Chapter 2 Bomb #3
“Careful, little brother,” I warned. “Now is not the time to piss me off any more than I already am.”
“Well, how the fuck is this possible, huh? Someone has to be helping him. There’s no way he’s been doing this alone.”
This was true. There was no way he could be acting alone. Unless he somehow won the lottery in Europe or was a trust fund baby this whole time, someone had to be funding his vendetta against me.
“He wasn’t alone. It seems he has quite a few new friends now,” I answered.
“Yeah? Well, what if those friends happen to be someone on the inside? How the hell else would he know exactly where to strike?”
A rat on the inside was always possible. No matter what, money could easily find a way to suppress someone’s fear of my consequences for disloyalty. Money could act like a damn traumatic brain injury when presented with enough to sway you into doing something incredibly stupid.
“A rat is possible. I’ll have Scott look into it.”
Daniel scoffed, chuckling maniacally to himself. “Why bother having Scott look into it when you could just ask her yourself?”
I furrowed my brow in confusion. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about your wife, jackass. How the hell do you know she hasn’t been conspiring with this asshole this whole time?”
I shook my head and rolled my eyes, working to calm the rage building in my chest. Because that was ridiculous and impossible.
“And how the hell could she possibly do that? She’s under constant surveillance.”
“I don’t know, Darren, why don’t you go ask her?” he snarled. “You can get the truth out of anyone. Your wife is no exception.”
I took a deep breath to calm my growing rage, lowering my voice to be absolutely clear.
“Listen to me carefully, Daniel, and listen good,” I began, my voice fierce with warning.
“Under no circumstances is Jaden ever to be aware of any of this shit involving Jason. Do you understand me? I do not want her knowing what he’s done or that he is still fighting for her. ”
Daniel scoffed. “Why the fuck not?!”
“Because I fucking said so, you disrespectful little shit!” I roared into the phone.
“Do you hear me? If she finds out, not only will it renew her hope of escape, but the emotional shitstorm it will create while her hormones are all over the fucking place is a headache I don’t fucking need right now!
That fucker is probably even hoping I’ll tell her so she can start meddling too somehow. ”
A vicious growl left Daniel’s throat, rasping into the phone. “You’re wasting the opportunity to see what she knows about this guy. She could give you the insight to predict his next move.”
I rolled my eyes. “She can’t tell me anything I can’t already find out for myself.”
“How the fuck would you even know if you’re not going to ask her yourself!?”
The agitation in my voice could not have been more clear. “I said no, Daniel. This is not a fucking debate. My wife will remain ignorant of this,” I affirmed.
Daniel groaned as his footsteps from his obvious pacing echoed into the phone. “Well, what the fuck are we going to do about this, huh?” he scorned, the bitter tone in his voice making me wish I could strangle him through the phone. “We need to get all of this handled!”
I pinched the bridge of my nose, working to release the tension constantly growing behind my eyes. When did my brother become such a pain in the ass?
“I already have Marx looking into the breach, a team is currently on-site for evidence extraction and analysis, the manager of Digital Frontiers just had one hell of a fatal stroke, and I will take care of Jason myself. Things are being handled, but if you want to make yourself useful instead of disrupting my marriage or intentionally baiting my wife like some kind of childish dickhead and ruining what was supposed to be a celebratory dinner earlier, then you can start by finding Pat’s immediate replacement. Or is that too much for you right now?”
Daniel was silent for a moment, cursing under his breath and groaning into the phone before responding. “Fine,” he said, and hung up.
Shaking my head, I pocketed my phone and released a deep breath, returning my focus back to the mess below me.
The scene was nothing short of metaphoric, the destruction a symbol of what was to come if I didn’t get a handle on the situation. I had a damn child on the way, which meant I needed to ensure my kingdom was still standing for that child to eventually rule one day.
My phone buzzed again, making me want to toss it into what was left of the building below, but it was Scott. And he’d better have good news.
“What have you got?” I said into the line.
“Something I never thought in a million years was a possibility,” Scott answered, his tone warped with what sounded like disbelief. “Jason is working with Matt.”
I suddenly felt my back sit up a little straighter, sure I had misheard him. “What the fuck did you just say?”
Scott sighed like he didn’t want to repeat it. “The ballistic materials found in the rubble confirmed the maker. They’re Matt’s weapons.”
I sat there in silence, my brain wrapping around the idea that Matt and Jason had somehow teamed up against me. It was the most unlikely duo I could possibly think of, but in reality, it actually made perfect sense.
They both had an agenda, though I had no idea what benefit Jason could possibly offer Matt. Clearly, there was more to the man than I had originally anticipated if Matt was willing to use him.
The question was, how the fuck did they find each other? What connected them other than me and Jaden? Fuck, was it Kayla? Had they both found her?
My teams still had yet to locate her, so it wasn’t entirely impossible, though I couldn’t see Kayla willingly returning to Matt on her own. A deal had to have been made if what I was thinking was true.
“I want a full report on this guy. Where he grew up, his family, his fucking credit score, I want it all. And I want it ASAP,” I ordered.
I never gave a flying fuck who Jason was before, but after this, I needed to know what the fuck I was dealing with now.
“I’ll get someone on it now,” Scott said and hung up.
Starting my bike, I headed back to the estate and allowed the ride to clear my head, hoping the time could filter out some of the fury still swimming in my blood.
Because when I got home, I was going to spend the entire rest of the night fucking the woman Jason wished he owned until she couldn’t walk the next day.
Because she was fucking mine…and only mine. Forever.