“Sara’s mom died from a brain tumor shortly after Sara turned twelve,” Schaffer continued. “Apparently her mother had raised her with full knowledge of her father’s identity because Sara wouldn’t quit talking to social services about her famous father. When the authorities checked her birth certificate, Langston’s name was listed as the father.
“Some reporter picked up on the story and when the media looked deeper into the facts, they discovered that Sara most likely was his daughter. Langston claimed to have never known of her existence, but he went through the paternity tests. When those came back a match, he transplanted her from Indiana to California.
“Sara, however, didn’t live under his roof for long. Langston shipped her off to boarding school, where she graduated at the top of her class. She went on to earn her Master’s Degree, again with honors. She came back into the picture a couple years ago and he’s been trying to corral her ever since.”
“Why does Langston want her dead?” Jack asked.
“She’s been heading up the accounting for one of his front companies for the past two years,” Schaffer said. “She’s discovered a few things she shouldn’t have and she asked too many of the wrong questions.”
“So Langston falls back on his old standby,” Logan said. “Kill her to get her out of the way.”
“Father of the year,” Lester said from the other side of the room.
“Our job is to get her to safety and turn her over to the FBI,” Schaffer said. “She’ll go into the Witness Security Program and hopefully she knows enough to testify against him. The feds have tried to get to her and it’s impossible with her security.”
“She’s not going to come with us if we ask her nicely,” Logan said. “She also won’t believe us when we say that Langston is trying to kill her.”
“Which is why your team is going to kidnap her,” Schaffer said. “Once she’s safe, then you’ll explain everything. She might not believe you, not until we get her in the hands of the FBI, and that’s okay. Our main priority is her safety, but you’re going to need to do your best to convince her to surrender willingly to the FBI.”
“What’s the plan to get her away from Langston?” Austin Moore asked from the front row.
“Sara is getting married on Saturday,” Schaffer said. “It’s about the closest thing to an arranged marriage one can get.” He clicked a button on the remote and another picture filled the screen.
Logan scooted to the edge of his seat and squinted at the new photograph. Sara stood next to a man who appeared to be almost a decade older than her. He immediately recognized the man and tension crawled into his shoulders. “Stephen Mathers,” Logan said, contempt dripping from each syllable.
Schaffer pointed at Logan. “Second in command, set to take over Langston’s empire once Langston retires. Since Langston has no male heirs, he’s been grooming Mathers for the position for years. The best way for him to take over without question is for Langston to marry him off to his daughter. The hit is scheduled to take place on their honeymoon.”
“That way Mathers is married into the family already when she dies,” Logan said. “Does Mathers know about the hit?”
“That we don’t know,” Schaffer said. “Mathers is up to his neck in Langston’s illegal dealings, but whether he has a part in the hit is still unclear. Langston did hire a professional to do the job so even if Mathers is in the know, he won’t be suspected.”
Logan’s stomach churned. He knew long before Karen’s death that Langston was a despicable man, evil in every possible way, but Logan never would have thought him capable of killing his own child. If Mathers knew about the hit, it made things so much worse.
“From what we understand,” Schaffer continued, “Mathers is continually updated on her whereabouts and activities, another reason the FBI can’t get to her. They can’t take a chance of alerting either him or Langston.”
“Nothing like marrying your stalker,” Jack said.
“Tomorrow night, Sara is meeting with her wedding planner prior to the rehearsal dinner. All of Langston’s cars will be busy picking up wedding guests from the airport, so he has hired a car service for his daughter.” Schaffer turned to Logan. “You’ll be driving.”
Logan nodded. “Will anyone else be with her?”
“Her best friend and maid of honor, Mary Flynn, who has no allegiance to Langston. We’ll take both of them and immediately separate them. We need two teams, one for Sara, one for Mary. Four men each. Then we need a four-man team to stay here and run point. I’ll oversee that team.” He motioned for Allie to come up to the podium.
Allie adjusted the microphone to her height. “I’m preparing several syringes of sedatives according to the heights and weights of both girls. Sara has two medical issues to note. She has a severe peanut allergy. You will have to be careful with any food preparations, but I’ll send along some EpiPens to be safe. She also has asthma. Our reports do not indicate what inhalers she uses, so I’ll have several different kinds and she’ll have to tell you which ones she uses. I’ll also send you with a nebulizer. Because she will be under duress, she may need breathing treatments. Before you leave, I’ll teach the team that will be with her how to prepare and administer the treatments.” Her eyes scanned the room. “Any questions?”
“Does Mary have any health issues we need to know about?” Lester asked.
“None,” Allie said. She smiled at Schaffer and stepped away from the podium.
“Alright, boys,” Schaffer said. “Next 24 hours is hardcore prep. We’ll start sleep shifts now so that you can adjust for when you’re in the field. I wish we had more time to prepare, but we absolutely have to save this girl’s life. We can’t fail. Logan, come pick your teams.”
Logan rose from his seat and walked to the front of the room. He glanced in Allie’s direction, making quick eye contact. Standing in front of the podium, he said, “Let’s start with my team for Sara. Head to the back when I call your name.”
