Head On (Strength And Love)(40)
I should have known it would never work. She didn’t trust me. Couldn’t let go of what I did in the past for a living, and now she’s put herself in danger.
I should leave her to face whatever is coming her way. I should walk away from this right now. But as livid as I am, as angry and betrayed as I feel, I can’t. They are going to hurt her, to show her father what they can do, and then they’re going to demand the business from him.
Shit! I punch the wall and pain blooms across my knuckles. The one thing I can’t figure out in all of this is, why pick me? Why didn’t they pay someone to attack her, or harm her? There are enough thugs in their world to do such a job. I’ve got Luka digging closer into both men to see what the fuck is going on. And I’ve got Liam’s team behind me too, my team as of next month.
I grab my keys again, checking briefly that the girls have enough water, and them I’m jogging back out to my car. The tyres spin on the gravel as I shoot out of the drive, and speed far too fast along country lanes heading for Isla’s house. She’s in so much fucking danger, and despite my anger, and the realisation this can’t work, my gut is still churning. If they harm one hair on her head they are dead men.
As I’m getting to about five minutes away from her house, my phone rings, and I punch the on button on the hands-free set.
“Hey, Wolf.” Luka uses my nickname from our forces days. One day someone commented I wasn’t wily like a fox as Luka could be, or strategic like Liam, but more straight up aggressive, like a wolf. The name stuck.
“Not got time now.”
“Yeah, well make it. You need to hear this. Liam’s guys have turned something up on Rick Smythe.”
Suddenly I’m all ears. “Yeah?”
“You were right, him hiring you makes no sense when he could have hired some goon to rough her up or assault her. But it was a double takedown. Her for business, to give him leverage over her father, and you for personal reasons.”
“What the fuck?” My mind whirls. I already considered Smythe myself. He’s got no links to me at all. Of course, I had wondered if this might be to do with my job, but the only woman in Smythe’s life is his eighty-year-old grandmother, and I’d remember if I’d serviced her!
“Smythe has never wanted to get married. According to his secretary, who I wined and dined and sixty-nined last night, so you fucking owe me for making me break my vow. According to her, he’s a real dick. She was happy to spill the beans on him, once I assured her no harm would come to her. She loathes him. He’s a pig. Always touching her up in the office. Loses his rag and screams and shouts at the staff, but anyone who has ever left, he’s given them a terrible reference and they’ve lost the new job. He’s a real psycho according to her. Can’t even stand to let a member of his staff move onto another job.”
“This is all very interesting, but does it have a point?”
Luka sighs. “Impatient. Yeah, it has a point. Imagine if he gets that bent out of shape over an office boy leaving what he’d do to someone who took a woman from him?”
He pauses to let his words sink in. I frown, and indicate to turn onto the main road into the modern housing development Isla lives on. Not one of the houses on this estate is worth less than half a million, and her father’s joint is worth around two million. There’s serious money at play here. My own place is worth a fair whack and I prefer it by a mile to these soulless, flashy homes.
I go back to what Luka says. I don’t know any woman who was involved with Rick Smythe. My clients are either married, or long-term single. Nothing in between.
“You know your friend Selina?” His voice rings out in the car.
Oh, shit. I should have known she’d be trouble one day. “Yeah?” My tone sounds as cautious as I feel about where this is heading.
“She’s been unfaithful to her boring old hubby for years. You’re not the first person she’s messed around with. She stays with him, though, God knows why. She earns more than him, and could afford to move out if she wanted to. But she stays. Closest we can seem to find out from asking around, is that she genuinely loves him as a friend, and so they have a kind of open relationship where she messes around behind his back discreetly and the hubby turns a blind eye. Now, Selina uses you, as we know, but before she found you, she went through a series of flings. The last of which became a feature of town gossip and nearly cost her marriage. The husband doesn’t mind her fucking someone else, but he doesn’t want the town knowing it. She ended it and moved onto you.”
I know what he’s going to say. “Don’t tell me, the affair was with Rick Smythe?”
“Yup. According to his secretary, he loved being with Selina. She’s hot, and he’s not. He’s also apparently a bit of a filthy-minded little runt and shares Selina’s kink. And Selina is a top research scientist. Rick loved that about her. He got a little too happy to flap his gums, hence why she ended it. But, she went straight on to you, and our guess is Rick couldn’t have that. He decided to get you back somehow. And this was his perfect opportunity. Two birds with one stone. He puts you in the frame for assault, or worse, and Isla is terrorised, and he doesn’t have to get his hands dirty doing it himself, or directly hiring someone to do it.”
He sighs. “So far as we can guess, the plan was for you to do your thing. Even if you didn’t go the whole way, Isla would be scared to death. She’d call daddy dearest. Uncle Dave would swoop in like some sort of hero, and then turn the screws even more. Isla’s father would be out of the country, terrified for his daughter and willing to do anything.”