I COULDN’T MOVE. ALLI could do was sit there in my office, staring at the wall without really seeing it. I wanted to be with Noe. Needed to be with her. But I couldn’t go to her yet. Not while my head was a battlefield.
Not while my thoughts were a mess. If I went to her now, she’d sense my turmoil, sense the storm within me. I didn’t want to alarm her in any way. So I sat there, staring, thinking, paralyzed by my emotions and fears.
The silence of my office felt too loud, yet not loud enough to drown out the chaos in my mind. Every tick of the clock cut through those wild thoughts as if they were counting down to something I didn’t want to face.
Like it was counting down to my doom. To the moment when all of my lies exploded in my face. My brother’s words were still echoing through my mind, taunting me, challenging me, driving me fucking crazy.
If you didn’t let her go, if she’s yours, as you say, why did you kidnap her?
He didn’t understand. No one did. They couldn’t because they weren’t walking in my shoes or living with my regrets. And my brother damn sure couldn’t understand. We were not the same.
He’d let the woman he loved go the second grandfather threatened to cut ties with him. And to my knowledge, he’d had nothing to do with her since. Tristan had chosen family over love. No, he’d chosen the family businesses and money over love.
He’d chosen the comfort of our lineage and wealth over the woman he was supposed to protect. As for me, I hadn’t done that. I’d chosen love. I’d chosen Noe. I’d been prepared to leave the family.Fuck the family businesses.
I already owned shit that was solely mine. I would be okay with or without the Park family and their connections. So, would Noe. In the past, before I could make that move, before I could convince Noe that I wanted to leave with her, I’d fucked up.Big time.
And shit just unraveled from there. She’d left me. Hurt and heartbroken, she’d agreed to my grandfather’s plans for her. That was my fault. She hadn’t been in her right mind. She never would’ve made that choice if it weren’t for me.
This wasn’t kidnapping. This was me righting my wrongs. Taking back what had been ripped away from me. Repairing what I’d broken. Noe was mine. Always had been. She’d been stolen from me by people who claimed to know what was best for her and me.
And I’d let them. That was my mistake. My sin. And I’d been paying for it every damn day since. I leaned back, gripping the arms of the chair until my palms hurt. I thought of every scheme that brought an end to my relationship with Noe.
Every trap. Every lie. Every excuse. Every mistake.
Then, I thought about every step I’d taken to get us to this point, to this country estate.
All the plotting, the planning, the risks, the lies, the killing.
I thought of the things I’d done and the people I’d manipulated to bring her back into my life. Every move had beencalculated. I’d left nothing to chance. At least, I thought I hadn’t. I hoped I hadn’t.
But Tristan’s warning about the investigators, about Ethan’s mouth running, about her memory possibly returning... it felt like a fracture in the foundation I’d built. Once the foundation started to fracture or shift, everything built on it became at risk of coming down.
I’d worked so hard to get to this point, I couldn’t let it all become rubble just because of a few fractures. My jaw tightened. I couldn’t let that happen. I wouldn’t. I had to rethink my plan and search for any loose ends.
This would be the second time I had to rethink things. The first time was after the car accident. That accident hadn’t been in my plans. The accident I’d manufactured to fake Noe’s death involved a fire.
It was the fire that my grandfather was investigating. I’d known a normal house fire wouldn’t justify there being no part of Noe left for identification. Bones and teeth could stay intact during a normal fire.
So, I’d plotted, waiting for a time when the conditions would be perfect. That time came when Noe was supposed to meet up with one of my grandfather’s clients at that client’s warehouse.
She’d gone to renegotiate a contract for our grandfather. Ethan had handled the initial contract. But in normal Ethan fashion, he’d agreed to almost all of their conditions without convincing them to agree to ours.
And in normal grandfather fashion, he’d sent Noe to renegotiate our deal with Magnolia Gulf AgriSupply. Though their warehouse was large, it was also the kind of place most people in town didn’t think twice about.
It was just there. Had always been there. And most people assumed it would always be there. It was just a big warehouseon the edge of the industrial district, away from other businesses and structures.
A place where truckloads of feed and fertilizer came in and out of every day, all day. They supplied everything from livestock feed and crop seed to heavy-duty pesticides, herbicides, and industrial-strength fertilizers for farms along the Gulf Coast.
I’d been there a few times. As soon as you turned down their dirt road, you could smell the chemicals. Inside, the air was always thick with the tang of ammonia from nitrogen-based fertilizers.
That tang mingled with the acrid fumes of weed killers and the musty scent of livestock feed. Whenever you left that place, you felt like your nose hairs were burning. Afterward, the stench lingered in your nostrils for hours.
Inside, there were rows of metal drums of liquid pesticides and flammable solvents. It wasn’t unusual to see forklifts moving crates of powdered chemicals that, when mixed or ignited under the right conditions, could burn hotter than most structure fires ever dared.
When I learned the client wanted Noe to meet him there, I knew that would be my chance to put my plan into motion. I’d also known that the fact that he wanted to meet her after hours meant he probably had other things in mind.
That was why I’d had no problem letting him and his right-hand man be casualties in my carefully crafted plan. Plus, he’d tried to get over on my baby brother. I’d already planned to handle him for that alone.
