Free The Billionaire's Passion by Olivia Thorne Page B

them.
    “Holy shit,” I whisper.
    There were five stacks of hundreds and two stacks of twenties.
    “How much is in here?” I ask, my voice rising.
    He points at the cabbie, as though to say, Careful .
    “Fifty thousand and change,” Grant whispers.
    I stare at him and lower my voice. “You had $50,000 sitting around, just in case you ever needed to make a run for it?”
    “No, I had it sitting around to help me get to the next location where I’ve got a whole lot more, just in case I ever needed to make a run for it.”
    “I don’t believe you…”
    “I’m serious.”
    “No, I mean, I believe you, but… that’s crazy.”
    He shrugs. “Wouldn’t you stash a couple of bucks here and there if you thought it might help you evade capture some day?”
    “I wouldn’t call this – ”
    I point at the stacks of hundreds in the backpack.
    “ – ‘a couple of bucks.’”
    “It is to me.”
    The rich really are different.
    “Is that where we’re headed? To get more?” I ask.
    “I don’t know yet. Maybe. I’m assuming we can’t use the credit cards.”
    “No, we can’t.”
    “They’re under different company names,” Grant says hopefully.
    “Still can’t risk it. We have no idea how much Epi – how much he knows.” I reach in and pull out the cell phone. “Please tell me this is off.”
    “It is. Please tell me he can’t track us with it.”
    I pop off the battery and extract the SIM card. “Now he can’t. Do you have a game plan for what we’re going to do?”
    “I’m figuring it out,” Grant says dourly as he stares out the window.

4
    We drive around Manhattan, moving aimlessly.
    The cabbie starts to get nervous thirty minutes in. “You guys sightseein’, or what?”
    Grant hands him a couple of hundred dollar bills from the backpack. “Let me know when that runs out.”
    “You got it, boss.”
    As we drive, the reality of the situation sets in. I nearly died back there. I mean, I guess I didn’t literally come within inches of dying – Grant had everything under control, and we never even saw anybody with a gun. But the possibility was there. That gunfight back at the penthouse? Jesus. It was like something out of a movie.
    In my line of work, I deal with embezzlers and hackers and Chinese dudes in a government compound in Beijing trying to break into a defense contractor’s database.
    Not serial killers with hired mercenaries.
    At one point I start shaking. Grant looks over and puts his hand on my leg.
    “You okay?” he asks.
    “I don’t know…” I whisper.
    He nods comfortingly. “You’re fine. You did great back there.”
    “We could have died.”
    “We could have. But we didn’t.” He pauses, then asks, “I can’t call my guys to find out if they’re okay, can I.”
    “No… I’m sorry. He could track us.”
    “Even from a pay phone?”
    “If we let him know where we are, he could potentially hack traffic cameras or something to follow us.”
    “I thought you needed 60 seconds or something to trace somebody.”
    “Twenty years ago, maybe. In the digital age, it’s instantaneous. The phone company knows like that, and he can get deep into the phone company’s records. You’re totally screwed unless you have several levels of encryption. And this guy is good enough that that might not even work.”
    Grant nods, resigned, and goes back to staring out the window.
    “Should we get out of the city? Maybe out of the state?” I suggest.
    “That ordinarily wouldn’t be a bad idea, but I’m working on something,” Grant says.
    “What?”
    “I’ll let you know when I’ve figured it out.”

5
    We drive until dark, when Grant suddenly says, “Here – let us out here.”
    He pays with a fistful of hundreds, which makes the driver’s day.
    “You never saw us, understand?” Grant says, holding out an extra $500.
    The cabbie eyes the money greedily. “Never saw who, boss?”
    Grant pays, the taxi drives off, and we walk through the shadowy streets of