The Billionaire (13 page)

Chapter 17

I got her settled in a room downstairs for the
duration when we got home later that day.

My mom had been busy bustling around getting things in
order and dad had already thought to set me up with an agency that provided
outpatient service. There would be a nurse coming tomorrow and he'd hooked us
up with a good doctor that he knew and trusted. I wasn’t sure about the nurse
thing anymore but we’ll see how Blossom felt.

Right now she's asleep. She's being understandably
needy, wanting me near her at all times, which I can totally understand and
it's no hardship for me to give her what she wants.

I'm holding her hand as I work tirelessly on the phone
to get my business in order for the next few weeks while I devote all my time
to her care.

Every once in a while her fingers would twitch in my
clasp and she would make little sounds of distress in her sleep. I never took
my eyes off of her as I spoke to the necessary people needed to handle things.
After her little freak out at the hospital and the subsequent visit to the
nursery she seemed to have come to terms with the baby. I haven’t really had
time to let it sink in everything was coming at me hard and fast but one thing
was certain, I’m happy as fuck at the idea. I wouldn’t know what the fuck to do
with a kid and neither did she but I’m sure we’d figure that shit out.

It took me a little less than three hours on the phone
and she was still out. I think her mind needed just as much rest as her body,
but she needed to take her medicine before the pain got to be too much so I’d
have to wake her up soon.

I eased onto the bed and kissed her lips softly,
brushing her hair back from her temple. I whispered her awake. "Wake up
sweetheart."

She groaned and creased her brow until her eyes
finally opened. That smile at the sight of me always went straight to the gut.
“Hi.” She lifted her head for my mouth and we shared a kiss before I laid her
back against her pillow.

"Time for your pills baby, mom made some soup and
sandwiches, how about we have lunch and then you can have your medicine, sounds
good?"

"Sure." Her voice was sleep soft and warm,
luring me to kiss her again. She felt so soft and cuddly and warm, like I could
just hold her like this forever and never get tired. When the kissing
threatened to get out of hand I eased off. I’m a fucking animal, here she was
battered and bruised and all I could think of was getting inside her damn. She
clutched at me trying to pull me over her but I resisted. “No baby I don’t want
to hurt you we need to get you healed up some first.” She pouted and rolled her
eyes at me but whatever. I kissed her nose and eased out of her arms.

I made sure she ate and took her meds. We hadn’t
mentioned the baby again after we came home. I didn't want her freaking out
again, not until I had some help for her. I hated the thought of her having to
see a shrink but I think she might need it. She was also scared shitless of
doctors, something I'd found out in the hospital when she was lucid enough to
let her discomfort be known, so I’ll have to be with her if we did go that
route. Fuck this is too much for me to think about right now. Just get her
better and go from
there
Gideon one thing at a time.

After clearing away our dishes from lunch I got in bed
beside her and held her while I turned on the TV for background noise more than
anything.

"Baby can I ask you something?"

"What?" She looked at me as her little hand
drew patterns on my shirt. I was about to wade into murky waters here but I
needed to get this shit taken care of. I’d decided to kill two birds with one
stone. Since I’ll be taking time off from work I could use the time while she
was asleep to plan how to eliminate the fuckers who’d tormented her childhood.
But first I needed to know who they were, if they were local or if she even
knew
who
the fuck they were.

"Have you ever seen the doctor and the...monster
anywhere else other than your house?"

"Uh uh." Her body was only a little tense so
she wasn’t going to go back into her fucking head again. At least I hoped not.

"Would you recognize them, if you saw a
picture?" She didn't answer for a long time and then...

"Could you get my school bag please?" I
figured that was her way of telling me she didn't want to talk about it
anymore. I decided to let her have her way for now, but sooner or later we were
going to have to go there again.

I brought the heavy backpack over to her. What the
fuck were
they giving kids to read these days? It felt like
she had a ton of bricks in there.

I watched as she struggled one handedly to pull
something out of her bag.

"Here let me help you baby."

"I got it." She pulled out a large envelope
and passed it to me. She’d handed me a portfolio, I opened it up with a puzzled
look on my face until I saw the drawings there.

"Where did you get these?" I had no doubt as
to what I was holding in my hands.

"I made them." She was back to sounding
scared so I sat next to her and pulled her onto my chest.

The pencil sketches were of two men over time. In the
earlier drawings you could see a bit of the fanciful as the person drew them
with inhuman aspects, her monster.

As the drawings got better with time, the facial
features became more pronounced until every detail was there. Even a mole on
the left side of one mans cheek.

