The Tycoon’s Secret(9)

“Just put it away. I’ll look later,” Douglas snapped.

“Wait,” Damien interrupted, both men’s eyes turning in his direction as he strode over to them. “I want to see.”

“It’s got nothing to do with you,” Douglas said, his face flushing.

“Considering it’s a threat against my newest employee, I’d say it has a lot to do with me,” Damien countered, not backing down.

The security man looked from his boss to Damien, and then back again. He obviously didn’t know what to do. He didn’t want to defy his boss, but Damien’s confident demeanor was hard to ignore.

“Whatever!” Douglas snapped, turning away with a wave of his hand.

The obviously relieved security man handed the envelope to Damien before stepping back. Damien walked to the couch and sat down, pulling out the contents of the envelope. His stomach dropped at what he saw.

“How long?”

“How long, what?” Douglas snapped.

“How long have these been coming in?” Damien growled, his patience gone.

“Oh, who knows? Months? Years? I’ve lost count,” he said while dismissively waving his hand again, as if it didn’t matter in the least.

“Are you telling me that your daughter has been getting death threats, and you don’t think that’s worthy of your attention?” Damien asked, his voice deceptively soft, not alerting the man to the danger he was in.

“You know how it is when you’re wealthy – people send all kinds of crap. It doesn’t mean anything,” Douglas replied, brushing the matter under the rug.

Damien looked again at the picture, a close up shot of Sierra. There were holes poked through the photo and fake blood smeared on the image with a message that read, “just a picture of what you’ll look like when I’m finished with you.”

“This isn’t something to be taken lightly. She should have twenty-four hour supervision on her,” Damien snapped.

“Well, it looks like you’ll be handling that, now, doesn’t it?” Douglas snapped back. The two men glared at each other for several strained moments.

“Apparently in the nick of time, too,” Damien goaded, knowing his words would upset Douglas.

“I could call this whole thing off…” Douglas threatened, to which Damien just smiled. He knew a false threat when he heard one. Douglas was the one who’d called him. Damien really had nothing to lose, other than curiosity and some strange need to solve the puzzle of Sierra Monroe.

“Go ahead.” Damien had zero concerns about calling the man’s bluff.

Douglas glared at him for a moment longer, before he mumbled something and then resumed pacing across the room, once again looking to the door.

Damien returned to the sofa and sat quietly, his eyes blank as he thought about the situation. Maybe this deal was all more than he wanted to get involved in. Was one woman worth all the trouble? He had an agenda to follow through on, a tightly controlled schedule to meet. Having Sierra around would break the ice with her best friend, Brianne, which in turn would make it easier for him to get closer to Joseph and George Anderson, the men who’d killed his father, Neilson, when Damien was only a baby, but he could do that on his own.

At the thought of the men who’d destroyed his life before he’d even said his first words, rage shot through him. Any time he thought of those men, he remembered why he was so dead set on revenge. He’d lost the opportunity of a normal life, with two loving parents, because they’d stripped his father of his pride, and robbed his mother of every dime.

He’d come too far to change plans now. He was so close to exacting his retribution, and he couldn’t start feeling sorry for Sierra. His father deserved retribution for what those lying thieves had done. Sierra was just another tool – and a minor curiosity – nothing more.



∞∞∞



Sierra stood outside her father’s study and took a few steadying breaths. She was nervous and didn’t want to open the door. She still had no clue why her dad wanted to see her, but his formal summons were never good.

With fear practically dripping from her, she slowly pushed the door open and stepped inside the dreadful room. So many horrible events had happened in there. It was the first place he’d backhanded her, causing her to fall to the floor and nearly pass out. She’d worn a bruise on her cheek for over a week.

He’d kept her from school, telling them she’d come down with a nasty flu and he’d make sure homework was done before she came back. He’d threatened even worse punishment if she were to ever tell anyone about the abuse.