The Insiders (The Insiders Trilogy 1)

“Fuck, Dad. This is what you were doing today?”

I reached for the door handle.

“Settle down, Matthew. I wanted to see her skill level in person.”

I paused and waited, my breath held.

Both were irritated. Both were snapping at each other. But Matt’s voice held an extra edge while Peter’s held something else … maybe confusion?

He kept going. “She’s got a gift. It’s unbelievable. I wish you had that gift.”

Matt snorted. “Of course. You get your system blown to pieces and you’re already reveling in how great she did it. You’re standing here telling me what a fuckup I am at the same time. Nice, Dad. Nice. Super loving father you are.”

“You’re putting words in my mouth, but you’re right. I don’t need a son that parties all hours of the day and night, has one job to do and still can’t get his life together. Kashton does your job for you half the time—”

A harsh laugh from Matt ripped through the air, ripped through me even.

“God. Jesus. You think Kash only does my job?” His tone was mocking now. Biting too. “We both know he runs half your businesses.”

“One!”

I jumped back from Peter’s sudden bellow.

“One job! One goddamn hotel to manage. You’re not even managing it. You have managers to do that. They are supposed to report to you, but I’ve sat next to Kashton while he gets the reports from them. One hotel to overlook and even that you’ve fucked up. Whose son are you?”

The cold chill in that last question. It pierced me.

I wasn’t the only one. Matt was silent. I almost started forward, then I heard him. He sounded beaten down.

“You’re right, Dad. I’m the fuckup here. And yet, of the two of us, I’m pretty certain I’m the one waiting for her because I share blood with her.”

He didn’t say anything else.

Neither did Peter.

He was just silent.

* * *

Kash: How’d it go?

Me: It went.

EIGHTEEN

The next night, I was lying in bed. Not sleeping. Trying to sleep.

Trying not to think about the day before, how when I pushed open the door and stepped out, I saw both of their backs, leaving. A guard was there waiting instead, and he showed me back to Kash’s villa.

I stayed there the day, not thinking, not feeling, not admitting how crushed I was. The afternoon passed. I ate some dinner, but that’s all I was hungry for. Drank a hot cup of tea, then settled into bed.

The alarm pierced the air.

A red light flashed in the house.

Fear catapulted me upright, and then I stopped. I was paralyzed, my heart and chest in my throat.

Someone had broken in.

The door burst open and I was freed from my paralysis.

I launched myself out of bed.

I didn’t go at the person. My fight-or-flight instinct was fully functioning. I was running, and it didn’t matter where, because that’s all I was focused on. I must’ve looked straight out of The Matrix, because I jumped straight up in bed, and before I came back down to where my feet made contact with the covers, I was already trying to run. My feet circled in the air for a split second, then I hit the mattress again and I was off, like Speedy Gonzalez.

The intruder came at me, but I ran him over. Literally. He came to the bed, and that was the time my feet made contact with the bed. I bowled him like he was a pin and I was the bowling ball, and I didn’t stop.

He made a sound, yelling my name, but no way. No way, Jose. Of course the intruder would know my name. They broke in for me. They sure as shit hadn’t broken in for Kash or for introductions. Slamming down on the floor, my heart in my throat, I tore down the hallway, the stairs, and I was sprinting for the door when the person recovered enough to come to the second-floor landing.

He yelled out, “It’s me! Matt! Stop!”

Matt?

I wasn’t stupid. I still wasn’t stopping. But I looked over my shoulder just as I rounded the corner and I got a glimpse of him, his hand outstretched toward me.

Gah.

My feet were pounding the pavement. Stop? Keep going? If I hadn’t almost been kidnapped once, maybe I would’ve stopped, because that seemed the rational thing, but it happened once. No way was it happening again. I was heading down the sidewalk as a barrage of security guards were running to meet me. They came from everywhere. Back. Front. Left. Right. I wouldn’t have been surprised if a few popped up from underground.

“Ms. Hayes!” One was yelling at me, a hand toward me while he kept his gun pointed downward.

“Ms. Hayes.” That same guy was almost to me. He was slowing down. They were all slowing down—well, the ones who were surrounding me were. I couldn’t stop. I just couldn’t. My brain was not commanding my feet, so I slammed into one of them. They caught me up, and that’s when I looked over my shoulder again. A group had separated from the others and was approaching the villa. Their guns were out, and they weren’t making a sound. They were doing a bunch of hand signals to each other as a few were touching their ears, getting their commands that way.