What Are You Afraid Of? (The Agency #2)(90)

Griff narrowed his gaze. Did the man think he was being funny? If so, Griff wasn’t amused.

“Don’t screw with me,” he snapped.

“Christ.” Matthew heaved a harsh sigh. “Since I was going to be stuck in California for a few days I thought I would stop by and see if you were in town.”

“Why?”

A flush stained Matthew’s face. “I hoped we could hang out together.”

Griff was genuinely baffled. “Hang out?”

“You know, a few red carpet events. Maybe a pool party with some half-naked babes.” Matthew grimaced, his gaze darting over Griff ’s shoulder to the nearby door. “Clearly, I caught you at a bad time. So if you’ll just remove your fingers from my throat I’ll be on my way.”

Griff muttered a curse. Was he an idiot? Griff would rather gouge out his eyes than waste one second of his life “hanging out” with this shallow jerk. Or was this all some elaborate trap.

Only one way to find out.

“Carmen is missing,” he abruptly said.

Matthew blinked. He looked genuinely baffled. “Missing? Missing from where?”

Griff ignored the question. “I want you to take me to the warehouse.”

“Look, man. I just—”

Griff tightened his grip until Matthew’s eyes threatened to pop out of his head.

“Now.”

“Yeah.” Matthew made a gagging sound. “Great idea.”





Chapter Twenty-Two


Carmen knew that she’d blacked out from Ronnie’s vicious slap. What she didn’t know was how long she’d been out. Certainly long enough for Ronnie to have moved so he was crouching next to her.

There was a strange expression on his scarred face as he watched her. Like a snake who’d just bit a mouse and was watching in pleasure as the venom spread through her body.

It was creepy enough that she pressed her hands to the cement floor and pushed herself to a seated position. Jagged pain shot from her jaw to the back of her head, wrenching a low groan out of her.

Crap. Her head was spinning like she’d been on a three-day drinking spree and her mouth was throbbing.

Reaching up, she cautiously touched her lower lip. It was swollen twice its normal size and so tender she wondered if she needed stitches. With a grimace, she pulled her hand away to study the blood that stained the tips of her fingers.

Ronnie abruptly broke the thick silence. “You shouldn’t anger me.”

“I didn’t mean to,” she breathed, resisting the urge to try to find a way to placate her captor.

He was clearly unstable. Which meant there was no way to guess what might or might not trigger a burst of violence. Right now, all she could do was try to stay alive long enough to hope that help was on its way.

The pale eyes held a hectic light as he glared at her. “Why won’t you accept the truth?” he demanded. “I showed you the letters.”

She scooted back, using the need to rest her aching head against the wall as an excuse to put some space between her and Ronnie. It might be her imagination, but it felt like an evil aura was pulsing around the man.

She didn’t want to be tainted.

“The handwriting doesn’t look right,” she told him.

Ronnie abruptly straightened, his hands curling into tight fists of frustration.

“You sound just like our father.”

“What do you mean?”

“I waited for years to earn the right to be claimed as a Jacobs.” He paced across the bay, nearly reaching the forklift before he turned to pace back toward her. “I was the perfect son. Always helping my mother around the house and offering to run errands. I would even follow him when he went on his evening walk. I thought if we could be alone together, he would feel more comfortable confessing where we couldn’t be overheard by your mother.” He released a sharp, humorless laugh. “He pretended as if he didn’t even see me.”

Carmen shivered. She’d always thought that Ronnie was sneaky, but she hadn’t realized he’d been stalking her father.

She pointed out the obvious. “Maybe he didn’t tell you because he didn’t believe you were his son.”

In three long strides he was back at her side, his hand raised in warning.

“Don’t say that.”

She cringed, turning her head to the side. “Sorry.”

Long seconds passed as he tried to regain command of his volatile temper. He sucked in a deep breath, his expression defiant.

“Do you think I didn’t try to convince myself that he ignored me because my mother had never told him that I was his son?” he demanded. “But then I saw the letters.”

Her gaze shifted toward the letters, which were scattered a few feet away. In the gloom they looked like bits of discarded trash. A tangible reminder of broken dreams.

“They didn’t say anything about a child,” she said in confusion.

He clicked his tongue. As if she was being incredibly stupid.

“No, but they proved that my mother hadn’t been just a quickie in the pantry,” he insisted, a fleck of spit collecting at the corner of his mouth. “They had a relationship. He loved her.”

She once again glanced toward the scattered letters. Did she tell him that they were exact copies of letters that had been sent to her mother?