Deadly Ties by Vicki Hinze

that was insignificant. His income stream was staggeringly high regardless of the economy and mostly tax free. He smiled. Recession, depression, and inflation proof.
“Sounds good. Just forget everything and go to Georgia. The bottom line is, nothing can interfere with the shipment,” Karl said. “Anything goes wrong here, it goes wrong all the way down the line.”
“I know.” Dutch toed a lump of grass. “The boss wouldn’t like it.”
Karl’s cackle held no humor. “You’re talking a loss of roughly ten million. Uh, no. The boss wouldn’t like it.”
Heads would roll, including his own. “Do what you have to do, but try not to kill Annie.” Dutch hated the weakness in his voice. Stupid. Loving a woman who can’t stand the sight of him. “I mean, if you have to, then do it, but if you don’t, then let her live.”
“I understand.”
“Do you?” Impossible. Dutch didn’t understand his own conflicting thoughts about Annie.
“Of course. It’s simple really. You hate your stepdaughter more than you love your wife.”
The line went dead, and Dutch slipped his phone in his pocket. Karl was wrong. He did love Annie.
Annie . Dutch would never forget the night Charles Harper had brought him into his home for dinner. Even then Lisa had been a brat, whining about not wanting to dress for dinner for a man she didn’t know. Annie had defended him.
“He is our guest, Lisa Marie, and you will treat him with respect.”
Dutch had known right then Annie was different. She’d given him a chance. No woman in his life had defended or respected him. He’d made up his mind on the spot not to just take Harper’s money, but to take his life and claim it for his own—his money, his life, his wife, and his respect.
Unfortunately, Lisa Marie came with Annie. And after the way Annie had grieved for Charles, killing the brat was out. Annie would never get over it. So Dutch had settled for getting the kid out of the way and then keeping them apart before Lisa could remember anything. If she ever did remember, he would know it and could handle her before NINA did and held him responsible.
All that extra trouble just for Annie. Not that she knew the pains he’d suffered for her. But he had loved her as much as he could. It was hard for a man who’d been told from birth he was evil and had it beaten into him until he believed it. Annie was good to him, but she’d never loved him. She honored their vows because she made them.
And because if she didn’t, Dutch would come down on her and Lisa like a hammer.
The key to respect was money. That’s why he’d hooked up with NINA. All he had to do was let them run people—all kinds of people—through his stores and launder a little money now and then. It cost him nothing and he’d made a fortune, enough to buy Annie’s respect if not her love. Respect meant more. It lasted longer. She had respected him out of necessity and then out of fear. Not for herself, for the brat. But that would change. Soon.
Lisa Marie Harper would learn that she had picked the wrong man to mess with—and she’d have an entire lifetime to regret it.
Killing her was too easy. He wanted her alive …
And suffering.

5

M ark set out snacks for the guys, then dusted his hands. “Ready?” He lifted the remote while the guys positioned themselves in his media room. “Hit the lights, Joe.”
The lights dimmed, and the first slide filled the wall screen. In it, a smiling couple stood near a bench nestled between moss-laden oaks. In the background, a three-story gray stone house rose like a stately tower. Somehow it retained the warm appeal of a home and not a museum. “This is Three Gables. The couple is Benjamin Brandt and Kelly Walker.”
“I thought he’d be older. He’s our age?” Tim asked from his seat on the sofa, looking stylish enough to have stepped off the pages of GQ . Not a strand of brown hair out of place, not a crease daring to wrinkle his brown slacks.
“Early thirties. Same as most