Page 40 of Every Broken Piece
“That’s just an excuse. She’s not that young. Besides, she seems older than thirty. Like she has an old soul.”
I ignore his comment because I don't want to admit he's right. “I need to know where she lives. When will you have that information?”
“I have my best man working on it. As soon as I know, you’ll know.”
His best man? “Damn it, I expected discretion, and you brought someone else into this?” I can’t have people finding out I wasfraternizingwith a subcontracted employee and got her fired.
“Relax. My best man is Pax. He’s working on it as we speak.”
Are you fucking kidding me?“Pax? You have my son hacking into databases?”
Jack grins again. “He’s good, brother. Really good. Almost better than me.”
I check my watch. I have three minutes to make my next meeting with the fraud division. “We’ll discuss this later.”
While in the meeting I receive an email from my new virtual assistant, which pisses me off because I don’t want to see Jacob Davis’s name in my inbox. I want to see Theresa James. However, Mr. Jacob Davis has interesting news for me.
It seems TaskGenius is a subsidiary of Virex Global Industries, owned by Vivian Rexford, a friend and former client. At one time Virex was on the verge of collapse. Vivian called, begging me to help. I uncovered some shady business dealings that her husband was engaged in. She divorced her husband and on some of my suggestions turned the company around. Today it’s a multi-billion-dollar corporation and Vivian is now a good friend.
I mentally file this information away as I conclude my meeting and head back to my office to find Jack waiting for me, his perpetual goofy grin gone.
Chapter twenty-four
Gabe
Ishut the door behind me, my heart jack hammering.
“Tell me.” Never before have words reached into my throat to cut off my air supply like this.
Jack draws in an agonizingly long breath, his cheeks puffing out before he releases it just as slowly.
“Tell me,” I say again.
Memories flash so fast it’s like they’re on supersonic speed. The cops at the door. Jack at my side. Pax in the living room playing with his toy cars, oblivious that his life is about to change. But I knew. I knew nothing would be the same again. Just like I know now that my life is derailing, heading in a different direction. All for a woman I barely know.
“Jack.” The one word is ragged, forced, barely a broken whisper.
His eyes drift shut and when he opens them, he won’t look at me. I want to hold my hand up and tell him to not tell me. I don’t want to know. But I have to. I have to know how I ruined this girl’s life.
“I found her.” His head is bent as he stares at his beat-up sneakers.
Seconds tick by, each of us breathing deep. I want to tear the rest of it out of him, shake him until the words fall out. And I want to open the door and walk away before he says anything else.
He raises tormented eyes to mine. He knows I’m thinking of Cara and the police because he is too. I see the same memories swirling inside him.
“She lives in Cincinnati. She’s...” He swallows. Swallows again. His gaze flickers away like he can’t stand seeing what’s on my face. “There was an incident at the bar she and her friends were at. She was attacked.”
I make a sound, the air leaving me in a rush, pain swirling in to fill the void.
Jack rubs the back of his neck and stares at the ceiling. “Fuck. I know what this is doing to you.”
“Never mind that. Tell me the rest.”
He lowers his head to look me in the eye. “She was attacked and she’s in the hospital. I don’t know her condition because I wasn’t comfortable hacking her medical records.”
“But she’s alive?” My throat is so tight that the words barely escape.
“I don’t know, brother. I don’t know.”
