Twenty-Three
Than
“Is he in his office?” I asked Jayda as I walked into Linc’s house, not stopping to wait for her answer.
“I think so,” she said. “I wasn’t in here…” She trailed off when I turned the corner that led to his office door.
I’d watched Montana come here through the tracking app. I hadn’t been far behind her, but then a fucking train stopped traffic for fifteen minutes. She’d been here for over twenty minutes.
When I reached his door, I started to knock, but then I just opened it. He might not answer or allow me in if I gave him the chance. Don’t ask permission, ask for forgiveness . She’d left under my watch, and I was sure I’d be in trouble for that. But that wasn’t my first concern. I was worried about what she’d come here to say. I had to stop her or fix whatever she’d said because I already knew it was going to be something I didn’t like.
Linc’s eyes locked on me the second I stepped inside the room. Mine went from him to Montana, who turned around to stare up at me in surprise.
Yeah, Six, I followed your ass.
Linc glanced at the time on the wall, then back to me. “Took you a little long to realize she was missing, didn’t it?”
I closed the door as I spoke. “I watched her drive away in the Uber. I was following when I got stopped by a train.”
I didn’t wait on a response from him before turning my attention to Montana.
“Why did you come here?” I asked her.
She blinked, and her shoulders rose and fell with a deep sigh.
“She’s wanting to take a bus and get out of town. Needs me to ship her things to her when she finds somewhere to stay,” Linc supplied.
“No,” I snapped as I swung my gaze back to him. “She’s not getting on a goddamn bus. The bastard paused our security cameras. He’ll find her wherever she goes.”
Linc leaned back in his chair. “I was unaware you were calling the shots now, Than,” he drawled with an edge of warning. “You’re not one to talk back. Never had that problem with you before. In fact, you’re acting so fucking Bane-like at the moment that I don’t recognize you. Problem with that is, you’re not taking my position one day, but he is.” He paused as his eyes cut back to Montana, and he studied for her a moment. Then he continued, “Have you had sex with her?”
I shook my head. “No! That’s not what this is about. But you stuck me in that cabin with her, and I got to know her, and she’s not…” I paused, running a hand through my hair in frustration.
No matter what I said, he was going to read it wrong. I didn’t just think with my dick…well, okay, I did a large percentage of the time, but this was different. I shoved my hand into my pocket and pulled out the blue letter, then tossed it onto his desk.
“Read it. He knows who I am. I had time to think about that on the drive over here, and my guess is, he knows who we are. He stopped our fucking security cameras, Linc. No one is supposed to be able to do that. But this guy”—I pointed at the letter—“did.”
Linc picked up the letter, then looked at me.
“I’d say that makes him a family problem. Don’t you think?” I asked, praying to a god that I doubted knew who the hell I was that this worked.
Because if she left, I was going with her.
Linc lifted his gaze, but it was directed at Montana, not me. “Do you have any idea who this is?”
She shook her head.
“Not even a guess?”
“No,” she said with such a fucking defeated tone. “I’ve tried to think. I lie in bed at night, running through every encounter, people I know, but nothing makes sense.”
He looked back down at the blue note, then reached over and pressed a button on his phone. The ringing filled the room.
“Hello?” Levi, Linc’s son, answered the phone.
“Got what could potentially be an issue with the bast—” He paused and cleared his throat. “The governor situation.”
He’d almost called her a bastard, then referred to her as a situation. My eyes swung over to her, and the immediate reaction to defend her lit my temper. I had to calm that shit down. But, fuck, if he’d seen her trembling and unable to even move today with that letter in her hand, he would get it. That was hard to see. It would affect anyone…right?
“What’s up? I thought you had Than on it.”
Linc looked at me. “I do. But today, someone froze the security cameras at the distillery so they could break into Than’s truck and leave a note for the daughter.”
“Montana,” I said a touch too forcefully.
Linc’s eyebrows rose as he stared at me. I was going to get my ass beat if I didn’t stop talking to him like this. But, fuck, she was sitting right here. He shouldn’t talk about her like she wasn’t a person.
“Her name is Montana,” I repeated, calmer this time.
Linc ignored me, of course.
“Uh,” Levi said over the line, having heard my outburst, “they paused it inside the building? As in someone who works there? And what is the note about?”
“Not inside the building—outside—and it’s like other notes she’s been getting since her mother’s death. Left in places for her to find. Last one she got before coming here, she woke up at the house she was staying, and there was one on the table beside her. He had gotten into the house and watched her sleep. At least, he claimed to in the note,” I explained not sure how much detail she’d given Linc.
There was a pause.
“So, she’s got a stalker. One she brought with her, not that she acquired while here.”
“Yes, but in the note he left today, he calls Than by his full name. He knows him. He knew what kind of security the distillery had and how to pause it. You can see why I’m concerned. We didn’t know about her existence until a week ago. Yet…” Linc stopped talking.
“The only person who could know our security and how to freeze it would be someone attached to us. Closely.”
“And we need to find out who and shut it down. If they know who we are and they’ve been stalking her, then they know who she is. Who her father is. I don’t like knowing the security on my property could be compromised.”
Levi was typing on his computer as his father spoke. The familiar tapping of keys came over the line. “No shit,” he replied. “I’m sending a secure message to Wilder now. I don’t trust the phone lines. Don’t say anything else you don’t want heard and recorded on this call.”
Linc’s brows drew together. He didn’t like hearing that his secure line could possibly be tapped into.
“I’m bringing my girls to Ocala. Today,” he told Levi.
“I’ll have Aspen get the guest bedrooms ready.”
“No. I want them at the farm.”
The farm was the Hughes Farm. Even if this fucker could control our security, it would take an army to get him inside the gate at the Hughes Farm. The manpower that stood guard there was intense. They didn’t just rely on their security systems and cameras. But whoever it was didn’t want Linc’s girls. They wanted Montana.
“All right,” Levi replied, “I’ll go see Blaise now. Don’t call me with any new information. Blaise will call you for an update.”
From a burner phone or a line that Wilder set up for him, which would be untraceable.
“What do I tell him you’re doing with the girl?” Levi asked.
Linc looked at her, then at me. “Leaving her where she has been. With Than. But I’ll have the property guarded.”
“Are you telling the governor?”
“No. This is a family issue.”
“All right,” he agreed. “Blaise will get back with you shortly.”
Linc said his goodbye and ended the call.
When he locked his gaze on me, it was stern. “My first concern is getting my girls somewhere that security can’t be breached. You are to take care of her. Stay in the cabin. I’ll set up security detail between the others on the perimeter of the property and send Jayda home. Don’t call me. I’ll call you.”
I nodded while relief flooded me. I didn’t care that Linc was leaving to get his wife and daughter to safety. None of the other stuff mattered. Montana wasn’t being shipped off or handed over to a psycho. That was what I cared about.