“Okay,” Khloe slowly said.“But you have to promise to be careful and call the moment you get Dad and Rhett safely out of this mess.”
Katrina promised she would, though Darwin wasn’t sure it was going to be that easy.But if it got them moving, he was all for it.As it was, it might already be too late.
“Where’d you get the gun?”Katrina asked softly as she hurried down the hallway beside him, moving shockingly fast considering the dress and heels.
“I stopped by the shooting range and asked to borrow it,” Darwin said, slowing to hit the button for the elevator.
“Just like that?”she asked, clearly shocked.“Hey, can I borrow a gun from you for the wedding?I promise to bring it back.”
“Pretty much.”He flashed her a grin as they stepped into the elevator.“I don’t know why you’re surprised.I’m really very likable that way.”
Before Katrina could say anything, the sound of two people running down the hallway toward them distracted her.Darwin instinctively reached for the gun at his back, only to relax when he saw it was Asher and Upton, both of them dressed in their tuxes.
“Where are you two running off to in such a hurry?”Darwin asked, reaching out to keep the elevator doors from closing.
“I could ask the two of you the same thing,” Asher said, moving into the elevator and then making way for Upton, who couldn’t seem to figure out if he was happy to see Katrina or leery to be in the same elevator as Darwin.
“We’re heading down to the pressing shed,” Katrina announced, poking urgently at the button for the lobby.“Rhett and my father are supposed to be down there.They’re not answering their phones, and we’re worried something is wrong.”
“I guess we’re going to the same place then,” Asher said.“We expected Jameson to join us in my suite an hour ago to get ready for the wedding, but he’s been a no-show.We couldn’t reach him on the phone either, so we decided to go look for him.”
“Are you worried about your father because of that dead guy they found earlier?”Upton asked softly as the elevator door opened and they all stepped into the atrium.
Darwin and Katrina gave the two men a quick synopsis of what was happening with Chapman and the missing Genesis weapon.Even without mentioning exactly what kind of weapon they were talking about, Asher and Upton both seemed to recognize the gravity of the situation because they started walking faster.
Katrina used the family name to get them onto the first golf cart they saw when they stepped outside.Darwin drove as fast as he could on the dark, curvy lanes through the vineyard, which wasn’t very fast.It was a golf cart, after all.
“Why would your father hold a meeting out here when there are plenty of conference rooms in the resort?”Upton wondered from the back seat of the cart.
“He probably didn’t want anyone overhearing anything,” Katrina said.“Which makes sense, considering they’re probably talking about stuff that could get them put in prison.”
“Is it really that bad?”Upton asked, his voice full of dismay.“Surely, your father wouldn’t be involved in something that could hurt the family, right?”
“He would, and he is,” Katrina said.“Not because he’s stupid, but because he simply can’t imagine a world where he’s not in control of the situation, and manipulate people and events to get exactly what he wants.The fact that this may be a lose-lose scenario has never entered his mind.”
That put a damper on any further conversation, and Darwin found his attention turning to the sky around them as he drove.He didn’t want to think they had anything to worry about, but the damn weaponwasmissing, after all.
“What are you looking for?”Katrina asked, leaning forward a little to track where he was looking.“I’m pretty sure Dad isn’t out there in the grape fields.”
Darwin didn’t answer right away, not sure he wanted to alarm anyone, especially Katrina.
“Okay.Now, you’re really starting to scare me, Darwin,” she said.
He glanced at her.“That weapon your father and brother were funding that went missing is an assassination drone, and while I don’t expect it to show up here, if it does, we’re totally screwed.”
Katrina’s eyes went wide, and she opened her mouth to say something, but that was the exact moment they arrived at the pressing shed, and sliding to a stop in front of the building was enough of a distraction to make her forget the question in the rush to get out of the cart and inside the building.
She led the way across the first floor and all its fancy winery equipment to the steps leading upstairs.Darwin picked up the sound of murmured voices coming from above them when they were halfway up, and he quickly moved ahead of her to open the door of the second-floor conference room before she could, not sure what they were going to find.
The room was immense, with a huge table occupying the center of it, and a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the grape-covered trellises of the vineyard.
Jameson surged to his feet, almost knocking over his chair, glowering at Darwin.“What’s the meaning of this?”
Rhett was seated to the right of his father, while Silas sat on Jameson’s left, a stack of papers in front of him.That wasn’t surprising.Kyla had mentioned Silas picked up Chapman at the airport, so the man was up to his neck in this mess.
While Darwin wasn’t stunned to see Silas, he did a double-take when he saw the other man making up their little group.
“Seth?”Darwin said in surprise.“What the hell are you doing here?More importantly, how the hell are you here?I drove up straight from the airfield on Coronado, and even after breaking every speed limit law along the way, I still just got here.”
