Page 114 of Between Passion and Revenge: Part Two

Axel’s voice is too loud and too serious for the time of morning.

Despite the jet lag, I slept in one-hour chunks, tossing and turning before ultimately deciding to get up at two a.m. A run around the internal perimeter of the property only made my mood worse, since the path brought me toward the art barn Mom and I shared.

Part of me long ago wanted to burn the place down—the entire Gold Coast house, actually. Instead, I keep the studio locked up and, with the exception of the things I moved in a few years ago, I pretend it doesn’t exist.

I roll over in bed and grab my cell phone from the nightstand.

It’s now four-thirty a.m., a reasonable time for Riale, bedtime for Axel, and an annoying hour to be awake for me.

“Someone better be dead,” I grumble.

“Yeah, someone is,” Axel snaps, and I jump out of the bed.

“What? Where are Shae and the kids?” I bark, my heart thudding in my chest. Axel rushes out of the room, and I followbehind him in my black boxers, stopping for a second to grab jogging shorts and a shirt off the floor.

“They’re fine, in their rooms,” he says as we move down the corridor.

“Then what the fuck’s going on?” I bark as we turn the corner into the room Axel’s retrofitted into our command center.

As soon as my gaze lands on the screen, my stomach drops.

Fire engulfs a Learjet at the end of a runway. Red and blue lights encircle the crash, and I don’t have to listen to the newscaster to know there are no survivors.

It’s impossible.

“Who was on board?” I ask, my voice heavy. Riale grunts out an answer.

“Kenyon Braxton, CEO of Keystone Financial. The manifest said he was headed to the Caribbean.”

Isla Cara.

“He didn’t make it five minutes past takeoff,” Axel says, falling into his rolling chair and pushing himself down the line of his desk.

I spoke with Kenyon Braxton in his office less than a week ago, before things went to hell with Lakeland. Within an hour of meeting Kenyon, I had things lined up perfectly. With my support, he’d push through the alternative bid for Keystone, kicking Orisun out of the running for ownership. I’d still give Lakeland the end results he’s hoping for: shadow control of Keystone via an entity he has his fingers in.

Apparently, that’s not good enough. Lakeland, for whatever reason, wants Orisun in bed with Keystone. The annoying as fuck thing is, I don’t know why.

I can’t look away from the screen.

Lakeland’s threat is completely clear, if it weren’t already driven home by the event in France. He’ll annihilate Shae and everything I love.

He wants me to know he’s getting closer.

“Turn it off,” I tell Axel, and he taps his keyboard. The screen goes blank, and the room goes silent. Riale’s the one who breaks the tension.

“All right,” he says. “We’re in this shit now. And we’ve got to make a plan and get moving before it’s too late for us.”

He turns to me.

“All of us.”

Tension winds tight around my throat as a plan unfolds in front of me.

“We move now,” I grind out, already moving through all the steps.

“Axel, you’ve got that Ukrainian connection, right? Mikhail?” I say, beginning to pace with my arms folded on top of my head.

“Uh, you mean Misha?” he says slowly.