Cheating With The Billionaire

Chapter 14: No Amount of Luck, Part 2 (Kaden)

Kaden's POV

Evangeline has threatened to pack up and leave me, taking Amabella with her, because of the persistent attacks that have been happening to her salons.

The first attack happened just a few weeks ago, and since then, two more have happened at random. Each time we'd been unable to catch the culprit, whom I continue to believe is connected to Jason Tyler. My patience has run out and I refuse to sit back and do nothing while that asshole comes for me and my family again and again.

So I decided to take a little drive into his neighborhood today.

I stopped on the street where he lives and had one of my security guys check to see if he was home. He's unemployed and has been dodging the company's lawyers for weeks, so where the f**k else could he be? That's the question I asked myself when my guy came back to report the house had been emptied and abandoned. Seems I waited too long to strike back and now the fucker has skipped town. He isn't making any of this easy for me, and now I'm left with no choice but to get my hands dirty, or rather pay someone else to get their hands dirty for me.

"Kaden! It's been a while since you've called me," Martin Ridges, an old family friend, answers the phone after the second ring. "What can I do for you this time, motherfucker?"

"Hello to you too, old bastard. I see you haven't changed a bit." I laugh, getting up from my desk to walk around my office and stretch my legs. The two of us make small talk for about twenty minutes, then I eventually get around to my reason for calling him. "Anyway, I'm calling because I'd like to cash in that favor you owe me. You still down to play after dark?"

"Until the day I die," he replies, sounding serious. "Let me know what it is you need my help with, and I'll do my best to get it cleaned up. No questions asked, of course."

I smile at that, feeling a small wave of relief wash over me because I know my Jason problem is hours away from being resolved. "Thanks, man. So here's my situation..."

Martin is an old family friend from way back in the day, despite my mother having no clue that he exists. I met him several years ago through my father. It'd been around the time when I had gotten serious about taking over the family business. Martin was and still is a tall, burly, menacing looking son of a b***h. An ex-SEAL with deep connections who didn't mind doing whatever dirty work my father needed done in the dark. Martin has never been cheap, but he has always been loyal.

When my father gave me Martin's contact information, he told me to never call him unless the situation was dire, and I had no way of getting out of it myself. I figured since the law can't do s**t for me right now because I have no tangible evidence to link Jason to all these attacks, I had no other choice but to move on to Plan B—Martin Ridges—because I'll be damned if I let Evangeline take Bella away from me. No way in hell that's happening.

"Sounds like you've gone and got yourself into quite a bind with this Jason fellow," Martin replies after I finish talking. I kept it mostly PG, purposely left out the facts like me and Bella being together, and how my marriage to her mother is nothing more than a sham. The old man doesn't need to know all my business. "Regardless, you know my price, so count me in. I'll look into tracking down Jason and will call you the minute I come up with something, then we can go from there. Sound good?"

"Sounds perfect, Martin."

I end the call feeling like there's less weight on my shoulders.

* * *

48 HOURS LATER

I knew Martin worked fast, that's why he gets paid the big bucks, but I didn't expect him to get back to me in a little under three days' time.

When he called me today and suggested we meet in private to discuss what he discovered concerning Jason, I wasted no time giving him the address to my penthouse that's on the opposite side of town. Ever since Bella came into my life and sat her pretty ass down on my lap, I haven't been back to that place since. She's more than enough woman for me.

It's a little after six in the afternoon when I go to answer the knock at the door, opening it to find Martin standing on the other side, sporting a smug grin on his scarred face. I step aside and let him enter. After we get our greetings out of the way, passing a few jokes back and forth about one another's looks, we take a seat in the kitchen and get down to business.

"As you suspected, Jason Taylor is whose been calling the shots behind the vandalism to your wife's salons." Martin pulls a white envelope from inside his jacket pocket, passing it to me while explaining what's inside. "While checking his bank records, I noticed he made three withdrawals of thousand dollars over the past few weeks. In doing some snooping around his neighborhood, I found out he'd pulled some junkie kid in from off the street and manipulated him into doing all his dirty work. That's who all the money had gone to."

"You confirmed this?" I ask while looking through the paperwork of evidence I know I can't turn over to the cops thanks to it having been illegally obtained.

"I spoke to the kid myself. He stood out like a sore thumb because he was panhandling with a brand new iPhone sticking out of his pocket. I managed to scare him straight and he told me Jason had approached him on the streets one day, said Jason offered him a large sum of money if he helped him out with a few tasks... like vandalizing those salons. The kid had planned to leave town but ended up blowing his money on that phone and drugs."

I sigh, shaking my head. "What a f*****g mess."

"The dates where Jason withdrew the money to give to the kid correspond with the dates that your wife's salons got attacked. It's all there in the paperwork."

"Damn that sneaky son of a b***h!" I exclaim, feeling furious but also relieved about finally having the proof in my hands. "That fucker must've thought he was smart in using some poor kid to go out and do what he couldn't, the f*****g coward."

I'm not even angry with the kid. He needed the money and did what he had to do to get it. My beef is with that asshole Jason, and I won't stop coming for him until he's gotten his ass beat or gets thrown behind bars. At this moment, I'm leaning towards the former or the two. That scumbag needs to be taught a lesson for having thought he could ever f**k with me like this. His disrespect end here.

"Now that you know the truth, how do you want me to handle him?" Martin asks, cracking his knuckles while leaning back in his seat. "Just give me the word and I'll have a flock of men go teach him a lesson in that little cabin that he's been hiding in. We won't kill him, but he'll definitely wish he were dead by the time my men are through with him."

"Do it," I mutter without a second thought. "And make sure there isn't too much of a mess left behind. I don't need any of this to fall back on me."

Martin smirks. "You got it, Matthews."