Okay, handcuffs off. Now how do I break out of the room?

Brett seemed to always hang around Neal and me, so we would include him every so often. When he became creepy, I tended not to invite him along, though.

One weekend, while Neal was in Shialia with Jessica, Brett had showed up at my door with takeout, asking to have dinner with me. Not thinking anything about it, I invited him in. Halfway through dinner, he’d come up with a plan that threw me for a loop.

“Patty, look at this contact I have on the dark web. They need hackers. We can do this together, you and me.” Brett’s face was light with joy, as though he’d found the holy grail of jobs.

I might have done some borderline unethical hacking jobs, but one thing was for sure, I would not work for hire on the dark web. Those jobs entailed working for human traffickers, drug dealers, arms dealers, or the worst of the worst—child pornographers. “Um… I don’t think that is the line of work I want to get into.”

“You don’t understand—we can become incredibly wealthy.” His voice was becoming hostile.

I looked around my penthouse, where we were having lunch, before replying. “Does it look like I need money?” I waved my hands around my seven-thousand-square-foot penthouse that overlooked the ocean. Brett’s face was becoming redder by the minute. I could tell I was making him annoyed, but I couldn’t stop myself. The words flew out, and I didn’t have a net to catch them.

Brett strode up and pounded his fists on the table. “We could be rich together and not have to live on your dad’s money. Let’s start our own hacker business, and we can do so much.”

“Um… no. I think it’s time you leave. I don’t know where you ever got the idea I was into black-market dealings. Please leave.” I was holding my breath, hoping he would just walk to toward the door.

Instead, he walked toward me, grabbed both of my shoulders, and yelled at me: “You don’t have an option!”

I was a split second from dropping the guy like a bad hair color when my front door opened. Neal walked in, which relieved me. “Hey, Patty, where are you?”

Brett half-heartedly dropped his hands and stepped back. “We were talking about a joint venture.”

Ha, this guy must have taken some crack before coming over. “Brett was leaving. See you.”

“I will be in contact.”

He was never in touch with me again because later that day when Neal left, I called a contact at the FBI. They found enough black-market dealings on his computer to lock him away for life. So I didn’t understand what was going on.

The loud yelling on the other side of the phone brought me back to the present. It took me a second to figure out who it was.

“Where is my daughter? I expect answers this second. Do you know who I am?” my father yelled. I assumed he’d waltzed right into Sam’s building and used force to get what he wanted. This got a little interesting. Too bad I don’t have some popcorn to eat while Sam and my dad spar.

“I know who you are, and right now, I don’t give a shit. I have more important things to do—” Sam was cut off by Jessica’s scream.

Jessica must have been in another room when Dad arrived. “Daddy, you’re here. We need to get Patty back. The guy is good, and we can’t find where they have her.”

I could hear Dad grumble in the background. He was arguing with one of his men. I could only guess it was his advisor. “Fine,” he huffed.

“George, pull up the website. Since these men can’t find my daughter, I guess I have to step in and do their job. From what I have on you, Sam, you’re supposed to be one of the best,” my father stated with a little pride in his voice.

“We have her location, sir,” George said to my father.

How the fuck did George have my location? They only showed up ten minutes ago. I had a sick feeling in my stomach. The only way my father would have my location was if he’d had a tracking device implanted in me. If that was true, my father and I were going to have a long talk about invasion of privacy once I got out of there.

“Where is it, Dad? You tell me right now. I want it out—this is not a request. It is a demand. When did you do this?” Jessica yelled at Dad.

I was kind of excited my father had put a tracker on me. I might get to go home intact and not in a body bag. “I understand why you’re mad, sis, but can you guys come get me and then we will yell at Dad? We are close to the two-hour time limit.”

* * *

“I’m on my way, little pixie. I will get you—don’t worry.” Holy shit, we have a location. There was no way I was going alone. This man needed to be put behind bars. Not wanting to let Patty go, I grabbed Neal’s phone from the table and dialed the director of the FBI. They had been looking for this guy for a long time.

Director Charles tried getting me to stand down while they went in and rescued Patty. There was no way I would not be in charge of this op. I was already on my way there and assumed my team was as well. Everyone was probably upset that I’d taken off without a plan, but I didn’t care. All I wanted was Patty back.

I was thirty minutes into the forty-minute drive when I heard Patty’s breath catch. “He’s back, and the phone is dying. I love you, Sam. Please hurry.”

Brock had been working on his computer in the passenger seat of the SUV. “We will get there in time. I’m working on disabling his security on his house since I know the location and his name now. The rest of the team is behind us, along with Patty’s dad. I don’t think King Beckett should have come on the operation to rescue Patty, but he wouldn’t stay back at the office.”

“What happens if we lose her? You heard her—the asshole was back.” My voice was betraying me and cracking.

“Don’t think that way, Sam. We will get her back, and she will be right back to driving us all crazy with her pranks. Let’s talk about strategy for these next ten minutes. It looks like he has her in the basement.”

Fifteen minutes later, we arrived at the front door. John and Dave had the ram in their hands, waiting to break down the front door. With my nod, they had the door down within seconds. Brock and I both had our guns in our hands when we walked into the house.

Brett was wiping the blood from his nose, but he also had an automatic rifle pointed at us. I suspected Patty had done the damage to his nose, and when Brett came upstairs to take care of his bleeding nose, he must have seen us outside. That gave him the time to grab his rifle.

“So the almighty Sam who caught my beautiful girl’s eye is here to save her. Too bad, I already took care of her. You corrupted her, and it was—”

I heard the bullet whistle past my ear, then it hit Brett in the head. He collapsed to the ground with a perfect head shot.

“I sure hate all the show-boating people do,” Patty’s dad stated with no remorse.

