Karissa was so mixed up right now that she could barely tell up from down. And while she definitely didn’t like the part about fighting Bagley never being “part of the plan,” it was the part about walking away from the job that ultimately grabbed her attention. Because walking away meant leaving Dallas. And leaving Dallas meant leaving Hale—after realizing he was her soul mate not even twenty-four hours ago.
“Dad, I’m not walking away from this job,” she said, refusing to give in to the panic that the mere thought of leaving Hale brought on. “First, my Paladin gifts won’t let me leave an innocent personunprotected. They’ll fight me every step of the way until I won’t be able to take it. Second, leaving won’t do anything to keep me safe. Bagley will just pop into the underworld and step out in Chicago, where he’ll hunt me down. And third, I’m not leaving Dallas because I’m not leaving Hale here to deal with this crap on his own.”
Her father immediately started saying something about Bagley being too powerful for her to fight, while her mother kept pushing that she shouldn’t be risking her life if there wasn’t enough money at the end of the job. Karissa would have liked to think that all of this meant they were worried about her safety, but she knew it probably wasn’t that.
It was about the money.
It wasalwaysabout the money.
“Dad, what did you mean when you said Karissa fighting Bagley was never part of the plan?” Lorenzo suddenly asked, his voice cutting across the babble. “And before that, Mom said it wasn’t supposed to happen this way. There’s something you aren’t telling us. What the hell is it?”
Karissa was genuinely surprised to hear the angry tone in her brother’s voice. Lorenzo was the dutiful son, the one who never asked questions. But he was definitely asking them now.
Furtive looks passed back and forth between her parents, the moment dragging out so long Karissa was close to screaming in frustration—right beforepushing all of them out the door. She needed to change soon for the big opening anyway.
“We hired Thomas Bagley,” her mother finally said.
Karissa did a double take, sure she’d heard wrong. “What do you mean, you hired him?”
“We hired him,” her mom repeated. “We knew he was a hit man, but we didn’t know he was tied to Deimos. Regardless, the deal we made with him was simple. He was to get close to Patterson and make it clear his life was in danger from a threat well beyond the abilities of his own security forces. Patterson would hire our firm and you’d sweep in to protect him from certain death, then Bagley would disappear. The reputation of our company would soar and billionaires around the world would clamor for our services. We’d be able to charge anything we wanted.”
Karissa stared at her parents in disbelief, forcing air in and out of her lungs, wondering if she’d gone to bed and woken up in an alternate universe where cold, emotionless AI robots had replaced her mother and father. They’d always been greedy, but this went way beyond greed.
“Wait a minute,” Lorenzo said. “Beyond the fact that you hired a hit man, how could you possibly know that Patterson would hire our firm? We might have a good reputation, but we’re notthatwell-known. Not in Patterson’s circles.”
“We paid one of the people close to Patterson’s chief of security to talk up our company,” her dad explained. “After Bagley’s first attack, everyone was so rattled, they hired us within a couple of hours.”
Her father actually seemed to be proud of that fact, if the smile tipping up the corners of his mouth was any indication. Karissa couldn’t help but wonder when her parents had so completely lost their way.
“This isn’t some brilliant idea to pat yourselves on the back for,” she snapped. “People died! Innocent people who never asked to be a part of your get-rich-quick scheme.”
“That wasn’t supposed to happen,” her father said, having the grace to look at least somewhat guilty. “Bagley was only supposed to scare Patterson. No one was supposed to get hurt.”
“You hired a man who has murdered hundreds of innocent people,” she said, realizing she didn’t know her parents at all. “And you’re surprised that he didn’t honor the terms of yourdeal? Bagley kills for pleasure.”
“We didn’t know that,” her mom murmured softly, her face going slightly pale. “We told him after the first attack that no one else could die, but he ignored us. He hasn’t responded to any of our attempts to contact him over the past three days—including when we told him that the contract terms have been fulfilled and that he could leave.”
Karissa was beyond furious now. She was sickened. But one thing she wasn’t was surprised.
“Three days?” she echoed. “That would have been the night I fought him at Patterson’s gala when Bagley figured out I’m a Paladin, people he hates with every fiber of his being. He’ll never stop coming after me—not until one of us is dead.”
Her parents and Lorenzo all started talking at once, saying she had to leave town immediately, that she couldn’t let herself be drawn into another fight with Bagley, that she needed to put her family first.
It was all too much to take.
“I have to get changed for the grand opening of Patterson’s auto-assembly plant,” she said coldly. “Deven is already waiting for me, so feel free to let yourselves out.”
Then she turned and headed for Hale’s bedroom, closing the door behind her without looking back.
Chapter 23
“Is it me or does this all seem a little too convenient?” Hale asked from where he stood in the back of the SWAT team’s operations truck, staring at a computer-generated map showing the street layout around the Arlington South Industrial Park.
The space in the back of the renovated RV the team had converted into their ops vehicle was tight to say the least with nearly half the Pack jammed in there, but they made it work. Until that moment, every single eye in the place had been focused on the image of the recently closed warehouse in the center of the map, along with the half dozen cell phone pics their anonymous tipster had sent in to the police hotline, but at Hale’s words, everyone turned to face him.
“What do you mean?” Gage asked with a frown, pausing the briefing he’d been giving on the main entry points to the warehouse the tipster had stated the Balauri were using as their hideout. The same warehouse the SWAT team was planning to raid in less than fifteen minutes.
“I’m not entirely sure,” Hale admitted, wishing he could understand the unfamiliar sensation in his gut telling him this was a really bad idea. “Ijust can’t escape the feeling that someone has been leading us around by the nose all day. That someone wanted us here at this warehouse at this particular time.”
