Mr. CEO(120)

I take the chip, and look at it. “You know that if you give this to me, you’re putting yourself in my hands?”

“I should have done that as soon as I found your loft address,” Nathan says quietly. “I should have done it again after Jackson came to me and asked me not to turn you into Peter, and then again when he asked for my allegiance in covering this trip. So don't worry about that part.”

I nod, then take out my phone, putting the chip inside. I copy the files, and then upload them to my cloud server, making sure there are copies in multiple locations. Darcy knows about the cloud. She can get the files if something happens to me. “Okay. So what now?”

“Now we take him down,” Andrea says with intensity. “The only issues are timeline and method. What about Jackson?”

“He's... not on board,” I say softly, trying not to let my mood falter. I'm in work mode, and I can't be worried about Jackson right this moment. “He... he's still got some things to let go of.”

Nathan nods in understanding, then sips his tea. “Then I have an idea... one that protects him, protects you, and brings the authorities in relatively quickly.”

“I'm listening.”





Chapter 24





Jackson





I'm frantic with not knowing what to do. I've tried calling Katrina for the past two days, and I'm paralyzed with worry.

At first, when Katrina walked out, I thought she was just pissed off. I mean, I've pissed off women before, but I figured she'd come back after cooling off. It wasn't until after I got dressed that I realized her bag was gone too, and by then, it was too late. I searched the area around the hotel, but she wasn't there.

I tried text messages, calls, everything as I took the rental car around the hotel's neighborhood, hoping that maybe she stayed close. Two hours of driving later, and I tried other places as well. But nothing, which shouldn't really surprise me. Miami's a big city, and I'm looking for one woman.

Nathan calls me back, and I'm glad for his help. He came down from Savannah as soon as he could, arriving just after midnight that day, meeting me for breakfast the next morning. He searched in his Tahoe all day yesterday, and now I'm desperate.

“Nathan... what have I done?” I ask as he mechanically shovels hash browns into his mouth. We're at a diner, and I realize with a start that I haven't eaten since lunch yesterday, and I call the waitress over for a pancake breakfast. Fuck the carbs, I need food. “What have I done?”

“Sounds like you pissed her off,” Nathan says quietly, sipping his orange juice. “She may have ghosted on you.”

“No, I can't accept that. Not after... well, after what happened between us,” I say. He doesn’t need to know all of that. “I have to find her.”

“Maybe she went back to New Orleans,” Nathan offers. “I mean, she could have jumped on a flight back home just as easily as hanging out here.”

I shake my head, sighing in frustration. “No way, Nathan. I don't know how I can say that, just... it's a feeling. She's here in Miami, I know it. After the incident with her father, there's just no way she'd just leave town without at least something pulling her back. Being pissed at me isn't enough.”

The waitress brings me my short stack, and I cover the whole thing in syrup. The first bite is sweet, but bitter, because I should be having this meal with Katrina and not Nathan. Nathan watches me for a minute, then speaks again. “Jackson... are you letting your emotions get the better of you?”

I half-slam my fork down and look him in the eyes. “You're goddamned right my emotions are involved in this, but f*ck you if you think that it's a bad thing. My entire life, I've kept my emotions, my real emotions, behind a wall. Now that I’ve let someone past them, no way am I giving up on that person.”

Nathan takes another bite of hash browns and sets his own fork down. “Okay. I ask because I need to know how far you're going to take this. We stay here in Miami much longer, and your father is going to start asking what the hell's taking us so long.”

“Let him ask,” I grumble, taking another bite of pancake. “I don't care if I blow him totally out of the water on this. For f*ck's sake, don't you see how wrong I was?”

“Not really. You haven't said much other than that you two had an argument, and that we're supposed to look for her. Hell, I don't even know much about what happened here in the city. Just obviously you found Samuel Grammercy.”

“Michael Ball now,” I correct him, then shake my head. “I guess it doesn't matter what the argument was about. What matters is what I've learned over the past two days.”

“And what's that?” Nathan asks curiously. “That you want to run away with her, make lots of little DeLaCoeur babies, and soak up some sun rays in a tropical paradise?”

I have to chuckle at his light jab, and shake my head. “No, although the tropical paradise part sounds pretty good. But I do know one thing... there are things more important than money.”

Nathan nods in acceptance, and we finish our breakfasts. “Okay, so what's the plan for today?”

“I'm going to go back down toward the University area,” I tell him, thinking quickly. “It's where her parents are living, and maybe she's going to try and do something. What about you?”