Hostile Takeover by Hill, W (best novels to read for students .TXT) 📕

about taking some time off.” Though that would now wait until whatever happened with Jeremy happened. He’d want to be close for that, to support Lucas and Cass. And Marcie.

She’d had a hard relationship with her brother. Before he’d become an addict, she’d idolized him. Then, when she was thirteen, one of his friends had tried to rape her while Jeremy was stoned in the other room. That was the end of him living under the same roof with Cass and the other kids. The past few years had mended things, but it reminded him now why he needed to keep their relationship where it had always been. Yeah, they’d stepped way the hell over that line yesterday, but he’d taken that step back. End of story. Time would take care of the rest. Marcie couldn’t afford having another male let her down.

“Mmm. A vacation may be a good idea.” Lucas rose then. “Once we get the Senecorp issue off the table, you’d be clear.”

“Lucas is just trying to cut Marcie’s internship short.” Peter chuckled. “We all know what a corrupting influence Ben is.”

“Can you blame me?” Lucas said dryly. He gave Ben a shove. “Up until the last couple years, she pretty much hung onto everything you said and did, so hell, I figured you’d already corrupted her.”

Great. Just what he wanted to hear. He managed an amused expression, no small feat when he’d swallowed nails.

“Time to get to work.” Lucas turned toward the door. “Did Janet say if Matt was coming in today?”

“Yeah.” Jon had been studying Ben’s expression, but now he thankfully turned his attention to Lucas. “He’ll be in around lunchtime. Savannah wasn’t feeling too great this morning, so he wanted to stay with her awhile. Even though she nearly took his head for telling her he was coming in late.”

“She’s tired of being in bed, and she hates to feel like the whole world is waiting on her, particularly Matt. No worse patient in the world than a submissive female,” Peter noted.

“Except Dana,” Ben snorted. “She has no problem with foot massages and being handfed bonbons.”

See? He’d jumped in with that one. Proof that he was fucking fine, right?

Peter took the bait with a chuckle. “Just don’t tell her she can’t drive the Batmobile or scale tall buildings with a nail file. She likes to be pampered, but on her own terms. She doesn’t like being helpless.”

“Why don’t we all go hang with Savannah and Matt tonight?” Jon suggested. “We haven’t gotten together in a few weeks. Ben, can you make it?”

“I’ll see. Maybe.”

Lucas met Jon’s gaze, what Ben privately called the secret decoder ring glance, because Lucas tried to cover it with a shrug. Ben knew what it meant, regardless. He’ll spend another night alone drinking. Jesus. Sometimes working with four guys known for their incredible intuition as businessmen and Doms was a pain in the ass. At least they weren’t women. If they were, they’d want to talk about feelings, and he’d have to throw himself off the top of the building.

He decided to ignore the look. He still had enough whiskey in his system to keep him mellow, and that’s where he wanted to stay.

“Sir?”

Glancing toward the doorway, Ben saw Randall Caldwell, the K&A security chief. “Morning, Randy. What brings you?”

The man shrugged casually. “Just need a minute of your time, Mr. O’Callahan, once you get done with your morning bullshit session.”

Peter gave the man a punch as he went by. “There’s important corporate strategy going on in here, rent-a-cop.”

Randall effectively blocked the blow, giving him a grin. “Yeah, yeah. A bunch of suits who don’t know what hard work is.”

There was some more banter back and forth, but Ben was focused on the steadiness of Randall’s pale green eyes. He was teasing to lighten the atmosphere, to distract focus. The others picked up the hint, though none were fooled. Lucas gave Ben that same look again, the look that was supposed to convey solidarity. Ben wasn’t sure where to go with that, given he’d been imagining the girl Lucas had shepherded to adulthood going down on him like a high-powered vacuum. Christ.

After they filed out, all traces of humor left Ben. “What’s up, Randall?”

The security head pulled a disk out of his coat, laid it on Ben’s desk. “That’s the only copy, sir. If you don’t want it returned, that’s fine. I’ll need to mark it on my monthly report to Mr. Kensington, but it’ll go no further than that. If this is something you want us to investigate further or file charges, we will. But I wanted you to see it first. No damage appears to have been done to your vehicle.”

That brought Ben’s attention up sharply. “Someone was fucking around with my car?” He hadn’t retrieved the Mercedes from the parking deck last night, but when he checked on it this morning, it had looked fine. “When did this happen? How the hell—”

“Time stamp’s on the disk, sir. Best to look at it first. I’ve taken disciplinary action on the security detail assigned that shift, but… Well, I’ll be in my office to discuss questions, after you look at it.” Randall had moved to the door. Without further explanation, he stepped out and pulled it shut after him, so Ben wouldn’t be disturbed unexpectedly.

Ben stared after him. What the hell?

Putting the disk into his laptop, he called up the footage. To better see the details of the black-and-white security tape, he put it on his wall screen.

The time stamp was 12:50 a.m. The security patrol went through each level of the parking deck once an hour, though they rotated that time by a varied amount each night so no one could anticipate their schedule. Apparently, whatever had happened had occurred right after the detail went through, because he watched the guard walk past, checking between the cars and in the shadows near the stairwell as always.

So the perpetrator had anticipated their schedule, known to do his worst when he