“You didn’t need to kill him,” Director Charles said. “I will need to take you into custody.” Clearly, Director Charles didn’t know who the king was.

King Beckett only laughed.

I didn’t care how their conversation ended—I wanted to get to Patty. While running through the house, I found the stairs leading down. I could hear talking coming from inside the room.

“Tell me the account number, and I will let you live,” someone demanded on the other side of the door.

I raised my gun and slowly crept around the door. I could hear Brock behind me. Doug was the last person I’d expected to be part of Patty’s kidnapping.

It sounded like Patty was trying to catch her breath. “Why are you doing this, Doug? Jessica gave you millions.”

When I walked around the corner, Doug had Patty in a chokehold, a knife to her throat. Blood was seeping through her shirt from a cut on her stomach. Brock and I both leveled our guns at Doug. He kept moving with Patty in front of him, and we couldn’t get a good shot.

“You ruined my plans. I’ve known you had an issue with me for years. I remembered you had another hacker friend when you were in college. When I looked him up and noticed you were the one who sent him to jail, I figured I could use him to take you down. I was surprised when he wanted to keep you in his prison and not kill you for sending him to jail. I was all right with that, as long as you were out of my way. Then you went and told Jessica on me before I could get Brett to get rid of you. Sam, drop your weapon, or I will kill Patty. You too, Brock.”

There was no way I was going to drop my weapon. The look in Patty’s eyes was pure anger. She kept looking down, and I couldn’t understand what she wanted. My goal was to keep him talking until he made a mistake, and we could take him out.

“Why don’t you explain how kidnapping Patty was your goal?” I asked, continuing to move closer.

“Stop. I will kill her right now.” Doug pressed the knife into Patty’s neck, causing a trickle of blood to form.

I stopped immediately.

“I wanted her to stop digging. Brett and I would get her to give us access to her accounts, so we could drain them. The goal was to make Brett do everything until today, when he was upset. When you told him you were the one who put him in jail, he lost it and wanted to kill you. I needed the—”

Patty kicked Doug in the balls. He dropped the knife to grab himself, and right away Brock pulled Patty away from where Doug was standing.

I raised my gun to take a clear shot, but Doug came up with a gun at the same time. We both fired. My bullet hit him in the chest. His bullet went toward Patty.

“Get down!” I screamed. It was too late. Brock could not move Patty out of the way fast enough, and the bullet hit her in the side.

I ran to where Patty was and dropped to my knees. Patty was lying in Brock’s arms. Blood was pouring out, and she was losing so much blood. “Come on, Patty—stay with me.”

“I knew you would come… I… don’t… think I will make… love you.” On her last word, she lost consciousness.

“Where in the fuck are the paramedics?”

The paramedics shoved me out of the way while they worked on Patty. When they had the bleeding stopped and patched for transport, they carried her to the ambulance. I went to get in, and they wouldn’t let me.

Someone put a hand on my shoulder, and I turned to find Patty’s dad. “Come on, son, you can ride with me. My Patty is a fighter and will make it through this.” He handed me a handkerchief. I hadn’t even noticed the tears coming down my face.

We had been sitting in the waiting room for three hours, waiting for an update after they took Patty into surgery to repair the damage from the bullet.

I was so caught in a trance thinking about Patty that I missed what her father said. “Sorry, sir, what did you say?”

“Stop with that ‘sir’ shit. You can call me Dad now. I know you love my daughter. It is evident by the way you acted today. What I was saying when you apparently weren’t listening is that you will make a great king one day.” His eyes were twinkling with humor.

I clearly must still be in a fog because I think he told me I would be king one day. “Patty said she passed on the crown.”

The king laughed really hard. “You think you can just pass on the crown? Patty always says she will not take it, but she must. Now she has you. In a few years, I will need you both to move to Shialia and learn what you need. I also expect you to get married there within the year. Here, take this. You will need it.” I looked down at the box William handed me. When I opened the box with a crest on the top, it held a perfect four-carat pink diamond wedding ring.

“I don’t even know where to start. First, we both have lives here and run companies that need our attention.”

“Neal does an excellent job running Black Hat. Everything else can be done remotely, or she can have Bridget help take over. I’ve researched you. You’ve got a good team that can run things. You can remotely run your team from another country. I will have a lot of work for your team. As for your club, you can visit it when you guys come back. The castle you will live in also has an excellent dungeon already in place and everything you need when you are at Shialia.”

Before I had time to digest that this man had just changed the course of my whole life, Patty’s doctors came out.

“Beckett family?” a doctor in green scrubs asked.

I rushed to the physician, not caring that I wasn’t officially family. Patty’s dad was right with me, along with Jessica and Neal. “That’s us. How is she doing? Is she okay?” I asked the doctor before he could ask if I was family.

“It was touch and go for a while. The bullet ricocheted off a bone and punctured her left lung. We patched her lung and stopped the bleeding. With the blood loss, she will be out for a while. If you want, you can go back one at a time.” The doctor nodded toward the nurse who would take us back.

I wanted to see Patty more than anything, but I would wait my turn. Her father must have noticed my internal war, though.

“Son, why don’t you go see our Patty first, and then Jessica and I will go.”

I didn’t wait for him to change his mind. At the door to Patty’s room, the nurse told me Patty would still need help for the next few weeks while she healed.

When I walked into the room, my heart constricted. She looked so vulnerable. Her rainbow-colored hair was spread out over the white pillow. An intubation tube was down her throat to help her breathe, and an IV was in her right arm. Under an old tube TV on the wall, a few machines were making a low beeping noise. A light glow from the moon was shining into the room.

I sat in the white plastic chair next to the bed. I grasped her cold hand and rested my head against the side of the bed, praying she would wake soon.