Page 140 of Stand: Part One

I almost snorted. “Well, you’re barking up the wrong tree. I’m deliberately left out of the team meetings for a reason.”

“Oh, I think you might be surprised at how much info you actually hold in that pretty little head of yours,” he argued. “In fact, I’m willing to bet it’s only going to cost your bodyguards all of their fingers to find out.”

I chuckled when I saw Clive and Owen both roll their eyes.

“Well, that is one of their job duties, so by all means, waste your time long enough for Darren to return.”

He tsk’d, shaking his head. “You would have me torture and kill them just to protect your murderer of a husband?” he accused, pointing at Clive and Owen.

I leveled him with a glare. “Dying for me is literally their fucking job. What, you think Darren would spare them if I got killed on their watch?” I laughed and shook my head. “He’d make their death twenty times worse than anything you could possibly do to them. So you’d actually be doing them a favor.”

Now, he looked frustrated.

“So like I said before, I don’t know shit about shit.”

Smith took a few steps toward me. “Alright then, let’s test your theory.”

He marched over to me, raising the blade over his head.

I braced for the impact, but instead of pain, I heard two muffled gunshots echo from a silencer behind me, piercing into Smith’s gut and chest.

“What the fuck?” he grumbled, the look of shock and confusion painting his face before he fell to the floor with a loud thump. None of the remaining men in the room even flinched at the shooting, no one moving to help him or return fire.

What the hell was going on?

“Sorry about that little display. My phone call took longer than I expected,” said a familiar voice from behind me.

I knew that fucking voice.

The last person I expected to see walked from around my chair and leaned over me, a smug smile across his face. He gave me a little finger wave with his black leather gloved hand.

“Matt?”

His grin widened as he tucked his gun back into his holster. “Hello, Jaden,” he taunted. “Comfortable?”

“What the fuck is this? Why did you just kill him?”

He stepped away from the chair, placing his hands in his pockets, and turned to snicker at me.

“Like he said, he was just the hired hand.”

I scowled at him. “Where’s Darren? How did you even get in here?”

Matt sighed like he was annoyed, the shadows of the room hiding his eyes as he leaned against one of the broken couches.

“He’s about to be busy for the next hour or two. So we have plenty of time to chat.”

I furrowed my brows, my muscles tensing from his words. “Why? Just so you can send Darren a stupid message?”

He scoffed and rolled his eyes. “Actually, I’m here to forward you a message.”

My brows furrowed deeper.

“You see, I was recently visited by a ghost,” he added. “A very young, pretty, blonde ghost.”

My stomach instantly dropped, my eyes widening with shock.

Oh no. He found her first. Fuck!