With more enemies lining up to kill him than he can count, a playboy billionaire must hire the only woman capable of keeping him alive, even if she hates his guts.
Gabriel Gerard's life is full of gorgeous women, expensive cars, and infinite wealth...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"I'm thinking masquerade," Harper said the next morning in the limousine as they were riding to work.
"What?" Gabriel asked without looking up from the casino financials that Asher had given him.
"For the Gala!" She waved a paper at him. It was an invitation done in all reds, purples, and black with silver accents. The new flag was the centerpiece.
"I thought that you didn't want it to be Halloweeny?" He feigned interest.
"Masquerade doesn't have to mean Halloween, Gabe." She rolled her eyes and shuffled her papers before asking, "So do I need to give you a plus one?"
"Excuse me?" This time he looked up.
"You know, for Olivia," she said smiling. "She came out of your room this morning in your just your t-shirt asking to borrow clothes."
"That's not what it looked like," he said quickly.
"Gabe, I know what I saw. I'm not a little kid anymore. I can handle it."
"No, Harp, it really isn't what you are thinking."
"What else would it be?" Harper narrowed her eyes.
"Well," Gabriel started but knew that he couldn't tell his sister the truth about Olivia and Christian's failed mission. He had to protect Harper for now, especially with Henry Porter as her boyfriend. He was just going to have to let his sister think what she did. But it was already awkward as hell with Olivia mumbling some excuse to get away from him as soon as they had woken up. Of course, he hadn't planned to wake up with his arms wrapped around her and his hard-on against her ass. He didn't want his sister teasing her about it. "Okay, it was what it looked like but please don't make a big thing of it. Olivia isn't comfortable with Jade knowing yet."
"You're asking me to lie to my best friend?" Harper was serious now.
"Not lie. Just omit for a while." He didn't need to deal with Jade right now.
"Fine, but you better have this cleared up and out in the open by my party," Harper said writing furiously in her notebook.
At the casino, Gabriel spent the morning meeting hundreds of staff and caving to his sister's ridiculous requests for the gala. Apparently, gold flatware, servers in full lords and ladies costumes, and indoor fireworks in the thirty-story center atrium were all necessary for the perfect Celebration of the Americas event. Gabriel gave up trying to remain firm in front of his new employees, most of whom were refugees from the outlying New York suburbs that had survived the attacks. Life afterwards had been hard with no utilities, little government order, and lots of anarchy. They were just happy to be here. Gabriel hoped that they wouldn't regret it.
He managed to get away after lunch with the excuse of checking the cosmetic construction of the hotel suites. There were over a thousand of them, and he couldn't imagine that they all would be filled. Asher's ambition showed in the enormous size and the rapid pace at which the building was constructed. Almost all other construction in the city had halted with everyone hired to finish GIG's crowning masterpiece taking up an entire city block along Central Park. Gabriel wondered when the secret prison below the construction began and how much his brother knew about it.
The hundreds of rooms on the first ten floors needed for the attendees of the gala were all completed and only needed textiles to finish them. Shirking off his general manager and administrative assistant, he took the elevator to the thirtieth floor-to-check out the presidential suite. The G monogrammed, gold doors opened to a palatial room with awe-inspiring views of the park in the floor to ceiling windows. Flickering yellows, burnt oranges, and blazing reds reflected the late October sun like a rare smile in post-attack photos. The grey city was its surrounding frame. Gabriel stared out the window mesmerized at seeing beauty in the world again. The memory of Bri on the roof of her father's house surrounded by the fragrant jasmine in the moonlight flashed into his mind, but he quickly suppressed it and turned away from the window.
Across the living room, he saw the door to the study was ajar. His feet were silent on the plush carpets as he crossed the large space and pushed the door open. The room was empty, but the computers filling it were up and running. There were several of them all displaying various government websites and databases. His trip to Philadelphia may not have been necessary after all. He was browsing their screens for something he hadn't seen before when a button on the floor caught his eye. It was behind the desk and clearly supposed to be covered with an expensive rug, but lucky for him, it wasn't. He pressed down and wasn't surprised to see an entire bookcase spin to reveal a much larger room with no luxuries and dozens of screens all showing different parts of the prison. He saw a motherboard in the center of the room with a glowing switch. It was labeled AMT and covered in glass. As he reached out to touch it, he heard the door to the suite open.
"Gabe?" It was Asher. "Your hot secretary said that you were up here."
"You were the one who said that we weren't supposed to call them that," Gabriel called as he quietly shut the bookcase behind him. It clicked shut just as his brother's face appeared in the doorway.
"It was a compliment to this girl. Trust me." Asher meandered the room inspecting the craftsmanship. "Pretty good for just a few weeks, huh? Everyone arrives the day after tomorrow to start planning for the treaty signing."
"Is this room for you or President Alexander?" Gabriel asked, leaning back against the bookshelf.
"It is for the president," his brother said. "Whoever that may be."
"And you're hoping that will eventually be you."
"Someday."
"Soon?"
"Perhaps."
"You're nuts, Ash," Gabriel said standing up straight. "Do you have any idea what these people are capable of?"
"I do, but sometimes I wonder about you, Brother." Asher crossed his arms over his chest. "The way you go against them and flaunt it in their face is just asking for trouble. And, by the way, one of these people is our own mother."
"Who you don't even trust!" Gabriel threw up his hands in frustration.
"I don't trust any of them, Gabe," his brother said pacing the room. "But this isn't a game. It is kill or be killed out there right now. And I'd prefer to be on the side doing the killing than on the one being killed."
Gabriel held Asher's gaze. He was silent. There was nothing more to say. His brother had made his choice, and it was the opposite of his. They had been rivals for so long that being enemies may not feel that differently. Morals aside, Gabriel couldn't blame Asher for his choice. It was survival of the fittest and being part of the biggest predator in the food chain was a wise decision. A heavy sadness seeped into his soul. He could never hate his brother, but their relationship would never be the same again.
"Where are you going?" Asher asked when he turned for the door.
"Back to work," Gabriel said over his shoulder.
"Hey." Asher took long strides to catch up with him. "I wanted to tell you that the driver died at the hospital last night. He never regained consciousness, so we weren't able to question him."
"What a surprise." Gabriel stepped into theelevator and closed the door before his brother could join him
