Chapter 48 Fake Wife Meets Fake Girlfriend
“Me or the client?”
Vince Lawson sat on a leather sofa, cigar between his teeth.
“He’s got a high opinion of himself.”
“Those were his words,” Kyle said.
“How are Wade and the others?”
“Wade has a broken arm and a mild concussion. Everyone else has a broken arm or leg.”
Vince opened a drawer, took out a handgun, and laid it on the desk.
“Let him come.”
Kyle hesitated.
“We took this job for someone else. Is it worth making him our enemy?”
Vince glared.
“The Wallaces have sent us work for years. You want me to murder Andrew’s son? What happens to the business then?”
Kyle lowered his gaze.
“Call Iron Fist and the Ghoul,” Vince said. “Bring them back. We can’t shoot him in the street, but if he comes here, we’ll be ready.”
His eyes returned to the gun.
“This time, we finish it.”
Ryan collected the completed contract from the hospital that morning. Once he delivered it to the office, the other departments took over equipment delivery and servicing arrangements.
Tyler came in with a letter.
“Derek’s resignation. He asked me to bring it.”
“Can’t face me himself?” Ryan smiled. “Go through the handover. You can handle his accounts for now.”
Tyler brightened.
“Will do.”
The other employees were envious, but no one complained. Tyler had helped Ryan when the rest of them kept their distance. Now Ryan was returning the favor.
He spent most of the morning gaming in his office. Before noon, he wandered out to the elevators and checked his phone while he waited.
The doors opened. Seeing plenty of room out of the corner of his eye, he stepped inside.
Then he looked up.
Grace and Chloe stood a pace away, arms linked, staring at him.
Grace wore a blue skirt suit, immaculate and reserved. Chloe had paired a white off-the-shoulder blouse with black shorts and strappy heels. Same height, nearly identical faces, matching expressions of astonishment.
His wife and his girlfriend.
Neither relationship was real, but that didn’t make the moment any easier.
He recovered first. A polite smile, a nod, then he turned toward the doors and raised his phone again.
Behind him, both women composed themselves almost simultaneously.
Neither wanted the other to know how well she knew him.
The elevator was silent.
Ryan stared at his screen without reading.
Of course they knew each other. With that resemblance, they had to be related. Grace said she had no sister, and their surnames were different.
Cousins?
One absurd coincidence after another fell into place.
The call Chloe had taken in the car, from a contact named Grace. The woman beside her at the hospital, whose face Ryan hadn’t seen. The blue suit at the gate.
All the same woman.
Grace had thought he was asking about a sister and refused to hear the explanation. Chloe had evidently never given her the name of the fake boyfriend treating Walter.
And Grace had told Chloe nothing about her marriage.
Somehow, of the three of them, Ryan was the only one who could see the whole disaster.