He looked over his colleagues, mentally dividing them into categories by expertise, and he called their names one by one. There was no doubt he needed Jack, his closest friend and the jack of all trades in the group. Lester was an expert driver who would help with the initial getaway once they had Sara in the car. Finally, Charlie Cantor was a caring individual with a soft voice. He would be what Sara would need as she adjusted to her circumstances and was told the truth about her father. Charlie was also one of the rare cooks in the group and would best know how to handle her peanut allergy.
The three men moved to the back of the room to await further instructions. Logan looked at the remaining men and decided to mirror Mary’s team from the one he constructed for Sara.
“The team for Mary,” Logan said. “Bill, you’ll head it up, followed by Tuck, Jonesy, and Stu.” After the men joined the others in the back, Logan took note of who was left, thankful he had plenty of technical guys available. “For Schaffer’s team here, we’ll go with Phil, Austin, and Kyle.”
“Very good,” Schaffer said. “The rest of you will be on standby in case you’re needed. We’re not taking on any other jobs until our other three teams return. Sara is our primary focus until she’s in the hands of the FBI.” He clapped his hands together. “Let’s get to work.”
Chapter Eight
Sara took steady breaths as her feet rebounded against the pavement, the impact of every step jarring her legs. She had maintained the same brisk pace that she always did on her morning run, and so far her breathing had held up just fine. A familiar burn spread through her calves and thighs, and her hamstrings tightened up, reminding her she was nearing the end of her five-mile course.
Before she left the house, Stephen disagreed about her running with her asthma acting up. He did not want her to have breathing problems before the wedding, but unlike everything else in her life, she never compromised on running. It gave her a sense of freedom that she didn’t have in the rest of her life. Out in the open morning air, she had control
over everything. Where her feet landed, which path she turned down, how fast she moved. No one could guide her otherwise. Not even her security detail.
She had long ago grown accustomed to the men that followed her all over town. Their surveillance started when she met her father for the first time and subsequently moved three states away for boarding school. Having Hugh Langston as a father became a very public matter in those first few years after her mom’s death, resulting in constant security. As a budding teenager, she found school difficult with the eyes of her security always on her, but she soon learned to live with it. She gravitated toward kids who had the same problem of intrusive bodyguards, if only because they understood her plight.
After heading off to college, she had learned to ignore the men who watched her, but it didn’t make it any easier. Whenever she made friends, her father knew about it and dictated whether she could keep them. If she tried to date, her father ran a background check and immediately deemed any potential suitors off-limits, an order her security detail enforced. Boyfriends ran for the hills and warned all the other men that she was more trouble than she was worth. Stephen was not only the first man she had ever been with intimately, but the first man she had ever dated, exactly as her father wanted it.
Returning home two years ago, she thought that life would be easier and give her more freedom, but the opposite was true. Working for her father made her feel inadequate all the way around, as he always had someone in the company watching her closely. The discrepancies in the accounts were only her latest set of problems, but no one dared help her resolve them. By the time she returned from her honeymoon with Stephen, they would have been swept under the rug and she would be on her way to a cushy teaching job at West Hills Academy or even staying at home full-time, another change in her life that her father, and Stephen, would force upon her.
Sara turned a corner to head in another direction. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw two men following at a safe distance. Ordinary jogging outfits concealed their weapons and their ear pieces allowed them to keep in touch with their boss. Sara had watched them press the ear pieces into their ears many times, but had never met the person that spoke to them, at least not knowingly. She had never managed to engage the men in conversation, even though the same ones had followed her for the two years since she graduated from college.
A large group of firemen on their morning run approached her on the running path. She had seen the group from time to time, but today the sight sparked something in her. In all the years of having a security detail, she had never once tried to ditch them, not even as a precocious teenager. Now she needed to give them the slip, as if she had to prove something to herself before marrying the man and living the life her father chose for her.
Sara picked up her pace. If she timed it right, she would top the hill just as she passed the firemen. She resisted the urge to peek over her shoulder again to look at her security guards so she wouldn’t accidentally alert them to her plan. Her feet hit the smooth concrete faster and faster, and she focused all her thoughts on her breathing to keep it even and under control.
She smiled and waved at the passing firemen just as she started downhill. Off to her left, thick woods concealed a lesser-known running path. She had only taken it one time since she started running at the park. With the firemen covering her movements, she zipped off to the left and raced as fast as possible around the first several turns.
After running a couple of minutes, she slowed down to a brisk walk. She lifted two fingers to her neck and counted out her pulse rate. Though much higher than normal, she attributed it to the adrenaline coursing through her body. She carefully controlled her breathing so she wouldn’t have an asthma attack, but heard the slight wheezing that told her she would need a treatment when she got home. Rotating her head, though, she forgot all about her asthma.
The men were nowhere to be seen.
A large victory grin overtook her mouth and the first real pangs of excitement in quite some time hit her chest. Though it seemed like an adolescent stunt, she had done it, that one thing she always wondered if she could do. She turned up the volume on her iPod and settled back into a comfortable jog through the thick trees.
