Page 139 of Bling

To Garrett he said, “Keep him talking if you can.”

“How did Isabelle get mixed up in any of this?” Garrett asked.

“Darren was a hothead. I never should have trusted him, but he was easy to persuade because he’s greedy. I told him to send a message to Carmen that we could still make her life hell if she talked to anyone. When orders came from your office to lay people off, he was supposed to fire everyone in her family. I had no idea Isabelle was your girlfriend or I might not have had him do that. When you came in and fired him after Isabelle pointed a finger at him, he lost sight of the bigger picture and just wanted to hurt her. So really, you should thank me for killing him.”

“Why? You’re standing here threatening to kill her.”

“You haven’t even asked what I want.”

“I assume you brought me here to watch you kill Isabelle.”

He let out a staccato laugh. “You know what they say about assumptions. No. That’s not the reason, though that is my fallback plan if you don’t cooperate.”

“What do you want then?” he asked, clenching his fists.

“I want you to step down as CEO and sign the company over to me. And my, we’ll call him a benefactor, wants the added bonus of you getting the fuck out of Colorado and Solitaire.”

Garrett cocked one eyebrow up. Maybe there was something to the theory Jax had. “Is that all you want?” he asked.

“Easy, wouldn’t you agree? Sign over the company. You can even give yourself a nice little bonus to live on. You get to keep your girlfriend and I get what was mine to begin with.”

Garrett shook his head in disgust. “You make me fucking sick, Maddox.”

“What’s it going to be, Gary?”

Before Garrett could answer, Maddox crumpled to the ground at the same time a loud shot rang out.

Jeff had fired his weapon.

“What the fuck did you do?” Garrett yelled as he ran in the direction of his brother’s body. The bullet had hit him square in the center of his forehead.

“Sir, we already have a bomb tech inside working on freeing Isabelle. Once they confirmed that he wasn’t holding a dead-man switch, they encouraged me to take him out so he couldn’t detonate the device before the techs finished disarming it.”

He jerked open the door, knowing it wasn’t rigged because Maddox had opened it earlier, and strode into the storage bay. Isabelle was sitting stock still on a chair while a man in full explosive protection gear lay beneath her.

“Stay back please, Mr. Oliver. Though having you in here seems to have lowered her heart. Just don’t come closer.”

“Christ, Isabelle. I’m so sorry,” he murmured. “I got here as fast as I could.”

She gave him a pained smile. “How did you know to get here? It sounded like you showed up seconds after he sent the text from my phone.”

Garrett smiled. “Confession time. After you shattered your screen and I replaced your phone, I may or may not have given you a phone I could track. Lance was able to tell me the minute you got a text from my brother. It was from the same number he’d been using, he just used a spoofing software to make it look like it was coming from me.”

“I’m really glad you’re here,” she whispered. “I’m scared.”

“Shhh, Doll. It’s gonna be OK.”

“Is Carmen OK? He said he was going after her next.”

“We’ll check on her, but she should have security there, and unless Maddox is working with more people, she should be safe. Jeff shot him in the head.”

Isabelle’s mouth dropped open.

“Whoa, Mr. Oliver, the point is to keep her calm while I work, not scare the piss out of her,” the bomb tech said from beneath her chair.

“I’m almost done here, honey,” he said to Isabelle.

“I’m sorry about Maddox,” Isabelle said after a few deep breaths.

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