Chapter 1 #2
Priscilla tried to insert the key into the lock of the door of the den, but it didn’t slide in smoothly. Something seemed to stop it. She pulled out the key, held it up to the dim light in the hallway and studied the metal teeth on the side of it. Had she grabbed the wrong key?
She’d been so tired lately that maybe she wasn’t thinking clearly. But she didn’t have enough keys to confuse them. This was the one for the home office; she knew it because she used it so often.
Or she once had.
She had to force herself to go into the office at all lately. But she had a promise to keep: a project to finish. And to finish it, she had to get into the den where all the notes and computers were.
She looked from the key to the lock on the big mahogany door.
The pewter was scratched. She leaned closer to it.
No. It was gouged. Deep grooves marred the metal and distorted the keyhole.
Someone had tried to jimmy it or, from the crudeness of the gouges, maybe they’d tried to chisel it.
She would probably need a whole new knob and lock.
Damn.
The insurance company CEO was right: she needed better security than Dr. Pell—Alexander had installed in the house.
He’d figured the gate and the wall around the estate would keep out intruders.
So he hadn’t had cameras installed. Not even a doorbell one.
Maybe it had been secure enough when he was alive, but it wasn’t safe now.
She wasn’t safe now.
Because for someone to try to jimmy the lock like this, they would have had to be inside the house. Had they gained entry through an exterior door, or had they already been inside—living with her?
Now that Alexander was gone, everybody in this house hated her. She knew that, and she probably would have walked away if not for those promises she’d made.
And for…
She pressed her hand over the slight swell of her abdomen.
She couldn’t feel the baby move yet. If not for the morning sickness and fatigue, she might not have believed that she was still pregnant.
She would have worried that she’d lost it just like she’d lost the other embryos over the course of her IVF treatments.
This was the last one. Her last chance to fulfill one of those promises, to bring to life this legacy of her late husband’s. Despite it being night now, she felt a morning sickness wave of nausea that she had agreed to all these promises.
But she would make sure this child was more than a reflection of his father. He was hers, too. Only hers now. Protectiveness gripped her, making her tighten her hand against her stomach. She would ensure that her son had a normal and happy childhood. If only she knew what one of those was…
Tears stung her eyes. Damn hormones. She’d been struggling with them. The fatigue. The brain fog. And something she hadn’t experienced before…erotic dreams. Very explicit fantasies, which were something she’d never had before.
She’d always been so busy with school and then with work for Dr. Pell—Alexander. She had trouble remembering to call her late husband by his first name because he hadn’t ever been a real husband to her. He’d been her mentor and her employer and her best friend and maybe even her salvation.
She’d had relationships before him, but she’d always given more in those than she’d received.
And even though she’d never had sex with her husband, she might have given him more of herself than she had anyone else.
So, for once, she wanted to take. She wanted to experience things she hadn’t experienced before.
Pleasure. Real sensual pleasure. Christmas was coming. Could she ask Santa for that as a present? She hadn’t believed in Santa even when she’d been a kid, though. She certainly didn’t believe in him now.
She sighed and leaned her forehead against the door to the den.
The hardwood was cool against her skin. She tried to clear her mind, to focus on what really mattered.
She had to finish the book Alexander had started, but all his notes were in the office.
And she had to finish the research, too.
They’d been so close to a breakthrough in the drug for Alzheimer’s.
She was certain she could figure out the correct formula. But not tonight. It was late.
So in the morning, she would call a locksmith to change out the lock.
She also had that meeting with the Payne Protection Agency in the morning.
Maybe they could install cameras and sensors inside the house to catch whoever was trying to get into the den.
She didn’t need to worry about anyone else getting in there tonight since she couldn’t unlock the door even with the key.
While the insurance CEO was worried about the art and the jewelry and the antiques, Priscilla knew that the real valuables were in that office, in those notes, and in the book and the research that she needed to finish for Dr. Pell—Alexander.
But what was the most valuable to Priscilla was the baby she was carrying.
She couldn’t lose him. And she was afraid that once the people in this house, the ones who all hated her, realized she was pregnant that neither she nor her unborn child would be safe.
They might be concerned that another heir, a biological one of Alexander’s, would reduce their share of the estate.
And they had reason to be concerned with the way that Dr. Pell had drawn up his will.
But she had a plan to protect herself and it didn’t involve the Payne Protection Agency that Mason Hull had convinced her to hire. Out of necessity Priscilla had learned long ago how to protect herself.
* * *
Blade had left a while ago, but Garek found himself staring at the open door to his office with a sudden longing to call him back. But it was too late; the bodyguard had probably already arrived at the Pell Mansion, as the place was known in River City, Michigan.
“We should have gone with him,” Garek said. “Assessed the place ourselves for the necessary improvements to the security system.”
Milek glanced up at him; he’d been staring at the screen of his cell phone. “Blade knows how to do his job. And he loves this part of it, testing the current system, finding the weaknesses. And he does it well. He’ll find out everything we need to know before we all meet with her in the morning.”
“I don’t know. I’m worried. You and Ivan thought you were just taking a quick look around at that art gallery a few weeks ago, and you nearly caught someone trying to break into the place.
If Blade stumbles across an intruder tonight, he’s unarmed.
He’s not even allowed to carry a gun yet,” Garek reminded him.
A convicted felon, even though he’d been released early from his sentence, wasn’t allowed to own or handle a firearm.
“Amber is working on it,” Milek said, referring to his wife, who was the River City district attorney. “She’s trying to get his conviction overturned.”
“She thinks that’s possible?” Garek asked. “He admitted to killing the man.”
