A Harmless Little Ruse (Harmless #2)(43)

I stare at the texts. Deep breaths come out of me, involuntary, as tumblers in my mind sync, creating an orderly chain reaction.

I know what to do next.

I don’t like it, but I know what I have to do.

Then it hits me.

They’re sending that video everywhere.

Lindsay. They’ll text it to Lindsay next.

Probably already did.

“Drew!” Salma’s voice fills with a pleading horror as I stand, striding to the door with purpose. I can’t look at her. I am a shell now. Shells hold vulnerable creatures, protecting them from the dangers of the outside world.

I can’t be naked and soft. That’s for a different part of me, one that can’t come out and play right now.

A game, right? We’re playing a most dangerous game.

Which means the man who walked into this room cannot be the one who walks out of it.

“I’m fine. Bill me, Salma.”

Her face turns red with anger. I watch, wholly detached. Like the good soldier that I am, trained in psychological as well as physical warfare, I can separate feelings from flesh. I’ve done it before, so many times that being connected is the exception and not the rule.

It occurs to me that Lindsay does the same.

I can’t think about that right now.

“This has nothing to do with money. I’m concerned about dis-regulation in you. You need to stay.”

I pause, my hand on the doorknob. There’s no turning back now. None. What Paulson is unleashing is the equivalent of starting a nuclear launch sequence. Lindsay isn’t the only person with a revenge plan. Mine has been in the making for four years.

A love plan for Lindsay.

A revenge plan for those pieces of shit.

I didn’t think both would be initiated at the same time.

But there’s only so much I can control in the world, right?

“Salma, what I need to do is find out how to stop the people who are hellbent on destroying my life. I came here to try to sort through everything with Lindsay, but the texts and call I just received show that she’s in even more danger than I ever thought. So am I.”

“What was that about?”

“I’m being set up. Blaine, Stellan and John are trying to make it look like I’m the one threatening Lindsay.”

And a video of what they did to me just appeared.

Her hand moves to her mouth, a gesture of shock, but she’s too smooth. Too professional. Salma catches herself, then slowly lowers her hand, bracelets jangling at the wrist. “I see. The newspaper article?”

“And some texts Lindsay received. They’ve been traced to one of my phones. It’s all being done to make me look like I’m unhinged. Like I’m the one who’s trying to hurt her. Turn me into a stalker, make Harry look bad for hiring his own daughter’s crazy ex...you can put the pieces together. And if they get their way, Lindsay will be left in an unprotected state and her current team will hand her off to the -- ” I crack my sentence in half. “No. That can’t happen. I have to go and stop them.”

That’s as emotional and revealing as I can afford to be.

A tingling starts in my knees. It is not unpleasant. Full-body flushes are like a horn on the battlefield in ancient times.

A call to arms.

In a way, I am relieved. Excited, even. While I’m a tactician and a strategist, four years has been too long. Too much planning, not enough action. Too much rumination, not enough motion.

Too much pain.

Not enough pleasure.

An image of Lindsay crashes through me, as if she’s entered my bloodstream and strokes me from the inside out. What will she think of me when she finds out? When she views that --

All I want to do is find her. Steal her away. Take her someplace where none of this can touch her.

All I want is peace.

Too bad I have to go through hell to get it.

I leave.

Salma doesn’t try to stop me.





Chapter 15





“Silas!” My voice sounds like shrapnel ripping through flesh. I’m on my emergency phone and he’s answering before I realize I’ve shifted to his first name, the soles of my feet digging into the floorboards of my SUV, the unrelenting sun turning the cab of my car into a sauna of retribution and recrimination. The air tastes like regret. “I need your help. Now.”

“What do you need, Drew?”

So much for “sir.”

“Block texts going to Lindsay’s phone. Effective five minutes ago.”

“I can block all future texts, but -- ”

“Scrub them. Now.”

“She has her phone on her, sir – Drew. Too late.”

Fuck.

“Where is she?”

Silence.

Silence.

Silence.

“SILAS!”

“She’s...er, well, she’s asking for you.”

Careful what you wish for.

You just might get it.

“Me?” I gasp.

“Yes. We’re under strict orders not to have her see you, be seen with you, come within a thousand yards of you, even -- ”

“I get the point,” I grind out.

“But you know Ms. Bosworth.”

My grimace turns to a tight grin.