Forty-five minutes later and still fueled by the high of her mini-adventure, Sara keyed in her passcode on the front gate to her house and ran up the steep driveway. She paused at the front door to stretch. She had barely pulled up her right leg up behind her when the door swung open and Stephen dragged her inside.
“Where the hell have you been?” he asked, the anger on his face mixed with concern.
“I went for my morning run,” she said.
“That’s not what I mean. Your security detail lost sight of you and couldn’t find you.”
“I’m fine, Stephen. I just went down a side path and I guess they couldn’t keep up with—”
“So you knew that you lost them?” His eyes narrowed. “Did you do that on purpose?”
Sara stepped away from him. “I don’t understand what the big deal is—”
“What the hell is wrong with you?” He moved toward her and grabbed her wrist. “You can’t do something like that. I’ve been going crazy thinking something happened and Hugh is on his way over.”
She twisted her arm under his grip. She almost cowered under the tone of his voice, but remained defiant. “He doesn’t need to come over here,” she said. “I’m not missing.”
“We didn’t know that. Any number of things could have happened to you.” He loosened his grip and placed his hands on her upper arms. “You have security for a reason. You’re Hugh Langston’s daughter.”
“What exactly does that mean anyway?” she asked with a raised voice. She shrugged his hands away and walked out of the foyer, toward the back staircase. Taking the stairs two at a time, she raced to the second floor and their bedroom. Shoving open the door, she stormed onto the marble flooring of the master bathroom and ripped out the elastic band that held her hair in a short ponytail.
At any moment she could break under the smothering weight of Stephen and her father. She had one little victory in the past 14 years of her own making and now they had taken it away. Stephen was upset, her father was on his way over, and she was destined for another lecture on how she should live her life.
Sara slid open the shower door and turned the water up as hot as she could get it. She stripped off her top and sat on the edge of the standalone bathtub to take off her socks and shoes. Mary would be here in a couple hours to go with her to take care of more wedding details, and Sara didn’t have the time or the desire to deal with Stephen or her father a second longer.
The bathroom door opened, letting the built-up steam flow out along with some of her anger. She straightened up, as Stephen sat down beside her and took her hand.
Rubbing his fingers over hers, he smiled. “You know we only want to make sure you’re safe. You’re the most important girl in both of our lives.”
She glanced sideways at his handsome face. The care and concern in his green eyes shone on her and provided some comfort. Some of the tension eased out of her shoulders, but she didn’t respond.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “I’ve been a little worried about you lately. Is the wedding starting to be too much for you?”
Sara ran her tongue over her bottom lip. Maybe it was only the stress of the wedding that weighed on her, causing her to magnify things which never upset her in the past.
“Do you want to put the wedding on hold?”
Her lips parted and she gasped. Though she had never been sure about whether she loved him, his words pierced her heart. She didn’t want to lose the only thing she’d ever known, the one constant in her life.
She grabbed his arm. “No, Stephen. I don’t want to postpone the wedding. I’m sorry about this morning, I just…” She paused and looked past him, staring blankly at the wall, as she tried to untangle her emotions.
“It’s okay,” he said. “We all have moments where we do
n’t feel like ourselves or we just want to do something out of the ordinary.”
Her gaze fell to his hand clenching hers and guilt washed over her.
Stephen lifted her chin until his eyes locked onto hers. “Just promise me you won’t do anything like that again. It’s much too dangerous.”
“Why?” she asked, eliciting a look of confusion from him. “Why is it dangerous? Why do I have security following me everywhere?” She had asked the question numerous times without ever receiving a true answer.
“Let’s just say that Hugh has stepped on a number of toes over the years. It’s the best way to make sure that you’re safe.”
“Do you step on toes?”
“When I have to.” He pushed up from the bathtub and pulled her to her feet, until her body rested against him. Wrapping his arm around her back, he asked, “Why don’t you take a bath instead? The jets would be nice on your muscles after your run.”
Though a great suggestion, that nagging feeling of being controlled latched onto Sara again. “I think I’ll just stick to the shower today.”
He tugged at the strap of her sports bra. “Too bad I’m already dressed or I would join you.”
“I know you’re busy and I wouldn’t want to keep you. Isn’t Dad still coming over?”
“I called him and told him that you were found and everything is under control.” He frowned at her. “You are sounding a little wheezy, though. You should do a treatment before you go with Mary.”
A strong urge to disobey his command possessed her, but she didn’t want to make a poor health care choice because she decided to act like a spoiled, rebellious teenager. “I’ll do it after my shower.”
“Good,” he said, and pressed his lips to her forehead.
Once he left the bathroom, her smile fell. She always assumed she had security assigned to her because her father was beyond rich and others might exploit that somehow, but she never dreamed that he was involved in something dangerous. He wasn’t the greatest man in the world, but what toes had he stepped on that would require her to have constant security and why was her soon-to-be husband stepping on those same toes?