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THE BILLIONAIRE'S AFFAIR Connor
After the skinheads tried to kill me, things actually got worse.I got tossed in solitary confinement, right after my hospital visit with Lily, Sebastian, Johnny, and Bert. Apparently in prison, even if you try to defend yourself against a murder attempt, you get thrown in solitary.Maybe they would have been more forgiving if I’d let the skinheads kill me.I didn’t complain, though. The longer I spent in SHU – the ‘security housing unit’ – the fewer chances Miranda had to have me shivved in the back. Despite my relative safety, the next two days were not fun. No word from Bert, no word from Lily, just 40-plus hours in an 8x10 concrete cell with a toilet that stank of sewage. The ‘food’ they shoved through the feeding slot three times a day tasted only marginally better than the toilet smelled – but I wouldn’t let them get to me. I shut my mind and ate the food, did hundreds of push-ups and crunches, and plotted like the Count of Monte Cristo for whenever I got out of prison.Miranda
THE BILLIONAIRE'S AFFAIR 239
I sat there in stunned horror.Miranda’s involved in sex trafficking, Connor. She’s shipping slaves across the globe, and she’s using your family’s planes to do it.It made sense now.Why would my father sign away his entire empire to me?Because his daughter-in-law – the one who would be the power behind the throne, the one who would manipulate my mother and brother – was evil beyond reckoning.A multi-millionaire, someone richer than 0.01% of all humanity, was trafficking in human misery, just to make a few dollars more.I wanted to vomit.I wanted to scream.But I couldn’t.I had to stay clear-headed.I had to act.I reached in my pocket for my phone and turned it on.As soon as it booted up, hundreds of texts and voicemails showed up. Friends, maybe? Reporters?Within seconds, a new message appeared:Eve.I hit the button for the text app.Connor – thank God.I started to tap out a response, but Johnny said, “Just talk to her. She can hear you.”I looked at him, startled, then spo
THE BILLIONAIRE'S AFFAIR LILY
I stared at my mother in shock.“Augustus!” she cried out, and reached out to me with her thin arms. “Augustus, where have you been?”I knelt down beside her and took her hands in mine. “Mother, it’s me… it’s Connor.”She was shaking now. Tears were rolling down her cheeks from behind her sunglasses. “Augustus, I’ve been waiting for you… why did you leave me?”“Mother, I’m not Dad – it’s Connor.”She looked at me in confusion, then pulled back in fear, like she had just realized I wasn’t who she thought I was.“Who are you?” she wailed. “What have you done with my husband?”I looked up at Johnny, who stared back at me helplessly.I had no idea what to do, so I tried repeating it once more: “Mother – I’m Connor… your son.”“I don’t…” She looked around in distress, as though searching a crowded room for someone, even though we were by the edge of the pond and there was no one else around. “Augustus! Augustus, where are you? Where are you?!”The woman in black pushed me aside. She grabbe
THE BILLIONAIRE'S AFFAIR Lily
When I first came back to some hazy semblance of consciousness, I felt things gently rocking beneath me, like I was adrift on a raft on a lake.I opened my eyes.I was in a small, dark, windowless room, with a strip of light coming from beneath a door.I was lying in bed – a narrow bunk set into a wall, with a thin mattress underneath me. Just a few feet away from me was a toilet and a sink. Other than that, the room was bare.My throat was dry as sunbaked concrete. There was a chemical taste on my parched tongue.Then I remembered.The crunch of metal. The shattering of glass. The sickly sweet smell on the wet cloth forced against my face.Overcome by panic, I fought to sit up. Whooooaaa… that isn’t good. Nauseated, I lay back down and waited for the drugs to wear off. Or at least for the room to stop spinning.While I lay there, I tried to figure out where I was.The rocking sensation was real. It was gentle, but it was definitely there – so I was probably on a boat.Where the bo
THE BILLIONAIRE'S AFFAIR 242
Armin escorted me down the hall. It was narrow, with lots of closed doors and fluorescent lights. There was no one else around. Then we left the hall and stepped onto a wooden deck with a railing. Cool, salty air rushed over my face, and silver moonlight sparkled on water.We were under a covered walkway, so I couldn’t see above us, and Armin pushed me forward roughly when I tried to look behind him. But from the hallway we’d exited to the bow of the boat was at least a hundred feet. Between them lay a swimming pool, a Jacuzzi, and multiple deck chairs.We were on a giant yacht of some sort. Fitting for an evil mega-millionaire bitch.Armin opened a door that led into a dimly lit room without windows. There was a table inside, and chairs bolted to the floor all around it. In one of the chairs sat a figure with a black bag over its head.Fear surged through me. I watched the shape, afraid it might rear up like in a horror movie – but it stayed slumped over.Armin forced me into a ch
THE BILLIONAIRE'S AFFAIR Connor
The sun had set an hour before. The limo was almost back to Manhattan, and I was in hell.I was completely powerless. Lily and Sebastian had both been abducted, and there was nothing I could do. If Eve couldn’t find them, there was no way any of my company’s security guys could – although I still worked the phones relentlessly, talking to my employees, praying for a miracle.We had just entered the city when a text message pinged my phone.Connor – I found her cell.“What?! Where?!”In international waters near the Grenadines, in the Caribbean. “Smart,” Bert muttered.I looked at him.“She’s out of the jurisdiction of any local police forces,” Bert explained.“Good. Then she can’t count on them when I go after her,” I growled, which made Bert recoil.Eve continued, The phone’s signal is super weak, but it’s there.“Can you see or hear anything?”No. All I get is blackness and muffled voices.I looked at Johnny and Bert.“It’s a trap,” Johnny said. “It has to be.”“If she’s in interna
THE BILLIONAIRE'S AFFAIR Lily
I stared at the cell phone and frowned. “I don’t understand.”“Your gay mascot does,” Miranda said.Sebastian gave her a death-glare. “Miranda’s telling them where we are. Connor’s probably setting up a plan to rescue us right now.”“I understand that,” I protested. “But why is Johnny so important?”“He’s the one who’ll lead it. He was Special Forces – he’ll know exactly how to do it.”My eyes bugged out. “You think Johnny’s coming here?”Sebastian looked grim. “Not just him.”It took a second for that to sink in. When it did, I wasn’t sure whether I was thrilled or horrified.“Connor, too?!”But I didn’t need him to answer to know the truth. I remembered all the training he and Johnny had done in the months since the assassination attempt at the Dubai.Without knowing it at the time, this was the moment Connor had been preparing for. And since my life was at stake, there was no way he was going to let Johnny come alone.The only problem was, Miranda knew it, too. “I guarantee it,” s
THE BILLIONAIRE'S AFFAIR Connor
We stopped by the penthouse first. Johnny had more than enough weaponry, ammunition, and scuba gear for the mission. Hell, I’d been training with all of it over the last 12 months. The only thing we lacked were the scuba sleds, and those would be delivered to us at the airstrip before we took off.While Johnny assembled the weapons and equipment, I went up to the master bedroom and looked in the top drawer of my dresser. There, on the velvet-lined trays amongst my watches and cufflinks, sat the wedding rings I had planned to exchange with my bride on our wedding day.Planned. Not had planned. The wedding rings I planned to exchange with her on our wedding day.I picked them up, both of them, and rubbed them between my fingers.These are my good luck charms, I told myself, fighting back desperation and despair. I’m putting this ring on her finger the very first moment I can – which will be in just a few hours.I kissed them for good luck, placed them in my inside jacket pocket, and rus
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