Page 66 of Bought

I leashed my fury hard because that could keep. There was something more, I could see it in his face. “What else?”

“She’s been communicating with the Hamiltons,” Caleb said. “I saw the texts on her phone. The reason she evaded my security on Friday was that she was going to meet a Hamilton contact at the carousel in Central Park.”

Fear coiled like ice through my veins. The urge to lash out, to break something was nearly overwhelming, so I turned and strode to the windows instead, staring out at the city laid before me as I tried to get a handle on myself.

“She didn’t meet with them,” Caleb went on in a flat voice. “I made sure she didn’t.”

I stared hard at the city through the glass. “Did she say what they wanted?”

“I haven’t spoken to her yet. I locked her in my fucking apartment all weekend so I could deal with the fallout and arrange some better security.” He paused. “I thought you’d want to speak to her first.”

I should speak to her, and I knew it. But I didn’t trust myself. Bitter anger ate away at me, at Isabel for not listening and the stupidity of her escaping the measures I’d put in place to keep her safe. But mostly I was furious with myself.

Because part of me knew exactly why she wanted to contact the Hamiltons, part of me knew very well. She wanted to know about her mother, about my Juliana, and I couldn’t blame her for that, because the reason she didn’t about her know was me.

I never talked about Juliana. Never. And after her death, after the Hamiltons tried to take Isabel away from me, I thought that not talking about her, not even mentioning her name was for the best. I didn’t want Isabel thinking about her or the Hamiltons, thinking they were the good guys, that they were people worth knowing. They were the enemy. They’d tried to control Juliana since the day she was born, and it was only down to her stubborn strength and rebellious spirit that they hadn’t broken her.

I wouldn’t let them break Isabel.

But my daughter was as stubborn, determined, and rebellious as her mother, so I wasn’t surprised that now she was an adult, she’d go looking for the only family she had.

Caleb had always told me I held her too tightly. He was right.

You shouldn’t have kept Juliana for yourself. You should have talked to Isabel about her.

I should have. But I hadn’t. And now I had to deal with the fallout.

“Don’t worry,” Caleb said. “I’m going to find out what they’re up to. The texts on Isabel’s phone are just about meeting places, times and dates, nothing further, and I’m pretty sure she doesn’t know herself. But I have a few contacts I can hit up.”

I fixated on a building across the street where a man was currently chatting with a young woman. “You were supposed to keep her safe,” I gritted out.

“Take it down a notch, Ten,” Atlas murmured, not helping the situation.

“Yeah, I was.” Caleb’s voice was uncompromising. He’d be as angry with himself as I was with him. “And her evading my security is on me. It won’t happen again.”

I turned around to tell him he was damn right it wouldn’t happen again, when the doors of his office were suddenly flung open and Isabel was standing there, her red hair in a halo around her flushed face, green eyes spitting sparks.

It was obvious she was furious and just as obvious from the way her gaze went from Caleb to me then Atlas that she hadn’t been expecting either me or Atlas to be here.

“Ah, Isabel. Just the person we want to see,” Caleb said expressionlessly.

She didn’t look at him, staring at me instead, the sparks in her eyes draining away to be replaced by shock. “Um…hi,” she said hesitantly. “S-sorry, I didn’t know—”

“It doesn’t matter.” I stared at her coldly since she was here now so we might as well have our little chat. “Caleb told me what happened on Friday night.”

She swallowed. “About the…. uh….about the….”

“About you somehow escaping your detail. He found you in a bar in the Village. You were by yourself, apparently with plans to…” A muscle in the side of my jaw jumped as the fury inside me reignited. “Meet some person at the carousel.”

“If you two want some privacy,” Atlas began.

But I ignored him. “What the fuck were you thinking, Isabel?”

And just like that, the green sparks of temper leapt in her eyes again. “I was trying to find out just a little something about my mother,” she said hotly. “Oddly enough, I don’t know a single thing about her, because you tell me jack shit.”

My hands clenched into fists at my sides. It didn’t help that what she was saying was exactly what I’d thought it would be. “So, you thought that meeting some complete stranger, on your own was—”

“You can’t even say her name!” she shouted suddenly, already halfway across the room toward me. “Her name was Juliana Hamilton, Dad. Say it!”