Un-Kidnap Me Billionaire Alpha Age Gap Romance - Hazel Parker Page 0,1

one of the easiest gigs in the business. Bust in, break some necks—or knock some assholes out, depending on who was behind it all—rescue girl, tell her to shut the hell up as you got her to safety, reunite her with someone, collect payment, disappear into the woods with a healthier bank account and into a world without internet or TV.

The Charlestons could have all the fucking TV shows they wanted. I only knew of them because Liam, an associate of mine, had once cracked a joke about which families would pay the most to rescue their daughters. I couldn’t tell you what channel their show was on.

I read the letter one last time, taking special note of Mother Charleston’s phone number at the bottom. Once I had it committed to memory, I flicked the letter into the fireplace, any evidence of our correspondence erased. I had the memory of an elephant, so I did not need a fucking letter that could compromise my existence for me to remember everything.

Damn shame I had to burn the photo, though. Girl was smoking hot. But “luckily” for me, I would get to see her in person.

Rule three, Scott.

I went down to a secret basement behind one of the bookshelves in the house, found one of the various burner phones we had, dialed Mother Charleston’s phone number without hesitation, and went through a gate that led to a small beach. No one ever came to this beach, and even if someone accidentally stumbled onto it, they’d have to go through an awful lot of shit to reach me.

“Hello? Who is this? What do you want?”

Mother Charleston answered the phone in such hysterics, I wondered if she’d spoken to Daughter Charleston’s captives just before me.

“This is Scott from DOM,” I said, my voice calm, cool, and even. “I received your letter.”

“Scott!” she said, screaming.

The screaming was not hyperbole. It seemed so over-the-top as to be scripted, almost fake. I seethed at the thought that she might be recording this for her TV show, but fortunately, I had an app that distorted my voice, and the burner phone would never trace back to me.

“Scott, oh, thank heavens, oh, thank God, I was so concerned—”

“Let me go over some ground rules before we continue,” I said. To her, my voice probably sounded like James Earl Jones. To me, it sounded normal. But to both of us, it was firmly in control. “If you are recording this, if you make mention of my services to anyone, there will be dire consequences. No one is to know of this attempt, no one is to know of this job, and no one—not your parents, not your other kids, not any other loved ones—are to know of this. As far as you are concerned, this phone call never happened.”

“I…hold on.”

I waited somewhat impatiently as I heard Mother Charleston shouting some things in the background. I supposed even reality TV stars had a limit on how much they wanted cameras in their life. It was of some small solace that she cared more about her daughter than recording the rescue.

Well, somewhat. She probably would have kept the cameras recording if I hadn’t said anything.

“I agree to everything you said, Scott,” she said.

“Good. Tell me everything that you know. Spare nothing here, but share nothing after we hang up.”

I heard Mother Charleston take a deep breath. The woman probably hadn’t had someone boss her around like this in quite some time.

That was the perks of not existing, not officially, at least. I didn’t give a flying fuck who someone was in the “real world” because I wasn’t a part of that. I could tell powerful people to fuck off and rich people to do as I said.

“Kaylie went on vacation to the Cayman Islands about two weeks ago, and obviously, she never came home,” she said. “Near the end of the vacation, her friends woke up one morning and realized she wasn’t there. At first, they said they didn’t panic because they assumed she and her boyfriend had gone off somewhere. But that didn’t sit right with me; Kaylie’s a good girl, and she wouldn’t…”

I started to tune out Mother Charleston and rolled my eyes at that notion. For as perky and hot as that young gal was? There was no fucking way she was a “good girl.” She might have given a fucking good time—one that, if not for rule three, I wouldn’t have minded enjoying—but the word that followed “good”