Page 15 of Forever His (The Donovans: Secret Son #6)
“So again the question is how did the press find out that Bailey was missing?” Max asked this time. “Nobody reported her missing. She works at D&D and we told Sam to tell the staff that Bailey was on vacation.”
“Now that it’s in the news the police are going to be inundated with false leads,” Ben added. “Not to mention that if either one of the crazy women, Roslyn or Jaydon, see that it’s getting attention it might make them nervous. And that nervousness might lead to Bailey’s death.”
“She’s not going to die!” Dev insisted.
The fact that he’d yelled that statement had everyone staring at him.
“We’re gonna get the trace on that car and we’re going to find her,” Dev continued in only a slighter lower tone.
“How can we be so sure she’s not already dead?
” Adam asked and then held up a hand because the looks he received after the question were intense.
“Wait, just hear me out. Uncle Al called dad first thing this morning. Mom and dad had stayed at the house to babysit the boys last night so after dad got the call he knocked on my bedroom door. It was very early and since Uncle Al’s in Houston he’d already seen the morning news.
Uncle Al’s distraught. Brandon and Brock are both ready to get the FBI involved.
They want to tell them everything about Roslyn and Jaydon. ”
Trent shook his head. “Miami PD already has a warrant issued for Jaydon for the Morelli murder. As for Roslyn, the only concrete evidence we have on her is the blackmail attempt.”
Ben sat with his elbows on his knees. He looked over to Trent then and said, “That’s extortion, they could get a warrant for her arrest.”
“And the next thing that’ll be a headline is CEO of Donovan Oilwell pays off ex-lover to hide secret baby,” Trent said.
“He’s right,” Linc added. “We can’t push on the extortion angle.
That would destroy not only my father, Uncle Al and Uncle Bernard’s reputations, but it would open the door for more issues with Donovan Oilwell.
If the stocks were already going down, this news would put us in prime position for a takeover.
The oil well and the refinery would be up for grabs. We can’t risk that.”
“No,” Max agreed. “We can’t. My dad’s jumping through a million hoops now in an attempt to keep the shareholders calm about the stocks.”
“Is Dane still buying them?” Adam asked.
Trent immediately tensed at the guy’s name. Even though it had been proven, he still wasn’t totally comfortable with the fact that Uncle Bernard was actually Dane Donovan’s father.
“No,” Trent answered. “The last check on his financials was about two weeks ago and there was no more movement in that direction.”
“Maybe all he really wanted was to find out who his father was in the first place,” Adam said.
“Yeah, and if the uncles had proceeded with a DNA test sooner, maybe Roslyn wouldn’t have lost all of her mind,” Ben replied.
“We’ll never know how that would have turned out,” Max told them. “And we can’t go back into the past and make them do the right thing. What’s done is done.”
Trent was nodding again. “He’s right. The same goes for this news in the paper. We don’t know who leaked it, but the fact is it’s out there and now we have to deal with it.”
“What if it’s one of the bodyguards we’ve hired in the last few months?
” Ben asked. “With protection on all of the Seniors, us and our wives, that’s at least forty people that have access to our homes and subsequently our private conversations.
You know how family secrets are usually revealed by the house staff or the mistress?
What if we’ve been betrayed by the security staff? ”
All eyes fell to Dev because he’d taken the lead on hiring the security detail.
“Every guy I hired was specially selected. I’ve worked with them either in the field or on some special assignment.
These men have national security secrets tucked into their memories and if tortured wouldn’t reveal them to the enemies of this country.
I highly doubt they’d leak Donovan family secrets,” Dev told them.
“If the price was right,” Adam interjected. “Money is a powerful motivator.”
“So is an AK47 to your temple,” Dev added and shook his head. “They’re not leaking information. I can guarantee you that.”
“I believe him,” Linc spoke up.
“You do?” Adam asked seemingly surprised.
“Yeah. The two guards Jade and I have are nothing but professional. Sometimes we don’t even know they’re there. I trust them,” Linc told insisted.
Trent eyed his older brother, sensing there was something else he wanted to say.
“There’s one person that’s seemed to know a lot about us for years now. He’s watched us, studied us, even obtained a good portion of the family company’s stock without any of us knowing,” Linc continued.
“Dane,” Trent said through clenched teeth.
