When He's Bad (Walker Security Adrian’s Trilogy #2) - Lisa Renee Jones Page 0,60

father never said his name, but he made it clear he didn’t even know Waters was a client. The other man made it clear that the firm had laundered money for Waters for years now. Your father’s implicated.” She slides a tape recorder over to me. “Listen to it and drop the case, Pri.”

Blood rushes in my ears. “I think you need to leave the country.”

“I don’t need to leave the country if you drop the case.”

“And then what? Waters continues to control us if we don’t stop him?”

“Maybe not,” she says. “Maybe he’ll move on.”

“Move on? No, Mother. You’re not being realistic. It’s just a matter of time before he threatens us again.”

“I told you,” she snaps. “The man on the recording told your father that if you drop out of the case, Waters will free your father.”

“Until he’s not free,” I say. “I’m going to get you on a plane out of the country in the morning. Pack a bag. I’ll be by to pick you up.”

“Dad—”

“Do not call him and tell him, Mom. The wrong people will find out. I’ll tell him when he returns and try to get him to come and meet you. Okay?”

“I can’t leave you and him here. I can’t. What if something happens to you? If you two go, I’ll go.”

“Damn it, mom.”

“Drop the case, Pri.” She motions to the waitress. “We need to-go boxes, please.”

“I’m leaving in the morning. I’ll take you with me but you cannot tell Dad.”

“No. I need to talk to your father. I’ll meet him at the airport and talk to him.”

“What time does he get in?”

“Four o’clock. Meet me here again tomorrow night. I’ll try and get him to come.”

“Okay,” I say, though the agreement doesn’t sit right in my belly. And I suspect it won’t in Adrian’s either. “I’ll be here tomorrow night.”

Chapter Thirty-Eight

ADRIAN

Blake and I are sitting in the back of a van, listening to Pri and her mother’s conversation at the restaurant when the bombshell of her father’s blackmail is delivered.

“Fuck.”

It’s the only appropriate word for what just happened, proven by the fact that I don’t say it. Blake does.

Then comes her mother’s insistence that Pri meet her for dinner tomorrow night when we’re supposed to leave town in the morning. Followed by, of course, Pri’s subsequent agreement.

“Fuck.”

This time I’m the one cursing.

My foot starts to thrum on the floor of the van while I wait for the moment Pri and her mother decide to get their food to-go. Her mother leaves first and Pri lingers behind, ordering extra food that I know is for me. The very idea that she thought of me shouldn’t surprise me, but then, it does and somehow makes this entire situation all the more combustible. I’m in this with her now. I don’t want it to be any other way, but there is no denying just how dangerous this has become.

Eager to get to her, I reach for the door and Blake captures my arm. “No. You need to meet her at the house. Too many people are looking for you.”

“Fuck,” I mutter again because he’s right and I can’t protect her behind bars or dead.

I shift back onto the bench where I’d been sitting and stare at the damn ceiling without really seeing it, battling the rush of adrenaline spiking through me. “I know you just want to get her to safety,” Blake says. “But you know you’re going to have to kidnap her to get her to leave before that meeting tomorrow night. And that’s not an answer.”

My gaze collides with his and I snap, “Neither is her ending up dead, Blake, and I know you know that. Don’t tell me if it was your wife, you wouldn’t feel the same way.”

“All right, then,” he says. “What are you going to do?”

“Everything I can to keep her alive.”

I don’t say anything else. I don’t have to. He knows anything means anything, and he knows he’d be in the same headspace if he were me.

***

The minute Pri is safely in the vehicle with Mason, she calls me. “I know you don’t want me to stay,” she says the instant I answer, “but they’re my parents, Adrian,” she adds. “And right or wrong, deserved or not, I love them. I can’t make myself leave until I know what is really going on with my father. And before you say anything, before you object and I know you want to, can I just talk to you alone when