Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 130512 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 653(@200wpm)___ 522(@250wpm)___ 435(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130512 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 653(@200wpm)___ 522(@250wpm)___ 435(@300wpm)
I shook my head. I didn’t want to get to that stage. I’d handle my business. Channing should remember that part of me. If we needed to do something, we’d do it, and I didn’t want to owe anyone favors.
My phone buzzed.
Sam: We’re all drunk at Manny’s.
I snorted, showing Channing my screen. A thin ray of light pushed through the storm clouds. It hurt to feel it, but it was needed. A small pocket of air to a vacuum where all the oxygen had been sucked out.
He chuckled as he grimaced at the same time. I understood that reaction. Now that we were back, it was as if Sam and Heather made it their mission to have daily adventures. They went down town in Fallen Crest for a book club and three hours later, Sam called to tell me she joined a marathon that was running through downtown and won. She was pissed they weren’t giving her the title. Their argument, she never registered to run. Her argument, she won. That’d only been one of their adventures.
“How do you want to proceed?” Channing was back to considering me.
The slight reprieve was gone. The light was snuffed out and the pressure was back on my shoulders. “I’ll call my publicist and have her do damage control as long as possible. Hopefully we can keep it out of the press about how my father died. We’ll break it to the kids in the morning. You guys should come over when we do. Maddy will want Max there. The twins will want Natessia there.”
“And this business?”
“Family first. We’ll tackle the business stuff after. Even if they’re going to try to push in, they’ll wait to see how everything pans out with Logan and me coming in. We already have shares. Nate too. No matter what, they can’t get the majority. We have it.”
He grunted, raking a hand down his face. “It ain’t good, and I’ve got a feeling shit’s going to get worse.”
I had the same feeling.
“Let’s go get our wives. I’ll check in with Logan, see where his head is. He’ll want to know all of this.”
Channing led the way after we returned to our cars, turning in the direction of his wife’s bar. I followed him but made a call on the way.
My private investigator picked up, her voice wary. “I know whatever you’re about to ask me won’t be good, not with a call at this hour.”
I told her the basics about what had happened.
She was quiet for a long while. “This isn’t good, Kade. This is so fucking not good.”
I remained silent. She wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t know.
She sighed. “Okay. I’ll find the specifics on what they’re doing. We’ll go from there. But what I know—apparently more than what Monroe told you—is that Kai Bennett is another animal. He is smart, ruthless, and calculating. If you look up the word mastermind, his picture would be next to it. He’s not a normal human being.”
None of that made me feel better. “Get everything you can. I have to go.”
“Hey, Mason?”
I was pulling into Manny’s, and as I parked, I held off turning the engine. “Yeah?”
“I’m sorry about your dad.”
“Yeah,” I said, rougher than I’d intended. “Call when you have information for me.”
5
MASON
The next week sucked. There was no good way to explain it, and there was no good way to deal with it. We plowed through. That’s all we could do.
Heather and Channing came over and they barely left. The house was big enough so their kids slept over.
Nate and Quincey arrived the next morning, so they were there when we told the kids. I watched my children, all three of them. Not one of them looked surprised when we broke the news. It was as if we were just confirming what they already knew, and once we had, the dam broke. The tears began falling. When Maddy saw my unspoken question, she motioned to Nolan.
Ah, I forgot. She was convinced Nolan was psychic. Maybe she was.
Logan mostly focused on Taylor, and we all understood his concern.
Taylor, on the other hand, was rock steady. This wasn’t a surprise either, considering her personal history and how she loved working in the emergency room. She tended to lock down when there was a threat in the air, and that quality came in handy during times like this.
Not that she was the only one. All the women banded together, taking care of everyone and everything. They managed the kids, and with help from Malinda, they planned the funeral and everything that came along with that.
Which was a fucking blessing for the rest of us.
Channing called it with the press. They got wind of James’s death almost right away. It might’ve been a leak from the police, but however it got out there, it spread fast. Kade Enterprises had grown in the last decade. It was ranked in the top fifty businesses in the state and considering some of the biggest companies in the world had headquarters in our state, our standing was saying a lot. When Dad fixed things, he really succeeded.