You've got to be shitting me, it couldn't be. No
wonder Cliffy boy thought he could flounce my words and go after her anyway.
This shit had just gone to a whole other level but that won’t stop me, it just
meant a change of the game plan.

I picked up my secured phone and called Gage my head
of security and the only other person I’d trust with this. "Double
security, I need you to come in."

She looked at me so scared, like just the fact that
the pictures were out in the open could bring her harm.

"Do you know them Gideon?" Fuck me she began
to shake. I hugged her as tight as I could without hurting her.

"They'll never come near you again baby, they'll
have to go through me first and no way that's gonna happen.

“Why didn't you tell me you were an artist baby?"
I tried to change the subject she didn't need to be worrying about this shit
right now. It was my turn to do the worrying for her. It took all my control
not to leave and go put a bullet in the fucker's head right then and there. But
I had a bad feeling in the pit of my gut that there might be more victims out
there, this shit was huge. I had to handle this with care from here on out.
This wasn’t just about some small town cop and some perverted fuck looking to
buy a young virgin anymore. These people had the best spin-doctors on their
payroll if I showed my hand too soon they might walk, fucking politicians.

Chapter 18

I had security doubled on my place around the clock.

Gage had come in for a briefing and was waiting
downstairs for me to come to him. I might have to call in a few markers by the
time this mess was over, but it would be worth it. I've been on my secured
computer ever since she'd fallen back to sleep trying to find everything I
could on the senator and one of the nations' Premier physicians.

Why two men from such pedigreed backgrounds would be
involved in something as unethical and downright immoral as this, is beyond my
imagination but it takes all kinds.

Funny thing is, the senator is one of the loudest
voices in the Senate against child abuse of any kind. He heads committees that
fight child labor, he petitioned and fought for stiffer sentences for child
molesters. So why the fuck had he been trying to buy my wife and what the fuck
was he planning to do with her? Lying fuck, he’d touched her him and the fucking
doctor had had their hands on my fucking wife. Hate was too tame a word for
what I felt.

A young no doubt terrified little girl had been at the
mercy of that deceitful fuck and all the while he’s been in the public eye
spouting his bullshit lies. Well senator you’re fucked, you didn’t see me
coming you fuck. I find myself with the task of muddling through his background
and trying to sift through the public lie and the conspiracy theorist for any
nugget, just a little string to pull on.

So far nothing was popping up, no red flags. He came
across on paper as just what he wanted the world to believe he was; an
upstanding member of society with nothing but accolades and support for his
many endeavors.

It turned my stomach to read each word as the young
girl he had traumatized
laid
sleeping in fear not too
far away. What were you planning to do with her you fuck? I wanted to punch
something but my gym was on another floor and there was no way I was leaving
her here alone. I felt like a caged beast about to gnaw my fucking arm off in
frustration.

Had it been only a few short weeks ago that I’d seen
her for the first time? How could life change so drastically in such a short
space of time? And what the fuck else was going to come at me next? I walked
over and looked down at her as she slept peacefully I had to go see
Gage which
meant I had to leave her. I took the monitor with
me in case she woke up while I was gone.

Gage was looking out the windows of my home office
when I got there. He turned at my entrance and with a nod took a seat across
from my desk.

"Do we know as yet how
Halston
and Sanders paths crossed?"

I've had him doing some digging while we were in the
hospital. Though the tapes had revealed much, they hadn't answered that little
kernel. Those two didn’t move in the same circles and I needed to know
everything before I moved. I wasn’t about to leave any stone unturned I wanted
the names of all the players down to the smallest one.

"She was having you followed. I pieced that
little tidbit together from all the surveillance pictures I found in her house
of you and Mrs. Thorpe. It looks like it went on for a few weeks at
least."

Probably from the first day I broke things off with
her, fuck. Why hadn't I thought of that? I should've known that would be her
style. She'd been so convinced that there'd been someone else, I should've
known she wouldn't just let things go.

"What else did you find?"

"Nothing much, except for these pictures."
He dropped a Manila envelope on the desk between us.

Inside were pictures of me outside Ashley's school,
the two of us shopping and coming and going from the building. One of the last
of the bunch was an excellent shot and could very well be the reason Lynn
Halston
had lost her mind.

It was a shot of Ashley and I after we got married,
the look on my face as I looked down at her. Anyone with eyes could see what
was there. Hell I didn't know I was that fucking transparent, but it was all
there captured on film.
Love, lust, and complete adoration.

