The younger security guard escorted Hawk as he walked steadily to his private elevator, unlocked it, got on, and watchedthe doors close him in and the security guard out on the other side. Hawk was looking his normal cool and collected self as that guard watched the doors close the big boss inside.
But as soon as those doors closed, Hawk leaned his head back in agony, devastated that a young man had to lose his life over such an artificial thing as fame, as he made his way to the top of his own mountain. He got to live at the top, while that young man died trying to just get a taste of it.
It was a brutal business and he knew it. It wasn’t for the faint of heart. But even Hawk was finding it hard to swallow too.
CHAPTER FIVE
Later that night at home, just after he grabbed himself a tall vodka and made his way across the living room to his home office to get more work done, his security alarm buzzed. The only people with his gate code were his family members. But all of them were in Tennessee. And his best friend and the CEO of his company Shelton Dobson. But Shelly was still in the hospital.
But when he pulled up his security monitors on his desk computer and saw a Mercedes driving through his electronic gate, he had no idea who that could be.
He grabbed his loaded J-frame pistol out of his desk drawer, got up, and walked around the circular corridor that led to his front door. In a pair of bike shorts and a jersey, he wasn’t expecting any company of any kind. And especially not some mystery guest.
By the time he opened his door, the Mercedes had stopped near his front entrance, a young lady had gotten out of the front passenger seat, and then she hurried to the back passenger door and opened it. Hawk didn’t recognize her at all, and she looked too young to be somebody’s bodyguard. But who was she? And more importantly, for whom was she opening that door?
But when the passenger stepped out, Hawk knew exactly who had disturbed his peace. He was floored. “Mother?” he blurted out in disbelief.
But it was true. Reecie Webster had stepped out of that car like a woman on a mission. “Come inside with me,” sheuttered to Janita as she stepped out, and Janita quickly closed the door and followed her.
Janita’s company,Cooper Security, provided bodyguard and driver services in general, but specifically for William Webster’s wife. And on the spur of the moment, Mrs. Webster decided she needed to go and see about her oldest child.
But her oldest child was perplexed as hell. His mother rarely ever flew all the way to California to come see him. And at night? What was that about? His mind immediately went dark. Did something happen to his father? Were his siblings alright???
He leaned behind his front door, placed his gun inside one of the drawers of the Queen Anne desk inside his foyer, and then stood back upright at his front door as his mother was making her way up to him. Always overdressed in her fur coat and heels, she was also always a beautiful sight to behold to Hawk. But a worrisome sight too. “Mother, what’s wrong?” he asked her. “What are you doing here?”
“Am I not entitled to check on my oldest son?”
“Is Father alright?”
Reecie stopped and looked at him. “Yes, your father’s alright. And I am too, Hawthorne” she added.
Hawk smiled. “I didn’t mean it like that,” he said as she offered her cheek and he kissed it. “How are you, Mother?”
“How areyouis the question,” Reecie said. “But that’s none of my business, right? My oldest child has made his life none of my business,” she said, and then made her way, without invitation, into his home.
Janita didn’t know what she should do. Mrs. Webster told her to come inside with her, but that wasn’t Mrs. Webster’s home. It was her son’s home. A son Janita did not know. A son whose attention had turned away from his mother, to her. Andhis piercing deep-brown eyes were so intimidating that her heart began to pound.
She’d heard tons about Hawk Webster and how he left Brackenridge and the Webster maple syrup fortune to make his own fortune as a music mogul. But she’d never seen him in person before. It was very unnerving. All she could think to do was smile as she walked up to him, and extend her hand. “Hi, I’m Janita Cooper.”
He shook her hand, but still looked perplexed. “And you’re what to my mother exactly?”
“I’m her---”
“Assistant!” Reecie yelled out from inside his home. “She’s my assistant. So stop interrogating her and let her in.”
Why would her assistant need to be there at all, Hawk wondered as he stepped aside and allowed Janita passage through. But as she passed him, and as her much-lighter brown eyes bore into his eyes, something remarkable happened. He felt such a jolt inside of him that it caused him to literally take a step backwards.What the fuck? He didn’t know what that was. He didn’t know where it came from. But it was undeniable.
Janita was too nervous about the entire trip to feel any kind of jolts. Mrs. Webster called her ten at night Tennessee time (eight at night Los Angeles time), and ordered her to come pick her up for the airport. Her reason? She had to make a “quick” run and she wanted Janita, as her contracted bodyguard, to go with her.
It would be Janita’s first plane ride ever because she was afraid to fly and told Mrs. Webster when she discovered it was not going to be an in-town job. But her employer brushed her very legitimate concern aside, insisted that a fear of flying was nonsense because planes were safer than cars, and she instructed DeVontay to take her to the airport.
Janita and her baby brother DeVontay “Von” Cooper, the sum total of Cooper Security, had no alternative but to hop into their company’s only vehicle, an Infiniti QX80, and hurry to the Webster mansion. And then they drove Mrs. Webster to the airport where one of her husband’s corporate jets was waiting to fly her to wherever she needed to go. Von was told to remain in Brackenridge. A driver wasn’t needed since she used a twenty-four-hour luxury car service whenever she went to L.A. But Janita was ordered to fly with the boss.
It was a four-hour trip from hell as far as Janita was concerned, although it was a very smooth, comfortable flight. But during the entire flight, Janita noticed that Mrs. Webster, who was seated directly in front of her, facing her, seemed as if she was in a deep depression. A generally cheerful woman, she just seemed so sad.
So much so that Janita was concerned. And she couldn’t help herself. She leaned forward so that the flight crew couldn’t hear her. “Are you okay, Mrs. Webster?” she asked her.
Reecie looked at the young woman in front of her as the private jet veered on a comfortable course to California. At first, she just stared at her. Janita wondered if she was going to scold her for asking her what some would consider a personal question.
