Page 89 of Vows In Corruption

There is silence. The only that could be heard it the roar of the plane and the flight attendant doing something with glass at the front of the plane. No other noise sounds out.

I don’t know how long we sit there, but it was enough time for the movie playing on the screen to end and for a new one to start playing.

When Bennett speaks, I’m on the edge of my seat.

“You know that my brother is gone. Left his kids with me and Henry and to this day has yet to come back.” I give him a nod. “I might have mentioned looking for him in passing or as a throwaway comment, but I don’t think I’ve told you the extent of it.”

I shift and place a hand over the one resting on his knee. “You don’t have to.”

No part of me wants to push him to give me information. If he wants to tell me than he can but it has to come from him and not because he feels obligated.

He looks down at our hands as he continues. “I want to tell you.”

A lump forms on my throat.

Who would have thought that a week after the wedding we would be having this heavy of a conversation.

I don’t say anything, but I know he able to read my face and see the encouragement for him to continue.

“I use whatever resource that are my disposal to look for him. Because Lane Enterprises works with security and high tech, it’s not hard to access things that are only available to the police or government agencies. I only ever use that tool when it comes to my brother, otherwise I use other tools to get pressing information.”

The way he says tools sends a shiver down my spine. Like there is something dark that comes with the word. It makes sense, though. Bennett is a billionaire, of course he has something like this at his disposal. He can’t just walk into a room without knowing who is in it. No matter how powerful his security team is.

“For the past couple of years, I haven’t been able to find anything new. At the beginning a new address would come up occasionally, but every time I would send someone to investigate, it either turned out to be an empty lot or he was long gone. Same thing with phone numbers. If one ever appeared it would be disconnected by the time ever I got to tracking it down or calling it. I think it had been four or five years since the last address or number appears.”

Something takes me by surprise. “Had?”

Bennett gives me a nod. “The day of the first board meeting, a number popped up.”

That’s the day he told me about his brother and how he hasn’t seen him in ten years. That’s a creepy coincidence.

“Did you call it?”

He shakes his head. “I wanted to but it took everything in me not to do it. For all I knew it was just a dead end. It was probably someone that shares the name that gotten a new number and it showed up under Robert.”

“You didn’t want to be disappointed.”

“No, but that didn’t stop me from committing the number to memory to save it for a later date.”

“Is that what you did last night? Call the number?”

He scoffs at my question. “No. The number called me.”

A chill runs through my whole body. I take my thought back. There is no way in hell this is coincidence. A number pops up under his brother the day that he is announced as Gerald’s replacement and then he gets a call from the same number the day the title is officially his? Someone is behind this and is trying to get deep into Bennett’s skin, but the question is who?

“Did you answer?” My question comes out almost a whisper.

Anger rolls through his face. “I did, but whoever was on the other line, wasn’t in a talking mood.”

Without even thinking about it, my hand wraps around his and I give him a reassuring squeeze. “I’m sorry.”

And I am. I couldn’t imagine looking for someone all these years, and something coming up on that search, and being so close to getting your answers but it just turns out to be a dead end.

“Don’t be. I’m going to find out who was on the other side of that call. Whoever it is, wants something and I’m not going to stop until I find out what.”

“What would you do?”

His jaw ticks and for a second I think he’s not going to tell me, but he surprises me yet again when he actually answers my question.

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