Chapter 27
Brady
My driver was about fifteen minutes early, so when I got to the plane, none of the crew was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs. My unexpected arrival was even more apparent when I climbed the steps and walked into the cabin, looking toward the back, where Lily was bent over, taking bottles out of a box and arranging them in a cabinet. She hadn’t bothered to bend her knees and crouch down. She was doing this all from a standing position, her ass high in the air, like I was behind her, pounding her in doggy style.
Fuck me, it was one hell of a view.
A view I’d seen a few hours ago, when she walked naked from my bed to the bathroom to shower and get ready for this flight—a quick one-day round trip that she didn’t know I would be on or that I’d paid for.
I nodded at Diesel, sitting on the couch on the right side of the plane, and quietly made my way toward the galley. I didn’t want to put my hands on her from behind and scare the shit out of her. Not when David was looming in these woods, which I was sure made her on edge.
So, I gave her a warning and said, “Now, that’s one hell of an ass,” and I halted in the doorway of the galley.
She froze, face pointed toward the ground, as though she was processing the statement and the voice that had spoken it, before she lifted and turned toward me. “Thank God it’s you.”
“Hi, baby.” I wrapped my hands around her waist and pulled her closer.
The smile didn’t take long to grow across her mouth. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m your passenger.”
She gazed up at me with eyes so wide. “We’re taking you to Dallas?”
“You shouldn’t be shocked that I’d pay the Daltons to use their jet just so I could have you as my flight attendant.”
She set her arms on my shoulders. “But I am. That’s always the case when it comes to your decisions and the way they make me feel. Especially because you were with me last night and early this morning, and since this is only a day trip, you’ll probably be with me tonight too.” I went to reply, and she continued, “You’re not sick of me yet?”
“Not even a little.”
She nipped her lip. “I thought I was the only one who couldn’t get enough. I’m glad I’m not alone.”
I kissed her, making it last long enough that I not only took her breath away, but also reminded her that her lips were mine. “I’ll let you finish up here. I’ve got some work to do.”
“Do you want anything? A drink? Food?”
“Just some coffee, but don’t rush. I’ve already had one. I don’t need a second one anytime soon. Do your thing and come join me when you’re done.”
“Can I tell you a secret?”
I nodded.
She traced her hands down my chest, moving slowly before they fell to her sides. “Knowing you’re the kind of man who would book a jet just to have me as your flight attendant makes me want you even more. And more is a word that, well, I didn’t think was possible.”
“I’ll remember that tonight.” I rubbed my thumb over her cheek, giving her a smirk, and I joined Diesel in the main cabin. “How are you doing, buddy?”
“All’s good, my man.”
Since our Vegas hotel was a casino, our IT department had developed software that scanned the faces of everyone who entered our gaming area, ensuring guests weren’t wearing disguises to try to hide their identities. When a player was banned from our casino for reasons like cheating, card counting, or acting inappropriately, they were not allowed back. That didn’t stop them from wearing fake facial hair, wigs, glasses, or hats in an attempt to throw us off.
When I’d spoken to the head of security of that hotel, I’d told him to use that software to comb through the video footage from Beverly Hills to check if David was the one to enter the hotel or if, at any point, he’d tried to hide who he was.
Knowledge, especially when it came to this motherfucker, was power.
The head of security had worked all night on this project. He raked through all the video feed—not just for the last forty-eight hours, but since the day Lily had moved in.
He’d emailed me his findings this morning while I was on my way to the airport.
Findings I didn’t fucking like.
“We have a bigger problem on our hands than I originally thought,” I told Diesel, keeping my voice low.
He didn’t have a phone, a tablet, or even a newspaper in his hands—when this plane was grounded, his eyes were on the interior and exterior of the jet to protect Lily. So, when I spoke, it took less than a second before he looked at me.
“Tell me the details.” He crossed his massive tree-trunk legs.
“As you know, Lily got a package of photographs delivered to the hotel.”
Diesel hadn’t just been told about the photos; he’d been sent copies since, in each of the locations they’d been taken, Diesel had been with Lily.
“I just found out that David was the one who delivered the package to the front desk.”
“I was sure it was a gofer.”
I turned on the couch to face him, moving my laptop bag off my shoulder and onto the seat beside me. “I was too.” I glanced at the galley, hearing Lily working back there, but not seeing her. “Lily didn’t agree; she knew it was him, but, fuck, I couldn’t imagine this asshole coming all the way to the West Coast to hand-deliver some photos. Which then got me thinking. Was he the one taking them, or was he having someone else do the work?”
