Owned (Office Intrigue Book 8) Nicole Edwards (classic english novels TXT) 📖

on my sister’s privacy. But in times like this, I found myself desperate. My sister meant the world to me, and keeping her safe was my priority. In fact, it had been my only goal since pretty much the day she was born. Being that I was eleven years older, by the time she took her first breath, I’d been up to speed on my family’s business, knew that my mother was a monster and my father the devil. Worse, I’d realized they were proud of who they were, living their lives to induce fear into many.

To hear my father tell the story, he was a direct descendent of the Capones, although I’d never found any evidence of that. Regardless, Frank Bianchi had built an empire by running drugs, guns, and women, as well as offering “protection” to those who unwillingly paid him to do so. Frank had no scruples whatsoever, but Marie was something else. She was a sadistic, sociopathic bitch. Somehow I’d managed to overlook her merciless actions, right up until she decided she would give my then nine-year-old sister to the man they were promoting to underboss: Jimmy “Kill Switch” Romano.

Nine fucking years old, for fuck’s sake. Just a fucking baby.

Ultimately, they’d left me no choice. In an effort to protect my sister from the asshole who had no qualms taking a child as a bride, I’d disappeared with her. Fifteen years ago, Salvatore and Teresa Bianchi, the children of Frank and Marie Bianchi, had ceased to exist, emerging as Ransom and Braelyn Bishop. At twenty, I’d become Braelyn’s guardian, and I’d done my level best to erase the violence of our past from her mind, to give her a life worth living. It hadn’t been easy raising a child when I’d had so little life experience myself, but I liked to think I’d done a relatively decent job.

For years my parents and their unscrupulous right-hand had looked high and low for us, and we’d been right under their noses all along. As the years went by, their efforts dwindled. We probably would’ve stayed safe if it weren’t for my need to help those I considered friends. Because of a favor I’d called in for Ian and Isaac Stokes, I’d managed to bring the heat down on me and my sister after all these years of hiding in plain sight.

Although it pissed me off beyond measure to be in the predicament I was in, I only had myself to blame. Yep. My do-gooder attitude had drawn attention to me when I would’ve been better off keeping on the DL.

Not that I was all that worried about my own well-being. I could hold my own, but if my parents did find me, I deserved whatever hell they wanted to rain down. However, my sister was a different matter. Braelyn did not deserve this, and now I had to find a way to fix what I’d started.

It would be ideal for me to disappear Braelyn for a little while, send her somewhere she’d be safe from the long reach of our family. Just long enough for me to redirect their efforts elsewhere, for those seeking me to believe I wasn’t as close as I was. Which meant I had to ask the one man on the planet I’d prefer not to be indebted to for a favor. A fucking huge favor.

Tomorrow.

Tomorrow morning I would ask Talon for something that would have me indebted to him for life, because the man did not do anything for free.

But if it meant saving Braelyn, it would be worth it. No matter the cost.

TWO

Thursday, December 31, 2020

RANSOM

The following morning, at precisely 6:25 a.m., I was pacing the floor in Talon’s Chicago high-rise office, waiting for the man to extricate himself from a meeting.

I was here at the offices of Owned, Incorporated without being on the schedule—or so I’d been not-so-kindly informed by the woman at the reception desk. Never mind the fact Talon was expecting me. Evidently, if it wasn’t on the calendar, it never happened.

There for a second, I’d thought the receptionist/drill sergeant with the platinum wig and polyester suit was going to tackle me to the floor and drag me back to the elevator by my hair. At the very least, I’d figured she would call security. Thankfully, she’d made a call and gotten approval for me to be here. Or so I assumed since she’d left my hair in place and led the way to this lavish office, allowing me to wait in here without those beady eyes scrutinizing my every move.

Teach me to be early.

Then again, it was a wonder I’d waited this long. Ever since I woke up this morning—after four fitful hours of sleep—I’d been antsy, something I was not familiar with and didn’t much care for. What I wanted to do was storm the door of the room Talon was in and insist he speak to me now. Considering it truly was a matter of life or death, I figured he might listen to reason.

However, I was not that man. I did not let emotion rule my actions—not hastily, anyway. I hadn’t since the night I fled with my sister, and I damn sure did not intend to start now.

Thankfully, I only had to rap my fingertips on the upholstered arm of this overpriced chair for ten minutes before the door opened and Talon strolled in, looking right at home in his five-thousand-dollar bespoke suit and silk tie.

The man was an imposing figure. Topping out at six feet eight inches with a long, rangy body that was chiseled to perfection—not too skinny, not too bulky—jet-black hair sporting a two-hundred-dollar cut, styled with care and precision, Talon drew attention when he walked into a room. Hands down the best dressed man I knew, along with an angular, clean-shaven face and keen eyes the color of cold, hard steel, his presence was impossible to ignore.

No one knew much about Talon’s heritage because he didn’t share that sort