GABE (Silicon Valley Billionaires 2)

“I’d like to know what’s going on.”

I headed over to the hot tub and sat down, sticking my feet in. “Just stuff that should be water under the bridge, but isn’t.”

Lauren followed me, looking lost. She must be. For the majority of her twenty-five years, all she’d done was work and spend time with her sister. Both of those things had been taken from her—roughly, wrongly—and she seemed completely off-kilter.

“Tell me more,” she said. “Just talk—please. After what happened with Hannah…I literally can’t stand to think anymore. I might go crazy.”

I could still feel the raw adrenaline coursing through me from earlier in the day, and now, from the encounter with Levi. I needed to calm down. She needed me, and I was no use to her like this. “Fine. But I’m still pissed.”

She sighed. “I know.”

“We’ll get your sister back, but not at the expense of losing you. Do you understand that, once and for all?”

She sat down next to me, taki

ng off her shoes and tentatively sticking her feet into the tub. “I didn’t have a choice about the way things happened today. I wasn’t trying to be a hero. I just wanted to get Hannah in the car and get her out of there. And then everything fell apart. Okay?” She slumped, exhausted, and I could tell she was near tears again.

“Come here.” I pulled her against me, my anger ebbing away. I wasn’t going to forget what had happened, but she was here and she was safe.

And I wasn’t letting her out of my sight again.

“Please talk. Please tell me about your family,” she whispered. “If I think about Li Na anymore, or Hannah, I’ll end up in a psych ward.”

I kissed the top of her head. “Okay, okay. So the thing with Levi, our baggage… Ugh.” I scrubbed my hands across my face. “Ugh” was the only accurate word I possessed for talking about family stuff. “Levi and I have issues about his business. I don’t know if I’ve told you this, but I own part of his firm, and he and Ash own part of Dynamica. We did a cross-purchase thing a few years ago to fund their start-up.”

“So—you’re fighting about money?”

“Not at all. I wish it was that simple.” I laughed, but it came out flat. “It’s a long story.”

“Even better. Please, go on.”

I sighed. “My father was in security too. It’s a Betts-family thing. Everyone’s in the business except for me.”

“Did your dad run his own firm?”

“Yes, and I always wanted to be like him when I grew up. I knew he protected people, and I wanted to do that, especially when I was little.”

She leaned her head against my chest, relaxing a fraction. “I bet you were cute.” It was the most normal she’d sounded in a long time.

“Of course I was cute. And I was a bright kid—exceptional, my teachers said. They tested me, and I was off the charts for everything. My dad clung to that. He’d been blue collar all his life, never went to college. He told me before he died that he wanted me to go to Harvard—that was his big dream for me. He insisted that I pursue some sort of business career, preferably one that included a nice, safe, ornately carved desk.”

“Your dad sounds like he was nice.”

“He was a great guy.” I smiled, thinking about my dad.

Lauren slid her arm around my waist and waited for me to continue.

“You know my father died when I was ten. That fueled my fire—I wanted to follow in his footsteps. My mom humored me when I was younger, but when I was in high school, my whole family ganged up on me. They insisted on Harvard, which I unfortunately had the grades for. Levi started Betts Security a few years later, after I’d already come out here and started Dynamica. He took my money in exchange for a minority stake in his firm, but that was all he would accept from me.”

“Because he was honoring your father’s wishes?” she asked.

I shrugged. “Because he was protecting me, I guess. He probably thought I’d go after the people who killed my dad if I went back to Boston and got into the business.”

Lauren pulled back, her eyes searching my face. “I didn’t know your father was killed.”

I looked down at the water. “That’s because I didn’t tell you. It’s not something I talk about.”

“Who…who did it?”