“Don’t even fucking tell me,” Diesel groaned. “It’s been him all along, hasn’t it?”
His voice was even large, carrying across the entire cabin, loud enough that Lily poked her head in and said, “Is everything all right?” She glanced from me to Diesel and then back to me. “You’re talking about David, aren’t you?” Instead of waiting for a response, she came closer and sat on the other side of my laptop. “What happened?”
I didn’t want to hide anything from her.
At the same time, I didn’t want to make her more anxious about the situation than she already was.
I kept my posture relaxed and my voice even-toned as I said, “It’s been confirmed that it was David who delivered the package to the hotel. He attempted to go incognito, wearing a hat and a mustache, he doesn’t have facial hair in any of the pictures we have of him, so we know he was trying to fool us.”
“You have pictures of him?” Lily asked.
I hadn’t asked her to provide any. I didn’t want her to dig into a past she was desperate to forget. With the help of my assistant and the head of security, scouring online, we’d had enough documentation to make a comparison.
For someone who worked in an illegal, underground business, the asshole wasn’t too careful about what he posted. There were far too many photographs of him on various social media sites.
That was his first mistake.
But what that told me was, there would be other mistakes. David wasn’t careful. Which just meant I needed to find more of his mistakes to hit him where it hurt.
“My team has photos, yes,” I told her. “What my head of security found was that he’s been to the hotel multiple times. So far, he’s only stayed in the lobby, but he’s parked his ass there for hours on end, obviously waiting for you to come and go, so he can photograph you.”
Her back straightened, and she wrapped her arms around herself, like a draft had blown in. “And to get close to me.”
A thought that made my goddamn hands clench.
“Seems that way,” I replied.
“So, we know it’s him in LA.” Diesel’s leg dropped from the way it was crossed, and now that both of his feet were on the carpet, he leaned his arms on his thighs. “We know he’s come to the hotel more than once. We know he’s hiding his face, thinking he’s outsmarting us.” He paused. “What about the different locations? Was that him too? Or a PI?”
I moved the laptop bag and slid beside Lily, putting my arm around her. I fucking hated that she had to hear this. And I fucking hated that she’d been manipulated by this scumbag. “I think he’s tracking this plane, following the flight paths. Maybe he’s flying private, maybe commercial, but he has the means to get on a plane either way once he finds out where she’s going.” I let that statement settle. “What I don’t like is that aside from taking pictures of her, he’s not doing anything else. He’s not threatening her or texting or calling.”
“He’s also not trying to get into her room at your hotel,” Diesel said.
I shook my head. “He’s never been on any of the elevators or entered the stairwells.” I held her tighter, emphasizing those points.
“And in any of the locations he’s followed us to, he’s never attempted to get into her room or stop her on the street or approach her in any way,” Diesel said. “He’s just sitting quiet.”
The way he looked at me told me he was thinking the same thing.
David was sitting quietly for now, but the pictures he’d delivered were a message.
Things were building.
And a build only led to one thing.
An explosion.
“That’s not like him,” Lily admitted. “He’s not the quiet kind of guy. He’s a talker—from the moment he wakes up to when he falls asleep. Words are his weapon, and he uses them nonstop.” She gradually turned toward me. “Before getting my new phone, he was reaching out multiple times a day, throwing around all these accusations about you and about us.”
“But I’ve stopped him from being able to reach you. I won that battle. He knows that. He fucking hates that. He also hates that we’re together.”
“Why the sudden change though?” she asked. “How do you go from screaming to silent when that’s so out of character for him?”
Because the motherfucker was past mad. He was well beyond angry.
Screaming was no longer enough.
Things had progressed to a whole new, far deeper level.
That was the way I read the situation, and a fast glance at Diesel told me we were on the same page.
“I think he’s shifting his focus,” I told her. “I beat him once with the new phone. I beat him again by hiring Diesel. Now, he’s scheming for a way to beat me.”
She scanned my eyes. “What do I need to be doing differently?”
I lifted my hand to her neck, massaging the back of it. “You’re doing everything just right.”
“Brady …” Her shoulders rounded, her back hunched. She was caving inward, collapsing into her own body. “Why does it feel like something very wrong is about to happen?”