“But it was an accident,” Milek said. “He didn’t mean to kill him. Just to stop him from hurting someone else.”
“It didn’t help that that someone else testified she wasn’t in any danger,” Garek said. Before hiring any of their bodyguards, he and Milek had discovered everything they could about them to make sure that they were indeed worthy of a second chance.
Blade definitely was.
Milek snorted. “Despite her bruises and crudely healed broken bones.” He sighed. “I feel for Blade. He stepped in to help someone and wound up spending years in prison for his act of heroism.”
Garek nodded. He’d done that himself, taking the blame for something he hadn’t done to protect his family: Milek and their sister, Stacy.
“Yeah, it sucks,” he agreed wholeheartedly.
“Fortunately it didn’t stop him from wanting to help anyone else.
” And putting his life on the line once again to do it.
Garek hoped he wasn’t doing that tonight.
“Yeah, people like that, who sacrifice everything for someone else, are the real heroes,” Milek said, and his pale eyes glistened a bit as he held Garek’s gaze.
“Blade’s a good guy. I know he likes to go into these tests blind, so he doesn’t know more about the current system than any other outsider would know.
But I feel like we probably should have warned him about the widow Pell. ”
“About the rumors?” Garek asked and shrugged. He hated gossip; his family had been the subject of it all too often over the years. “I’m not sure we should put that much credibility in them. It wasn’t as if any of them have been proven.”
“Yet,” Milek said. He sighed. “We have time to fill him in on everything tomorrow morning before the meeting. He’s going to be surprised that she’s not the old lady he thinks she is.”
“I’ve heard the rumors about her,” Garek said, “but I have no idea how old she is.” And he had been so damn busy with their other recent assignments and trying to keep his team alive that he hadn’t had much time to research her yet. “I haven’t met her personally. You have?”
Milek nodded. “Yeah, I guess it was close to a year ago. I met her and Dr. Pell at an alumni event, for a holiday party, for the university Amber attended. He’d once been her professor.”
“Amber’s?”
Milek nodded. “And Priscilla’s. I don’t even know if she was married to Dr. Pell when I met her last year, or if she was still just his research assistant. She’s a young and beautiful blonde.”
“Oh…” Now those rumors made a hell of a lot more sense to Garek about her being a gold digger and worse. Why else would a young woman have married a man so much older than herself except for his money and his power? And how had she made certain she inherited everything?
“Do you think that will be a problem for Blade?” Milek asked.
“No, but it probably explains what people have been saying about her,” Garek said, “and it might also explain why Mason Hull is so concerned about her. Maybe he has a thing for her.”
“She is beautiful,” Milek said.
Garek considered the CEO for a moment, then shook his head, rejecting the notion.
“No. I think the only thing that man cares about is money.” Hull certainly didn’t want to pay out any claim money on the policies he carried for his clients’ valuables.
Or so that was the way he made it seem, but Garek didn’t trust the guy.
Something was off about him.
And it wasn’t just Garek’s cynicism and suspicious nature making him think that anymore.
Every case they’d handled for the guy had been exceptionally dangerous.
And even though they’d identified the threat and dealt with the people responsible, Garek wasn’t convinced that Hull hadn’t at least known about the dangers ahead of time.
His gut tightened with concern again. “We shouldn’t have let Blade assess the system on his own.”
Milek tensed and stared across the desk at him, concern on his face now. “Now you’re making me nervous, too.”
Garek was the cynical one. Milek wasn’t. So now he scrunched up his forehead and studied his brother. “What are you worried about? Those rumors?”
Milek shrugged. “I don’t know what to believe. I only met the widow once.”
“Hull just claims that he’s concerned about the current security system not being good enough,” Garek said.
“There’s just the gate and the stone wall to keep people out, and inside there are no cameras or alarms. I don’t know if he’s worried more about the inside, about the people living there, or about someone accessing the house from the outside.
Whatever his concerns, it sounds like the place definitely needs a better system. ”
Milek nodded. “Sounds like it. Blade can figure out what it needs. And he agreed to move into the mansion, too. So he’ll make sure nobody steals the valuables and that nothing happens to the widow either.”
“Do you think she’s in danger, though?” Garek asked. “Or do you think that she is the danger?”
“Do I believe she killed her elderly husband for the money?” Milek asked. He shrugged. “I don’t know what to think.”
“There was no investigation into his death, as far as I could tell,” Garek said.
Despite how busy they’d been with their previous cases, he’d taken the time to make a few inquiries about the widow.
“Or as far as Detective Dubridge or Chief Lynch would admit.” Which didn’t mean there hadn’t been one or there wasn’t one currently ongoing. Dr. Pell hadn’t died that long ago.
“But even if she did, that wouldn’t mean that Blade would be in danger,” Milek said, as if he was trying to convince himself.
“Unless he figured it out,” Garek said. “And he’s smart. He catches on fast.”
“Is that why you’re worried about him?” Milek asked. “You think he’s in danger from the widow? Tonight?”
Garek shrugged now and sighed. “I don’t know what to think. I just have that feeling.”
Milek groaned. “Me, too.”
The infamous Penny Payne-Lynch sixth sense. The woman was the mother of the original founder of the Payne Protection Agency, Logan Payne, who was also Garek and Milek’s brother-in-law. And she had this almost supernatural ability to sense when someone was in danger.
Or so it seemed. But maybe her sixth sense was just common sense. Because being a bodyguard was a dangerous job, one in which the bodyguard put themselves between the subject they were protecting and the threat against them.
But in this case, who was the threat to Blade?
Some person trying to steal from the Pell estate or the person who had inherited it all: Priscilla Pell?
Copyright ? 2025 by Lisa Childs