POV Owen
"Find out who's behind the shooting." Michael's voice cuts through his office like a blade looking for something to slice.
We're back at the estate, and the entire place has transformed into a fortress that would make Pentagon security look casual.
I've seen war zones with less paranoia than what's happening right now.
The whole ride back, all I could think about was that rear window exploding like a fucking champagne bottle.
The way Noelle's face went ghost-white when bullets started flying. How impossibly small she looked curled up on the floorboard, shaking like she was having hypothermia in summer.
And I'll be lying through my teeth if I said I wasn't rattled too.
Someone tried to kill us tonight. Someone with enough balls or stupidity to open fire in downtown traffic, which means they're either completely unhinged or completely desperate.
Probably both. Those are usually the most dangerous combinations.
Martinez, one of the security guys, appears with a bag of Chinese takeout for Noelle, who's been camped in the living room staring at absolutely nothing for the past hour.
She hasn't said a word since we got home. Just keeps running her fingers over this tiny cut on her hand from the glass, like she's trying to convince herself it actually happened.
"Is she eating?" I ask Martinez.
"Won't touch it. Keeps asking if you're okay though."
That hits me somewhere I wasn't expecting.
In the middle of her own trauma, she's worried about my wellbeing. Like I'm the one who almost caught a bullet meant for her father.
"Tell her I'm fine."
"Already did. She wants to hear it from you."
Christ. The girl almost gets turned into Swiss cheese, and she's concerned about my emotional state.
"I'll check on her in a minute."
Michael's pacing behind his desk like a caged predator, barking orders into his phone with the kind of controlled fury that usually ends with someone disappearing permanently.
"I want every camera in a five-block radius checked. I want witness statements. I want to know what kind of ammunition they used and which fucking gun shop sold it to them."
He hangs up and looks at me with eyes that could melt steel.
"How's my daughter?"
"Shaken. Scared. Breathing."
"Good. That's all that matters right now."
Michael's got that look in his eyes that I've seen before. The look that says someone's about to experience a very slow, very creative death.
"Any brilliant theories about who would be stupid enough to try this?" I ask.
"I've got more enemies than a politician has lies, Owen. But they all know better than to start a war they can't finish."
"Maybe someone doesn't give a fuck about finishing wars."
"Maybe someone's about to discover what happens when you threaten my family."
The door opens, and Peterson, Michael's private investigator who looks like an accountant but thinks like a serial killer, walks in with that expression that says he just solved the mystery from hell.
"Found out who was behind the shooting," he announces without bothering with pleasantries.
Michael stops pacing like someone hit his pause button. "Who?"
"Warren Nielsen."
I feel my blood temperature drop about twenty degrees. "Noelle's psychotic ex-boyfriend?"
"That's the one. But here's where it gets interesting—it's not Noelle he's gunning for."
Michael's eyebrows climb toward his hairline. "Then who?"
"Warren's father, Ona Nielsen, was the one who ordered the hit. He's after you, Michael."
"I don't know anyone named Ona Nielsen," Michael says, and I can see him mentally scrolling through his extensive list of people who want him dead. "Only his dipshit son who was sniffing around my daughter."
Peterson shifts like he's about to deliver news that's going to ruin everyone's day. "But you do know someone named Gregory West."
The change in Michael is instant and terrifying. All the color drains from his face like someone just pulled a plug, and he drops into his chair like gravity just got personal.
"Isn't he dead?" Michael's voice comes out barely above a whisper.
"Well, surprise. He's not. He just decided to rebrand himself as Ona Nielsen."
I'm watching this conversation unfold like a car crash in slow motion, trying to piece together what the actual fuck is happening.
"Who is this supposedly dead person who just rose from the grave?"
Michael looks at me, and for the first time since I've known him, he looks genuinely old. Tired. Like he's been carrying weight that's been crushing him for decades.
"Gregory was..." He pauses, runs a hand through his hair like he's trying to physically drag the memories out. "He was Elena's boyfriend before me."
"Noelle's mother?"
"Yeah. They were together for two years before I came along and fucked up his entire life plan."
The pieces start clicking together in my head like puzzle pieces from hell, and I absolutely hate the picture they're forming.
"So this is about your dead wife?"
"This is about the fact that Elena chose me over him." Michael's voice gets harder, colder. "Gregory didn't take rejection well. Made threats. Said he'd make me pay for stealing his woman."
"What kind of threats?"
"The kind that earned him a restraining order and a one-way ticket to anywhere-but-here."
Peterson clears his throat like he's about to make this situation exponentially worse.
"Apparently geographical distance wasn't enough of a deterrent. He's been planning this revenge fantasy for over twenty years."
"Twenty years," I repeat, because sometimes you have to say insane things out loud to believe them. "He's been nursing a grudge for more than two fucking decades?"
"Love makes people do crazy things," Michael says with the weary tone of someone who's seen too much human stupidity. "Or in Gregory's case, obsession makes people do batshit insane things."
"And now he's using his son as a weapon against you?"
"Looks like it. Warren probably doesn't even know he's a pawn in daddy's revenge chess game. Gregory's been pulling strings, orchestrating the entire relationship."
The room goes quiet except for the sound of my brain trying to process this level of psychological warfare. A supposedly dead man who isn't dead, using his son as ammunition against the guy who married his ex-girlfriend two decades ago.
"Jesus fucking Christ," I mutter.
Michael looks at me with eyes that have seen too much blood and caused too much damage. Eyes that are bloodshot from stress and the kind of exhaustion that comes from constantly watching your back.
Then he leans forward, and his voice drops to that tone that means someone's about to die.
"I want you to kill Gregory West. Or Ona Nielsen. Or whatever new identity he's hiding behind."