“I know.” He had to put a stop to it and do it now, but if he didn’t deal with the apartment first, he’d have to handle both the police and his plans, and that would only hold Beckett back. He stood and grabbed their bags. “I don’t want you in the middle of this, Samara.”
“I’m already in the middle of this. I have been since it started.”
He couldn’t argue that, so he didn’t bother to try. The door opened and he headed for it. They could stand around talking about this all day and get nowhere.
Samara followed closely, frustration rolling off her in waves. She didn’t speak, though, as he tossed their bags into the trunk of the waiting car and drove them away from the airport. Beckett gripped the steering wheel and tried to find the right words to say. There were no right words. Until he knew the extent of the damage—and whose blood the police had found—he didn’t have any answers for Samara. It was entirely possible that Lydia had decided to frame him for some crime, though murder seemed going a bit far, even for her.
Except it wasn’t going too far when it came to my father.
“Beckett.” She spoke softly, not looking away from the windshield. “Promise me that you won’t do anything in retaliation for this until we know for sure who’s behind it.” When he didn’t respond, she continued. “If, by some chance, it isn’t Lydia, then you risk creating two enemies instead of one.”
What she said made sense, even though her determination to point the blame at someone else aggravated him. Most of the time, the simplest answer was the real answer. Lydia had the most to gain by ruining Beckett’s life and effectively running him out of town. Even if this was all to keep him distracted while she put something else into play, it all revolved around their competing businesses and, even more so, around the split in the family thirty years ago. It obviously didn’t matter to her that he was a nephew—he was an obstacle to be removed by any means possible.
The chances of the perpetrator of all the acts against him being some shadowy villain who hadn’t been revealed were astronomical. It didn’t make any sense.
Telling Samara that wouldn’t change her mind, though. She might not be blindly defending Lydia any longer, but she was just as obviously resistant to the idea that the woman she’d trusted for so long was capable of this level of attack.
“I promise that I won’t retaliate unless I have to.” It was all he could give her. Beckett had no intention of sinking to Lydia’s level. A war between them would hurt more than just his aunt. It would hurt his cousins whom he hadn’t had a chance to know. It would hurt employees at both companies.
It would hurt Samara.
No, Beckett would do this his way.
And he’d remove Lydia as a threat. Permanently.
Chapter Seventeen
Samara barely stayed home long enough to shower and change. She didn’t trust the wild look in Beckett’s eyes as he’d driven away. There was a confrontation between him and Lydia coming—and coming soon—but he’d be occupied for the next few hours at least dealing with the police and figuring out what was salvageable in his apartment.
She hurried down the sidewalk toward Kingdom Corp, feeling like a spy sneaking into the enemy’s camp. It didn’t make a bit of sense. Kingdom Corp was her territory. There was no reason for the guilt gnawing away at her stomach.
No reason except she was up to no good.
Samara took the elevator up to the twenty-fourth floor and then used the stairs the rest of the way to the executive level. She checked her watch. Noon. Lydia should be out to lunch with her “friend” right about now. She disappeared every Wednesday like clockwork for an hour, and since Samara handled her calendar, she knew Lydia took lunch in a hotel room a few blocks away.
An hour wasn’t much time for what she’d set out to do, but she’d make it work. She padded out the door and down the hallway, her flats not making a sound on the floor. The door to Journey’s office was shut, and the whole floor felt almost deserted. Samara used her key to unlock Lydia’s office and shut the door behind her. She tensed, waiting for alarms to blare or someone to rush in and demand to know what she was doing there.
Nothing happened.
Stop wasting time being afraid of getting caught and do what you need to do before you actually are caught.
She hurried to Lydia’s desk and typed in the password to the computer. Thanks to her years working directly under the woman, what passwords she didn’t know she could guess. It seemed counterintuitive that Lydia would keep something incriminating on her computer, but the woman’s entire life was synced electronically. She abhorred traditional mail, paper notetaking, and anything she considered too luddite. Technology is the future, Samara.
She signed into both of Lydia’s email accounts and did a few quick searches. Nothing popped up for Beckett or Nathaniel’s names beyond a couple of old documents from last quarter about Morningstar Enterprise’s reported holdings. The company itself was in more emails, but they were all directly business related and not any more sinister than normal.
Samara sat back. This was getting her nowhere. What had she expected? A smoking gun with Lydia’s name engraved on the side? Even if she was involved, her boss wasn’t an idiot.
On a whim, she brought up Lydia’s calendar. It was synced with Samara’s system so she knew where her boss was at all times, and anything important was flagged accordingly on both hers and Lydia’s account.
Except…
She frowned and leaned forward. There was a tab at the bottom of the screen, similar to the ones used in her spreadsheet program. Samara clicked it and blinked. New appointments appeared over