I separated that one from all the rest. I wasn't quite
sure what direction I was going to take as yet, I just might need these as
evidence; but I was sure I wanted to hold on to that particular photo, it
captured the essence of what was in my heart for her.

"May I say something sir?"

"Sure, what's on your mind?"

"She's not going to stop, the shit I saw in her
place, she's obsessed. If you don't want to spend the rest of your life looking
over your shoulder, or cleaning your wife up after she's been attacked by this
loon, you'd better act now."

"What did you see in her place?" He pulled a
pen from his pocket, hit some keys on his MacBook and with the pen pointed at
the screen showed me a slide show of what looked like the inside of Lynn's
house.

For the next fifteen minutes I looked at image after
image of what appeared to be a shrine to me. There were oversized pictures of
me all over the walls in one room, some of just my eyes, me in all different
poses. But that's not what scared me, no what made me cold were the pictures of
Ashley with her face slashed, or her head removed, purely demented shit.

This shit was way out of control; this was about more
than a woman scorned. This was a twisted fuck that had apparently gone off the
deep end. I felt like running upstairs and scalding the fuck out of my dick
because I’d had the bad sense to go there. Who or what the fuck was this bitch
and how had she kept this side of her so well hidden for so long?

I had to put my own personal shit aside and focus on
Blossom for now. I couldn't have so many of her enemies on the loose. She would
never be safe with these fucks still alive or free.

I took some time to think of my next move, my enemies
were piling up by the minute and having that many bodies on your tab will take
time and planning. This was in no way an easy decision to make I have to carry
this shit out with precision so that there’s no way any of it would come back
to me. I’d thought to torment her ass for a while for what she’d done, like a
game of cat and mouse but she couldn’t stay here in the city. Not so close to
my wife.

"How can we get her out of the hospital
undetected?"

"That's easy, we know the routine there already
we just need someone to go in in the wee hours of the morning. That's when the
nurses are having
their
down time; most of the
patients are asleep so they're not as alert then. Moving her with her broken
legs might pose a problem but it can be done. What did you have in mid
sir?"

"I'm thinking Miss.
Halston
might be going for a long stretch in a secure mental hospital outside the
country. One of those nice places that believe in shock treatment and solitary
confinement; I'll make the arrangements, just fine tune the details from your
end and I'll handle the rest."

"Damn boss that's cold, I would've just broken
her neck, but this, this will be never ending torture for someone like her. How
long do you plan on leaving her in this place?"

"How long did you say it would be before my wife
was safe from her?"

"Uh, never."

I just gave him a look; that should be answer enough.

"Let me just say, I'm glad we're on the same
side, your mind scares the shit outta me and I'm supposed to be the muscle in
this outfit." I smiled that away.

"Now I just have to figure out what's the deal
with the senator and the doc. So far I can't find anything that points to them
being involved in anything shady."

"Well those drawings your wife did are spot on so
we know it's those fuckers. You check their travel rosters?"

"That was going to be my next step. Also who is
the senator's biggest opponent? I'm not much into politics those shysters make
dirty business dealings look like child's play I have no stomach for that
shit."

"I'll get you a list he's a politician I'm sure
he has enemies coming out the woodwork."

"Good man, now let's deal with this psychotic
bitch, I want her out of the country by the end of the week.” I heard movement
on the monitor, which meant she was stirring, time to go.

“My wife's waking up I gotta go. I'll handle my end
before end of day. You think you can get something worked out by then?" We
both headed out the office.

"It's just the logistics, we've got the manpower
just let me tinker with it a little and I'll get back to you."

"Good enough."

I saw him out and went to the kitchen to get my baby a
snack, she'll be hungry again by now, plus she needed to keep her strength up
we had a baby to feed. Can’t think about my kid right now or I’ll say fuck it
and go on a one-man killing spree.

As I put together a salad and some fruit for her I
thought of ways to keep her safe. There was no doubt in my mind that the
senator already knew I had her. Sanders would've had to tell him that his sick
plans whatever they were were sidelined. They'd want to shut her up, they had
no knowledge of the drawings I was sure, but they wouldn't take the chance of
her someday recognizing one of them and spilling the beans. I have to think
like a criminal, get into their heads so I could stay one step ahead.

If I couldn't figure this shit out the US senate would
just be one man short in the not too distant future, as well as the medical
community. It would only take an experienced pilot with a parachute to send a
plane crashing into the Rockies, or maybe devil's tower.

Shit happens.