Ms. CEO's Baby Daddy Is the Merchant of Death novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Keep Him Close

Yvette hires the man calling himself Abe Abbott as her personal driver, sees how fast he loses a tail and what's under his seat, and watches him flee at the sight of the investor on her porch.

At seven the next morning I called Boyle Freight.

A man answered on the first ring, chewing something.

"Boyle."

"This is Yvette Langford, from Langford Home. One of your drivers was at our Goose Island dock yesterday."

"If this is about the bumper, the bumper's fine."

"It's about the driver. Abe Abbott. I want to hire him."

There was a long pause, and the chewing stopped.

"Hire him for what, Ms. Langford?"

"My personal driver quit last month. I need a new one, starting today."

"He drives a semi."

"Then my Audi should be easy."

Another pause.

"I'll bring him myself," the man said, and hung up.

I had not slept.

At five I had written one page by hand, sealed it and put it in the envelope for my lawyer.

It said who Finn's father was, to be opened if anything happened to me.

Then I'd made coffee and found Boyle Freight's number on the side of a truck in a photo on my phone.

I could call the police.

I could call a lawyer.

Or I could keep a man where I could see him, every day, until I knew why he was on my dock.

At eight-thirty a pickup with BOYLE FREIGHT on the door pulled into my office garage.

The man who got out of the driver's side was sixty if he was a day.

He was built like a mailbox, with a white crew cut and reading glasses on a cord.

He shook my hand.

"Hank Boyle. This one's yours."

Abe got out of the passenger side.

He'd shaved.

He was in a dark jacket and a plain white shirt.

He looked like a man who had been told to dress up and had done it under protest.

"Ms. Langford," he said.

"Mr. Abbott."

Hank looked between us and took his glasses off.

"He's the best driver I've got," he said. "Don't let him play the radio."

"Why not?"

"He likes polka."

Abe closed his eyes for one second.

"I don't like polka."

"He knows every word to the 'Beer Barrel Polka,'" Hank told me. "Ask him."

I didn't laugh, because I was trying to stay angry.

It was close.

Hank put his glasses back on, looked at me over them, and got back in his truck.

"Bring him back in one piece," he said through the window, and I wasn't sure which of us he was talking to.

I took Abe up to the lobby to get him a badge.

My cousin Brooke was at the front desk in cream cashmere, with her phone already up.

Brooke was our CFO.

She had wanted my chair since my father put me in it.

"Oh, Yvette," she said, loud enough for the receptionist. "You hired a trucker?"

"I hired a driver."

"He's very big." She looked Abe up and down like he was a sofa on sale. "Does he come with assembly instructions?"

Abe looked at her.

"Ma'am," he said.

"It's Ms. Langford."

"There's two of you," he said. "I'll call you the other one."

The receptionist made a noise into her coffee.

Brooke's smile went thin.

"The board meets Monday, cousin," she said to me. "Maybe have your new friend drive you somewhere quiet to think about it."

She walked off on her heels.

Abe watched her go.

"Family?"

"Unfortunately."

My Audi was black, and he drove it like he'd built it.

He took Lake Shore Drive with one hand on the wheel and his eyes on every mirror.

Three blocks from my bank, he said, "Don't turn around."

"Why would I turn around?"

"Black SUV. It's been on us since your garage."

I looked in the side mirror.

A black SUV sat two cars back, tinted all the way.

"It could be anyone."

"It isn't."

He changed lanes without signaling and cut straight through a gas station.

Then he went the wrong way down an alley and came out on Wacker going the other direction.

My coffee ended up in my lap.

The SUV was gone.

I stared at him.

"Where did a truck driver learn to do that?"

"Chicago traffic," he said.

The car went over a pothole and something slid out from under his seat and hit my shoe.

It was a black pistol.

We both looked down at it.

He reached across, picked it up and put it back under the seat without a word.

"That," I said, "is not Chicago traffic."

"It's a rough neighborhood near Hank's yard."

"You're lying to me."

He kept his eyes on the road.

"Yes, ma'am."

He didn't even pretend.

That was almost worse.

I made it through the bank, two calls with lawyers and a lunch I didn't eat.

At six he drove me home to Evanston.

My street was quiet and gold, with leaves in the gutters.

There was a silver Mercedes in my driveway.

And on my porch, under the light, stood a tall man in a navy suit with a bunch of white peonies.

Russell Mallory, the investor who was offering forty million dollars to keep my father's company alive.

I'd forgotten he was coming to dinner.

Abe saw him through the windshield.

All the color left his face.

He stopped the car at the curb, three houses short of mine.

"Get out here," he said.

"What?"

"Please."

He had never said please to me.

I got out.

He pulled away before my door was all the way shut, and he didn't look back.

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