Page 35

S taring down Josef Aziz was not an easy feat.

The man had seen more and done more than most people I knew, but I wasn't your average Joe, either.

No pun intended.

I also had a history of leaving violence and scorched earth in my wake.

Besides, I’d waited forty-eight hours before I approached the man. I was pretty fucking sure he knew everything by now.

Right up to the part where I was fucking his daughter.

So, I watched him over the past twenty-four hours. This morning, I broke into his floor in Volkov Towers. Then I waited right outside his office.

I’d arrived a half hour earlier than the man himself. It wasn’t easy, walking in like I belonged, getting past his security with my own card that I made myself using what I took from his database.

I even wore it on a lanyard around my neck like the rest of the people inside.

And I did it all to make a point, and that was simply that I could.

He glared at me with black eyes as he approached.

“Inside,” he grunted the single word, and I dipped my chin.

He walked in first, giving me his back, which was a clear dis. But I had it coming, and I wasn’t about to attack the father of the woman I loved.

Fuck.

Every time I thought about her, my heart damn near squeezed me to death. I couldn’t eat. Couldn’t sleep. Not without her.

It was a helluva thing, too. She stopped using her computer. Hadn’t logged in to Sigma at all.

The only thing that stopped me busting her door down was knowing I was playing for keeps now.

That and the fact I hacked her security system and watched her coming and going. I even had a team following her covertly, behind Sigma’s guys, of course. Didn’t want those mugs chasing my team away.

Last, I got Balor to hack into her streaming services and cable network. So when she turned on the television or listened to music, it was like I was right there with her.

She had eclectic tastes, but her favorite seemed to be those reality shows looking for lead singers. I grinned. She was so damn cute. But I missed her like mad.

I yearned to feel her soft skin, that luscious body of hers, pressed against mine.

I wanted to taste her flesh. To breathe in the vanilla citrus fragrance that was all her.

Never in my life had I ever wanted someone as desperately as her. It wasn’t just a fleeting desire or a passing whim.

It was a need that gnawed at me constantly. A pull deep within my chest that I couldn’t ignore.

Every moment without her felt incomplete. Like something crucial was missing.

She wasn’t just a person I wanted to be around. Clementine had become the very thing that made everything else make sense.

The way she understood me without needing words. The way she submitted to my ferocious appetite for her.

Her mere presence filled the gaps in my world. Like she’d been made simply to be mine.

I couldn’t pinpoint when it started. When my focus turned from securing the Group as the best security firm in the world, to wanting to possess her.

All I knew was that suddenly, or not so suddenly, nothing seemed as important as the thought of keeping her with me.

My heart raced at the mere thought of her smile, her laughter, the way she looked at me with tenderness and adoration.

Fuck, but I wanted her to look at me like that again. I needed it.

Clementine was a gift. She made everything feel lighter, brighter.

This longing wasn’t just emotional. It was physical, too.

My body felt restless when she wasn’t close. I needed her in a way that went beyond words, beyond logic.

She was a part of me now. Woven into the fabric of my thoughts and dreams.

And no matter how hard I tried to fight it, I couldn’t shake the truth.

I needed her back, desperately.

Soon, Darlin’.

“You better have a good reason for showing up here, Callahan,” Josef Aziz sneered as he watched me stealthily from across the room.

“I do.”

“Good, because as far as I know you're a dead man walking on borrowed time.”

“Now, now. Is that any way to greet your future son-in-law and business partner?” I asked, goading the bastard.

“Over my dead fucking body,” Aziz snapped.

“If that's what it takes,” I assured him.

He narrowed his eyes, leaning back in his chair as he considered me.

I wasn’t there to shake him down or make threats. But I needed him to understand how serious this was. How serious I was, especially about Clementine.

“You got past my firewalls,” he grumbled.

I nodded. There was nothing to say about that.

“I could forgive that. But you played my daughter. My precious, innocent baby girl, and that I can’t forgive,” he snarled.

“First, I got past your firewalls because your guys got lazy. Second, I am not playing when it comes to Clementine. I have every intention of marrying her.”

“The fuck you will.”

“The fuck I won’t. I’m not asking your permission. That’s between me and her. Now, do you want to talk about this,” I growled, folding up my cell phone and flashing him the screen showing where I accessed Sigma’s innermost files.

“You know Callahan, maybe I misjudged you. Maybe you have enough balls to handle my little firebrand. Now, sit down and start at the beginning.”

I paused, recognizing his rumbling for what it was. This was a man who loved his family. His daughter was precious to him, and I understood the feeling.

Even if I was salty about how he’d let her get kidnapped when she was a kid.

But if my Darlin’ could forgive him and love him like she did, then I supposed it wasn’t for me to hold a grudge.

Besides, his wife had been in a bad place at the time, and that was something I also understood.

If anything happened to my little Darlin’, I’d— fuck, I hated even thinking about it —but I’d set the whole world on fire.

“What? You want to hear about my childhood?” I scoffed, goading him just because I was fucking giddy he didn’t just shoot me.

Plus, I had a thin Kevlar vest beneath my shirt and jacket. I wasn’t stupid.

“Fuck no. First, I wanna hear about what you did to send my Clementine asking me for help. She hasn't done that since she was 12 years old,” he said, one eyebrow raised.

“Yeah, I know all about that. I read the reports about how you let her get fucking kidnapped,” I growled, anger surging through me.

“Fuck you.”

“Fine. Let’s not talk about the shit job your team did then. But if you want, I will tell you how I managed to get this key card that let me all over your fucking place. As a matter of fact, Aziz, I have access to every fucking inch of your business and I did it all with this,” I said, and held the phone again.

“Start talking then,” he said, and I was impressed by how unaffected he seemed when I knew he was seething inside. Just like I would be if I were him.

“Okay, let’s begin with why I did all this.”

“I don’t give a fuck why?—”

“I think you're gonna wanna listen, because after I’m finished, we’re going to discuss my plans to marry Clementine, plus the proposition I have for you concerning the Callahan Protection Group.”

“Alright.”

“Good. Now, how would you like to buy the Group?”

“Buy it? Not make you a partner?”

“Nah, I don’t need to be a partner here. I will have to negotiate places for my teams, but other than that, you can kick me right out the door after we sign.”

“I'm listening, Callahan. But while you talk, why don't you let my people analyze that virus that let you in the door now?”

I grinned. He was a wily old fuck. His office was big and imposing. Designed to make the guy sitting in my chair tremble and quake.

But I was not scared of Josef Aziz. His daughter, on the other hand, scared the piss out of me.

“Nuh uh.” I told him.

“Not until the papers are signed but if you like, you can log into your database, and I'll give you a little tour of what I learned just so you can be sure I’m being honest.”

“Fine. But I’m bringing one of my personnel in,” he rumbled.

“Fine, me too,” I told him and texted Balor to come in.

“How many fucking passes did you make?” Josef snapped when Balor came in three minutes later.

He’d been unobtrusively sitting at an empty desk in the front room. Just like I’d asked him to.

“Just these two,” I said, and he pointed at his desk.

Grinning, I motioned to Balor who dropped his pass there, and I did the same. It didn’t matter.

I could always make more. But I had no plans to break in again.

“Okay, show me what you got, Callahan. Then I’ll let you know if I think you’re good enough to court my daughter,” Josef demanded.

I nodded, and for the next week and a half, that was exactly what I did.