Page 1 of Playing For Keeps
CHAPTER 1
HUNTER
My stomach drops.Dorothy isn’t at Jamison’s apartment waiting for me to take her to the airport like she’s supposed to be.
She screams through the line, and my heart stops. Not only is she in the wrong place, but it’s clear by the grunts, groans, and hollering in the background that somebody other than her bodyguard is with her.
“Dorothy, what’s happening?” I yell with panic zapping every cell. “Dorothy! Answer me!”
She doesn’t answer, and another woman growls for her to hang up the phone.
My vision distorts as I run out of my penthouse.
“Do not hang up! Stay on the line.” I smack the elevator button.
When the doors don’t instantly open, I twist to the emergency exit and rush to the stairwell.
Something crashes through the line and rings in my ear.
“Who’s with you? What happened?”
The call fails as I barrel down three stairs at a time. I continue to descend until I’m on the main level with my blood coursing hot in my veins. I heave my shoulder against thedoor, but it jams. Something on the other side is blocking it from opening.
“Goddammit!” I glance down the hall.
There’s an exit sign at the other end. I sprint the length of the building.
With every second keeping me apart from Dorothy, my heart jackhammers in my chest. There’s no doubt in my mind she’s in terrible danger. It’s agonizing torture.
I’m halfway down the hall when someone swings a door open from the kitchen of the complex restaurant. The guy has his hands full of trash bags.
I try to spin away to miss him, but we clip shoulders and collide, throwing us both into the garbage. We get tangled up in the bags.
“Fuck.” I tear the plastic away from me.
The dirty contents spill out onto the floor. I jump over it as the guy says something to me. I don’t have time to stop, so I barrel down the hall.
It’s like the universe is conspiring against me. Once I get to the exit, I push against the door, and it opens. I rush to the back parking lot with my mind racing.
Fuck!
This ambush has to be by my mother’s hand. I hurry to the spot where my driver is waiting by my car with the trunk and back door open.
“Get in and drive to Dorothy Fisher’s loft, now!” I slam the trunk down and jump into the backseat.
My driver detects the urgency and does what I ask. We speed out of the parking lot.
“Take the alleys and the fastest routes you can find.”
“Yes, sir.” He spins the steering wheel and takes us through the first open route available.
The tires screech with each turn he takes.
I’m out of my league and want to hit myself for thinking I could take on my mom and everything would go as planned. Ido the only thing I can in this situation and hit Aiden’s number.
He answers on the first ring. “Hunt?—”
“Dorothy’s at her place. I think my mom is there. Send your guys there now!”
