28. McCarthy
MCCARTHY
I grab my gun from the shelf and strap the holster around my shoulders, still feeling the phantom of Jenna in my arms.
Other billionaires use bodyguards, let themselves be carted around the world like Truman in his little pink bag.
Not me.
Why should any government trust my defense company if I can’t defend myself?
But Jenna? She is a sitting target.
The picture from her phone is disturbing. It’s a Photoshopped picture of her from the fake funeral, mid-scream, with someone in a mask behind her, Photoshopped like he was engaging in some sex act as she bent over a coffin.
“The death of your pussy,” reads the caption .
Jenna doesn’t need to see that, and I don’t need to indulge her independent-woman shtick any longer either.
Crawford shows up twenty minutes after I call.
“Don’t think you’re getting a friends-and-family discount,” my older half brother warns, stopping to pet a yawning Truman. “Salinger didn’t say you got a dog. That’s a big step for you.”
“He’s part of your protection detail.” I’m brusque.
“Interesting.” Crawford accepts my list of suspects.
“I need your men to watch out for these bullet sponges. There are probably more. I’ll update you as I find out. You can talk to Anton downstairs for a list of approved residents and visitors.”
Crawford salutes.
“Wait.” I sit at my computer and, after a moment of searching, print out the photos of Jenna’s ex-stepfather and stepbrother from dinner and add them to the list out of spite. “Them too.”
“This girl a drug dealer or something? How does one little girl have a laundry list of people after her?”
“She attracts them like flies.”
“Uh-huh. I don’t see a permanent address in here.” He flips through the paperwork.
“She is currently living in a car in my garage.”
Crawford’s silent a moment. Then: “Bro…”
“Post your men up at all the exits to the parking garage level,” I order.
Crawford makes a disgusted noise. “Can’t you just bring the girl up here? That’s easier for us.”
“No.”
“If we weren’t trying to train the newbies,” Crawford warns, “I’d fire your ass. ”
“She’ll be safe but uncomfortable.”
I might, if I had enough scotch, be able to admit that I’m part of the reason Jenna seems like such a scared rabbit about coming upstairs to my penthouse. I should have been more delicate about reeling her in.
I’ll fall in love with you…
I want to see it happen. Something about that kind of power over her—it’s all-consuming. I want her to fall in love with me.
That desperate kind of love that she thought she had for Nathan and the rest of the fiancé mongrels.
She’ll love me more.
Not that I’m going to fall in love with her. I’d never do that. Nor do I want to put a ring on her finger, let alone marry her or anything. I just want that power over her, to know I’m her everything.
“Do you think I’m evil?” I ask Crawford abruptly.
He looks up from where he’s making notes on the folder. “Absolutely. You and Salinger. I never trust any of you.”
After my brother leaves, I feed the photo into various databases I have access to, to see what I can get from the information.
While it runs, I print out the photos of Jenna’s incest-dates and pin them on the whiteboard.
Stepping back, I stare at the collection of headshots.
If it was just one man, I’d make him disappear, and we’d be done.
But it could be any of them, or a man not even up there.
“I am going to find who sent her that text message.”
Then it hits me.
I groan, running my hand through my hair .
Jenna’s mother had a parade of men coming through her and her daughter’s lives. I need to dig up all her stepfathers.
I sit at my desk and start sifting through social media and the sporadic blog posts her mother has made, keeping a running spreadsheet.
One of these men is going to burn for this.
I’m not letting anyone take what’s mine, take something I love.
I’m not a child, not anymore.