Page 8 of Mad Love

4

Blaise

Is it a coincidence that my grandfather leaves this earth and goes to heaven the same moment my goddaughter is born into this world? As I was celebrating with my men and Sylvia the birth of little Isabel, I received a call from my great-uncle.

Hours after the party ended, my grandfather’s live-in housekeeper went to bring him his usual midnight sweet snack.

According to Bethann, she believed him to be sound asleep, worn out from a day of birthday celebrations. She shook him by the shoulder, having been given strict orders in the past to not keep him from indulging in his sweet treats. When he didn’t awaken, she shook him harder, afraid he would chastise her if she didn’t give it another try. He didn’t make a sound or move. She felt for a pulse and he didn’t have one. Bethann called 911 then started CPR, but it was too late.

Thank goodness I’m with my men. I drop my cell phone, clueing Granger that something is terribly wrong. Or is it my stricken expression? They make things happen quickly and soon we board a private flight from California, where I grew up and spent many summers and holidays with my cousins and grandfather, back to Long Island.

We arrive back at my grandfather’s estate at eight in the morning.

My chest aching and my face streaked with shed tears, I sink into the chair across from my great-uncle inside my grandfather’s grand office. The walls are lined with built-in bookcases, and the shelves are filled end to end with books. Where there aren’t books, there are frames upon frames of pictures of me and my cousins.

I stare at the one of grandfather with his bow and arrow and us kids with our own set. We’re smiling. Ecstatic at taking pot shots at one another. Grandfather made it his business to equip us with survival skills including learning how to handle knives and shoot a gun.

We’ll never know when the skill will come in handy. That’s what Grandfather said. The bow and arrow was my cousin Roman’s idea. He upped the ante when he suggested a game of cat and mouse behind the walls of our parents’ estates. It was more like an ambush from my cousins. To teach me a lesson, they claimed when I whined and groused over being their live target. No mercy just because I’m a girl.

I get it. I’m one of the boys. A treasure in the men of my family’s eyes. When I turned thirteen, my rowdy cousins upped the ante more and resorted to dropping me off in neighborhoods hours from where we lived and taking turns hunting me down. The joys of growing up a Lexington. I take a shuddering breath, missing my grandfather dearly.

Is his death less about coincidence and more about foul play? He was the healthiest person I knew.

“How long for the toxicology report?” On the flight, I peppered Arthur with questions in between my uncontrollable sobbing.

“Six weeks is what I was given.”

“I see.” After my kidnapping for ransom, I never take anything for face value. Neither does my uncle and cousins.

Arthur tents his hands in front of his mouth and blows out a breath. “Blaise, what’s in my brother’s will isn’t good, sweetie.”

My cousins stop pacing and come over to stand by my side and behind me. My team is waiting outside the closed office door.

“Blaise, I’m sorry, but he left his fortune, including the Montana estate, to ten charities. You have seventy-two hours to vacate the premises and give up the keys. The only property he’s left you with is your cabin. In twenty-four hours, all your prior accesses, including to the jet, are terminated. As executor of his will, I must enforce his wishes. Again, I’m sorry, sweetheart.”

The room closes in on me. I’m oblivious to the shock and anger in Roman’s voice when he speaks for them all.

“How could he do this to her? She needs the protection his money gives her. Blaise can’t survive out there. People know who she is.”

What happened to me when I was sixteen and my two eye colors are the bane of my existence. Everywhere I go, people recognize me by my eyes. Or is it the gloves up the length of my arms that has them gawking?

Heed my words, Blaise, a reckoning is coming soon, and you most of all will reap the rewards.

Was it only yesterday that he warned me of what was in his will? Would he have eventually told me of his plan to strip me of my security blanket? His monthly allowance is my shield from the outside world.

“Don’t be mad at Grandfather. He has good intentions.”

“What? To get you kidnapped again?”

“Again?” I shift in my chair and face my cousins. “What do you mean again?” My voice comes to me from a distance. I take deep breaths in and out and talk myself down from my panic.

“We wanted to wait to tell you, but now, after what Grandfather did—” Edward shakes his head, his expression grim. “Rylan found a threat against your life from your kidnapper.”

Five years of silence and now he resurfaces?

“How can you be sure it’s him?”

Rylan walks over to the bookshelf, picks up something lying on top of a row of books, and sets two plastic bags on the desk. Inside one bag is a note. In the much larger bag are the clothes I wore when I was taken.

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