Facade

“That why you gave it away at the casino?” Sam asked.

“Yep. Might as well go to people who can actually use it. You know, people think I’m greedy. Because I take on more companies and take larger percentages of their businesses to line my holding company’s pockets with money. But it’s all about keeping score. It has nothing to do with greed. I couldn’t care less about money.”

“So if you lost it all tomorrow, you’d be okay?”

“I would. It’s never been about money. I came from money. I lived in that lifestyle. I didn’t crave it in any way, and if I lost everything, I have a few trust accounts I could live comfortably off of for the rest of my life. The journey was never about money. It was about becoming something greater than my father.”

“That’s your way of keeping score,” she said.

“Yep. Succeeding not only made me proud, it made him proud. And there was nothing I wanted more. My father built a business he expected me to take over, and in a way, I did. When his business started to go under, it was the first one I purchased. I revamped it, reconstructed it, updated it, and brought it into this century. My father got to retire from that company and everyone got to keep their job.”

“Hell of a story,” she said as I chugged from the wine bottle.

“It’s never about money. It’s always about keeping score, and keeping score doesn’t always mean being better than your competitor. Sometimes, it’s about keeping score with yourself. Setting a personal bar just to see if you can reach it. That’s what I do. I keep score with myself. With my soul. With my wants and desires.”

“Well, my way of keeping score is my keeping things at zero,” she said.

“That doesn’t make sense. Zero loses. Always. That’s why people hate the number zero.”

“If you look at it that way, sure. But in my world, zero is good. Zero losses. Zero compromises. Zero unfulfilled missions. In my world, numbers mean deaths. Casualties. It means my inability to get there soon enough. During hostage rescue missions in the military and in the private sector, I’ve been a part of not getting there in time. Of seeing the devastation the number one can cause. But now that I’m a privately contracted bodyguard, I have control over that number. I’ve never lost a client. The best score for me and my world is zero.”

I watched Sam as I threw back the bottle of wine again. Guilt was pooling in my chest, and I was trying to drown it out. Jacob was in the hospital because of me. Because I ignored this threat for far too long. The wine bottle came down and hit an abrupt stop before it was ripped from my weakening fingers.

Shit. What if Jacob died because of me?

“He’s not going to die,” Sam said. “We don’t know the extent of the damage yet.”

“He’s in that hospital bed because of me,” I said.

“No, he’s not. He’s there because of his attacker.”

“And that attacker is trying to get to me through Jacob. Fuck, Sam. All those threats that have been directed at me. All the times I shrugged it off. If I had given in to these demands, Jacob would be okay. You know he would be.”

“But you wouldn’t be,” she said. “This psycho-harasser is responsible for this. Not you. And with this attack on Jacob, I’m certain the threat is local.”

“You fucking think so?” I asked. “It took Jacob being beaten unconscious for you to come to that conclusion?”

“Is that what happened?” she asked. “Was he beaten?”

“In the fucking parking garage.”

“Okay, that’s unusual. Who would have that kind of easy access to the private parking garage of your company?”

“Anyone who fucking works at ...”

The cogs started to turn as I panned my gaze over to Sam. Her eyes were piercing, and I could tell she was thinking the same thing.

“It’s someone at the fucking company.”

“It reinforces that idea, yes,” Sam said.

“Holy shit. It’s someone at the company,” I said.

“Which is why I wanted to compile a suspect list.”

“But this erases Emma, right? She’s a tiny girl. There’s no way she could overpower someone like Jacob enough to beat him—”