How the fuck were any of them supposed to have seen the difference?
A humorless laugh filled the line. “You gotta be shitting me. That’s your answer? That’s all you’ve got?”
“Yeah.” The defensiveness was building. Easy to criticize and call the shots from the sidelines. Fuck this guy. The assistant had looked enough like Becca to convince him and the others it was her. When she’d exited the vehicle, he’d shot her.
“What are you doing to fix it?”
“I can’t fix it. Obviously.” They would have moved Becca to an undisclosed location immediately after the shooting and doubled her security. And her husband was a former Marine, who would be on high alert. They’d lost the critical element of surprise.
“Are you sober?”
He bristled at the derision in that tone. “Yes.” Mostly. Even though he was dying to finish off that bottle and get completely shit-faced right now.
“Listen up. You need to handle this and clean up your mess before this shit show ends up bringing all of us down.”
“I’m aware. I’m on it.” They needed to regroup. Getting anywhere near Becca without raising suspicion now was going to be next to impossible. They’d had their shot, and he’d fucked up. He was going to have to figure out another way now.
A heavy silence filled the line. “I took a huge risk in trusting you with this, and I already regret it. Do I need to remind you what’s at stake here?” Pure rage laced the other man’s voice.
He set his jaw. “No. I said I’m on it.”
“You better be. I don’t care what you have to do, but you better fucking fix this. And just to be clear, this is your last chance.”
He ended the call without responding, fuming at being scolded like a fucking kid.
Battling to rein in his anger, he drew a deep, unsteady breath and pulled up a picture of the real target on his phone.
His anger swelled. Spiraling into pure hatred.
He was going to do to that bitch what she’d done to him. Make her suffer the way he had.
She’d destroyed his entire life. Now he was going to get justice by taking away hers.
****
“Y ou sure you don’t want me to come with you?” Bristol asked. “I can wait in the car. For moral support.”
“I’m sure, but it’s sweet of you to offer,” Cassie said into her phone while she grabbed her black leather jacket from the front hall closet. “I’m a professional, and I’m gonna face this head-on.”
“Then what about TJ going instead?”
He had recently joined CPS as a consultant and might be offered a more full-time position in the future.
Cassie wasn’t sure how she felt about that, but it wasn’t her call, and he had to be good at what he did for CPS to offer him the deal.
“No, I’m good.” She’d been saying that a lot to people since Tristan had brought her home last night.
Ryder had handled everything he could for her behind the scenes. Now she’d been called into the head office to meet with him and the rest of the management team. This was her situation to handle, and she didn’t want anyone else to be there in case things didn’t go well for her.
Bristol made a frustrated sound. “You make me crazy, taking the independent thing so damned far.”
Her polite stepsister using the word “damned” was a sign of how pissed she was. “I know. It’s a personality flaw.”
Bristol sighed. “They’re not gonna fire you, Cass. Even TJ said so. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“We’ll see what they have to say.” Her stomach was a mass of nerves. But better to face the music now instead of living in constant dread of what might happen.
“Text me the minute it’s over and let me know what happened.”
“I will. Love you.”
“Love you too. Even though you’re ridiculously, frustratingly stubborn, and I wanna shake you right now.”
She smiled because it was true. She was stubborn. “Bye.”
There were still at least a dozen other messages on her phone she had yet to respond to.
She’d finally called her mom a couple hours ago to stop her from worrying or showing up at her door.
Without going into too much detail, she’d explained what had happened and that she was fine—and that she definitely didn’t want company right now.
Tristan had texted to check in on her several times as well. She had yet to respond to him.
The company had dropped her car off in the driveway. She climbed in and glanced at the two messages from him, feeling a little bad for not responding earlier.
She was an adult. The intense chemistry between them and her own baggage weren’t excuses to avoid him or be rude when he’d reached out, especially when he’d done his best to be there for her in a crisis—again.
She typed out a reply. Had that shower and a long nap. Feeling better. Heading into the office now.
“Hopefully not to get my ass fired,” she murmured to herself, then added: Thanks for checking on me.
The tension inside her continued to build on the drive across town to the CPS building, located partway up the hill, overlooking the waterfront that hugged the curving bay. Management would have reviewed all the evidence and dashcam footage by now.
If she’d messed up and they found her at fault, her job and reputation were both on the line. Penny’s family could file a criminal suit against her. They could also file a civil suit even if she wasn’t found criminally responsible.
The thought of being fired or put on probation was humiliating and unbearable. She’d worked so hard to move forward after everything that had happened in Vegas. She didn’t want to lose everything and have to start all over again.
Game face on, she took the elevator up and stopped at reception. The woman behind the front desk smiled at her warmly. A good sign? Or maybe she wasn’t aware of what had happened.
“Hi, Cassie. They’ll be ready for you shortly if you just want to take a seat and wait in the lounge.”
“Thanks.” She waited there in a plush leather chair, telling herself to calm down. This could go any number of ways, not necessarily all bad.
A few minutes later, Kerrigan appeared with a friendly smile. “Hey there. You ready?”
The smile seemed genuine, but was it a bad sign that the head of HR had been called in after hours for this? “Yes.” She followed Kerrigan down the hall to Ryder’s office, steeling herself.
Ryder, Callum, and Walker were all there waiting for her inside.
And shit, so was Tristan.