Revenge: A Bad Boy Romance by Jessica Ashe Page B

angry. I wouldn’t put anything past him, but I feared Chloe. Well, I feared disappointing her.  
    I managed to walk--barely--and made it over to the office that Eli had been hiding in before Kevin had leapt out at me with the knife. The office had long since been cleared away of any valuable computer equipment, but there was still a load of furniture and filing cabinets.  
    And a cellphone. Lying on the floor was a phone at least four years old. I initially dismissed it as something that had been left behind from when the factory was still in use, but then I saw a light on it flash.
    For a brief second, I got my hopes up and thought that Eli had left his phone behind, but there was no way someone as flash as him would have an old phone. He was the sort of man who would pay for specially made diamond encrusted ones if they were available.
    I discovered who owned the phone before I’d even picked it up. As I bent down, I saw the owner of the phone under the desk, laying in a pool of his own blood. Deep gashes ran down his thighs where the Bartons had had their fun with him before slitting his throat. Lovely.  
    The dead guy was one of dad’s men. I’d seen him around Dad’s restaurants a few times. The Bartons must have tortured him until he made the call to Dad, knowing he would send me here to deal with them.  
    There was nothing I could do for him now. I’d call the police at some point and tell them where to find the body, but first I needed to get the hell out of here in case the Bartons had done the same.  
    Alan should have the car outside the factory by now.
    I ignored the pain in my side and ran as fast as I could towards the entrance. It might have been more sensible to find a back way out, but at least this way I knew where I was going.  
    I breathed a sigh of relief--mixed with a heavy dose of pain--when I saw the car out the front. I could always count on Alan to get me out of a tight spot. That’s why he earned six figures a year just to drive a car. You couldn’t put a price on men you could trust to have your back.
    The Bartons would try to frame me for that murder, but even if they didn’t, I knew I needed to get out of town for a bit. Things were too hot right now.
    The streets of Chicago often contained the sound of sirens, but for now there was nothing. I opened the car door and half jumped, half fell into the back seat.  
    “To the airport, Alan,” I said, wincing in pain as I felt my side open wider with the impact as I hit the seat. “It’s time for a short vacation.”
    “Oh, where are we going?”  
    The question didn’t come from Alan and it didn’t come from the driver’s seat.
    I turned to my left to look at the girl sat next next to me.
    “Chloe, what the hell are you doing here?”

“You told me to have the car pick you up,” I said innocently, as if I didn’t know why he was angry.
    “And I told you to stay at the office,” Denton replied.
    “Technically, you just told me to go back to the office and call Alan. You never told me I couldn’t be in the car too.”
    Alan ignored our arguing, and pulled the car away from the factory. Denton was in a rush to get away from there, and given the blood coating his hands I could see why. I’d wanted to go into the factory to find out what was going on, but Alan insisted I stay put and I didn’t want to arouse suspicion by being too eager.
    “You could be assisting in a crime,” Denton replied. “Aiding and abetting, or whatever they call it.” 
    I shrugged casually. “I was already doing that by making the call to Alan. Might as well double down on it.” 
    Denton shook his head, but I saw his lips creep up into a quick smile. “You need to be more careful. I don’t want you mixed up in the parts of my affairs that are not one hundred percent legal.” 
    “What percentage legal are they?” I asked cheekily. “Anyway, you’re the one who needs to be more careful. What happened to you?” I motioned to