Marriage of Inconvenience(Knitting in the City Book #7)(152)

“No. You can’t be arrested for self-dealing.” Greg, Fiona’s husband, cut in. He must’ve been listening to the conversation. “Sorry to butt in, but CEOs self-dealing is not illegal. It happens all the time.”

“But isn’t he defrauding shareholders?” Fiona asked her husband. “Isn’t he committing fraud?”

“Not technically,” Greg answered. “Actually, not unless you can prove that he falsified reports to the board.”

I rubbed my forehead. “We can talk about this later. Quinn, you need to call Stan. Text me when you know anything.”

“I will,” he promised.

“Let me get Janie,” I heard Alex say.

A swelling of frustration made my throat tight and uncomfortable. My gut told me Caleb was behind Dan’s kidnapping. My mind began playing through scenarios, bargaining with an imaginary Caleb.

Maybe if I willingly divorced Dan and signed over guardianship to my cousin, he’d let Dan go.

Or maybe if I could find evidence that Caleb falsified reports to the board, he’d let Dan go.

Or maybe if I find Caleb, tie him up, and threaten to tweeze all of his body hair—one hair at a time—he’d let Dan go.

“Kat.” Quinn’s voice cut through my sadistic reflections.

“Yes?”

He paused, as though considering his words. When he spoke, his voice was deep and his tone was stark, “Dan is family to me. He’s my brother. Nothing is going to happen to him.”

I closed my eyes, nodding, wanting desperately to believe him.

But if Caleb had Dan, there was nothing Quinn or I or anyone else could do to keep him safe.





Chapter Twenty-Nine





Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act: Law passed by US Congress in 2003 which makes it illegal for the US government/Medicare to negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies.





—Congress.gov





**Dan**





Turns out getting tased doesn’t make you shit your pants. At least, Mark didn’t shit his pants when I tased him.

Regardless, he was still pissed at me.

Long story short, as they marched me to their SUV in the parking garage of Caravel Pharmaceuticals, I tried to give them the slip. I failed, but Mark got tased, Conner earned himself three loose teeth, John was going to have a new scar above his right eye, but Ricky walked away without a scratch.

The big guy had been the one to finally subdue, cuff, duct tape, and carry me to the car. And so here we were, at some piece of shit warehouse turned man cave, twelve hours later. No sign of my brother, yet.

“He’s on his way. Should be here soon.” Ricky was trying to feed me pancakes. “And remember, when he gets here, you need to act like we’ve knocked you out, like you’re passed out.”

I didn’t want pancakes and I definitely didn’t want someone spoon-feeding me pancakes while my hands were cuffed behind my back, my arms were duct-taped to my sides, and my ankles were zip-tied to a metal chair, unless that someone was Kat, we were both naked, and it was her kink.

So I glared at nothing, keeping my mouth shut, and thought about Kat (and kink).

“Come on. Eat. They’re good. I know you like pancakes,” Ricky poked at my lips with the fork, so I murdered him with my eyes.

He sighed, like he was disappointed, and sat back in his chair. “You gotta eat.”

“You know who made good pancakes?” Conner asked this from his place on a ratty old orange couch. He hadn’t wanted pancakes either on account of his loose teeth.

“Who?” John looked up from his breakfast through his left eye, his right eye now swollen completely shut.

“Paul the Plum.”

“Why do they call him Paul the Plum?” Ricky asked, finally letting the fork drop away from my mouth.

I tried to zone them out, and it was easy whenever I remembered the sight of Kat on that desk, wearing those stockings, her underwear in my pocket, her legs spread, her fingers in my hair. . .

But then I’d get a hard-on, and I’d have to push the images from my mind lest Ricky think my stiffy had anything to do with his fork of pancakes.

Conner took a drag from his cigarette, squinting as the smoke drifted past his eyes. “The only way he could cum was from a Lucky Stranger.”

I’d had a lot of time to think about Kat—her smile, her laugh, her bossiness, her starched shirts—and I’d had a lot of time to think about what an idiot I’d been to believe I was in limbo, to believe I didn’t love her.

Such an idiot.

And this was my penance, sitting here with these fuckwits listening to their dumbfuck conversations about shit that didn’t matter.

“What? What’s that?” John’s left eye swiveled between me and Conner, like I would fucking know what a Lucky Stranger was.