Bailey
Bailey’s head hurt like hell.
She tried to sit up and the pain ricocheted through her body, forcing her back down. Nausea claimed her stomach and she forced herself to steady her breathing, she swallowed deeply to keep from vomiting. Bailey was pretty certain she had a concussion.
Roslyn hadn’t shot her when she’d pointed that gun at her head, but she had hit her hard enough to knock Bailey out cold.
Now, she lay on a hard surface—the floor she supposed—in a place that smelled like wood and sweat.
It was dark in the room but the walls weren’t very thick.
For the time since she’d been awake Bailey had overheard the two crazy ladies talking about their next steps.
This wasn’t Bailey’s first time being held captive.
The moment she’d first awakened tied to a chair, she recalled the family reunion last year when the demented murderer Ramon Vega had kidnapped her, Regan and Victoria on the Donovan family island.
All three of them had made it out of that situation, so Bailey had hope for this one.
The only difference now was, she wasn’t dealing with a convicted murderer and his deranged counterpart.
No, this time it was a lunatic mother and her equally off balance daughter.
Bailey had thought she was dreaming when she’d heard Jaydon call Roslyn ‘mom’, but then she’d heard it again, this time from Roslyn.
“You’re a good daughter,” Roslyn had said to Jaydon. “You always do exactly as mama tells you. And you don’t question me either, not like your brother.”
“Dane was always the smart one,” Jaydon replied.
“No, you’re smart in your own right,” Roslyn assured her. “You always got good grades in school and when you went off to college you were bright enough to call me to let me know that you had met one of the infamous Donovan heirs.”
“That had been a wild coincidence,” Jaydon said and Bailey thought the woman might have been smiling as she spoke. “There he was with his fine self just standing against the wall at that frat party like he knew he was the shit.”
“Of course he did,” was Roslyn’s response.
“They’re born and bred to think they’re better than everybody else in this world.
I swear I wish I could meet the first Donovan bastard that decided his offspring and theirs would be serve as gods to the black community.
I’d rip his balls off, because I know it was a man.
All of their men are cocky and arrogant. ”
“And sinfully sexy,” Jaydon added. “Parker was gorgeous and he was smart and all I had to do was smile at him and act like I wasn’t interested at the same time. He came running just like you said he would.”
“Yes, and you caught him in that trap just like I told you to do. Marrying him and gaining unobstructed access to that family,” Roslyn added.
“It was good for a while,” Jaydon said. “I was embedded into the company and I had access to all of Parker’s money.”
“Not all of it, babygirl,” Roslyn countered. “They never give their women everything. Always holding back, those Donovan men do. But you got in real good.”
“Not good enough to find out who Dane’s father was,” Jaydon announced. “They never talked about that, no matter how many conversations I tried to listen in on when the Seniors were together.”
“No. I should have known they wouldn’t. They didn’t want anybody to know how low down and dirty they really were, especially not their family. When I thought we could start siphoning money from the media company, Parker had to up and divorce you. Scum, just like the rest of them,” Roslyn said.
Jaydon spoke again. “I don’t know that we were ever going to get to that point.
Like you said, they didn’t totally let their wives in.
I would have had to do some serious finagling to get money out of DNM.
And Parker watches those financial records like a hawk.
He probably would have caught me before we got any significant cash from them. ”
“You’re probably right, but we got his ass in the end didn’t we. Getting those pictures published of him and that model skank he chose over you and then setting his brother up to take the fall for that murder.” Roslyn laughed.
“Too bad Savian decided to sleep with his lawyer. I’m convinced that women wouldn’t have dug so deep into what happened to Morelli if she hadn’t been vying for Savian to put a ring on her finger,” Jaydon stated.
“And he did too,” Roslyn said. “I told you those Donovan men are predictable.”
“Yeah,” Jaydon added. “You told me.”
“And now, you watch, they’re all about to play right into our hands again. Only this time we’re not out for the money,” Roslyn told her daughter. “We’re out for blood.”
She’d laughed then and Jaydon had joined her.
Bailey had felt cold all over at their words.
They were planning something but Bailey didn’t know what.
She had to get up and be ready for whatever was about to go down because if the crazies were serious—which unfortunately, Bailey figured they were—there was about to be some bloodshed and Bailey would be damned if it was going to come from her family.