Page 106 of The Cinderella Secret
“You’re going to call him? No. We can’t do that!”
“Youcan’t do that,” said Aiden. “I’m his cousin. I can call him anytime.”
“MacKentier—”
“If he’s smart, he’ll make Jackson put it on speaker. I have to assume that he’s listening to every word.”
“Well what are you going to say?”
“I’m going to pretend that I don’t know where he is. Jackson said he told MacKentier that I was out of the loop. I’ll support that. Then I’ll tell Jackson to meet me out at the old DevEntier building because I think I’ve found something suspicious and I want to go through the old records. That way Charlie knows that he can’t expect to sweep this under the rug if Jackson disappears.”
“You’re going to paint a target on your ass,” said Nowitsky.
“Yes,” agreed Aiden. “But they’ll let me in the building. Meanwhile, you’re going to take your team and go in the side door of the records warehouse. It’s not alarmed.”
“We don’t have a warrant or any firm evidence of imminent threat.”
“As Jackson is a top shareholder with the company and I’m his lawyer, I’m giving you permission to enter now. You need to post someone here to stop Evan from going straight to DevEntier when he arrives.”
“Got it,” said Nowitsky. “Give me five minutes to put the team together before you call.”
“Five…” Aiden glared at Nowitsky angrily.
“Don’t go all Jackson on me, kid. These things take more than a minute, and you’re changing the plan on the fly.”
Aiden waited. He knew Nowitsky was moving quickly. He could see it in the hurried gestures and the running feet as everyone reacted, but it didn’t feel fast enough. His pulse was jackhammering, and he could feel the adrenaline making his hand shake.
Carefully, he put down his coffee on one of the police department’s folding tables. He’d been amused that the police had brought their own furniture to a furniture store, but as the computers unfurled and the bulletproof vests began to stack the tables, he realized that the police were working from experience. He walked out to his car and took off his overcoat, laying it in the passenger seat. He leaned against the roof and stretched out his calves and then rolled his head around on his neck. He needed to be loose for this. Then he bounced on the balls of his feet and tried not to throw warm-up punches. He didn’t need to look like a total idiot. But he longed for Josh and his pre-fight routine. He felt unprepared to be Aiden Deveraux. Being Number Nine was so much easier—go, punch, punch again, leave. Aiden Deveraux had to think and plan and always have a smile. Never let them see you sweat.
He checked his watch. It had been longer than five minutes. He tried to calculate how long it would take Evan to get here. Tried to calculate how long Jackson and Ella had been inside. There were too many damn calculations.
37
Ella – DevEntier
“Charlie,” said Jackson with a smile, “what the fuck are you talking about?”
Ella looked from Charlie MacKentier to the three men with guns and back to Jackson. This was not going well. When she had arrived, carefully timed to be a few minutes later than Jackson, she had been patted down and then, in a show of good faith, handed over her phone to MacKentier’s security. She had been quite happy that the little microphone threaded through the lapel of her jacket to an inside pocket had not been discovered. She hoped that Jackson had escaped similarly unscathed. She had then been escorted along an echoing hall in a distinctly empty portion of the building to a conference room.
The security guard who escorted her was wearing a nice, fresh black eye that she guessed was courtesy of Aiden. It hadn’t occurred to her that she might run into the security guards who had attacked them over the weekend. She added their presence to her list of things to worry about—along with the echoing and abandoned corridors. When questioned, the guard had said this portion of the building was about to undergo renovations. The décor looked original to the building, so it certainly needed renovations, but she wasn’t sure the story was true. When she had arrived in the conference room, Charles MacKentier sat at one end of the table with Jackson’s gun in front of him and three security guards behind him. Jackson had chosen to stand and was loitering by the big windows that looked over the parking lot. She hoped it was so he could see when the police arrived to rescue them because Charles MacKentier had promptly accused them of trying to screw him over.
“Seriously, Charlie,” said Jackson, feeling his pockets. “Sorry, did you bring cigarettes? I really can’t talk about anything serious without smokes.”
MacKentier looked annoyed and then yanked a pack out of his pocket and slid it down the table toward Jackson.
“You’re double-crossing me,” said Charlie as Jackson began tapping out a cigarette and lighting up, “and I don’t appreciate it. You and Miss Zhao.” He sneered her name. “I shouldn’t be surprised, I suppose. Like father, like daughter.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” demanded Ella. She had chosen to seat herself in one of the rolling conference chairs. She was currently wondering how she could use it as a weapon. Being seated was a bit of drawback when it came to self-defense. At least she’d worn pants today.
“Your father would have sold out his own mother if it got him what he wanted. I’d say he was two-faced, but that number isn’t high enough.” Bitterness sparked bright in Charlie’s voice.
“If he’d try to sell out his mother, she would have beat him with her cane,” said Ella. It didn’t need to be said, but she thought it might disrupt the full steam of anger that Charlie was building up to.
Jackson snorted in amusement, but that only seemed to make Charlie angrier. Jackson held up his hand as Charlie seemed about to speak. “Charlie, relax, would you? You and the goon squad over there are a little too uptight. No one is here to sell anyone out. We’re here to make a deal, remember?”
“That’s right,” said Charlie. “You and Miss Zhao.”
“That’s right,” agreed Jackson.
