Chapter 13: Alive

Preston's POV

Four hundred and ten.

She had said it twice in my study.

The second time she had said it louder than she needed to, toward her own coat pocket.

I understood a moment too late that it was not a taunt. It was a signal.

Downstairs the front door slammed against the wall.

Boots crossed my marble hall, and a man shouted, "Police! Stay where you are!"

My two men looked at me.

I had planned for a woman who would come home crying and sign. I had not planned for police.

"Let him go," I said.

The man holding Jasper Holt's arm opened his hand.

Holt swayed and caught the edge of my desk.

Imogen slid her shoulder under his arm without once looking at me.

Two uniformed officers came through the door, and behind them came a tall man in a gray suit with a phone held up.

The screen showed a call that was still open.

"Mr. Ames," the first officer said. "We have a report that a man is being held against his will in this house."

"There has been a misunderstanding," my lawyer said.

The officer turned to Holt.

"Sir, is that right?"

Holt wiped blood off his lip with the back of his wrist.

"Two men took me off a public road this morning," he said. "They tied me to a chair in a concrete room under this house. I want to press charges."

"He's confused," I said. "He's her bodyguard. He attacked my men."

"Then you can tell it at the station," the officer said.

They put my two men against the wall and turned out their pockets.

One of them had my garage keycard.

Imogen stopped in the doorway.

She had her hand on Holt's back, and her chin was up, and she looked at me for the first time without asking me for anything.

Keep reading free with an account. Start He Chose Her, So I Faked My Death from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.