He made running this empire look easy. People weren’t just afraid of him, theyrespectedhim. Me, on the other hand…
Some days, it’s like I’m barely keeping my head above water for fear that one wrong move could bring my father’s legacy crashing to the ground.
I take another sip of my drink and shake the thought out of my head as I fire up my computer, needing something other than alcohol to numb me.
Mindless work is what I need, so I type in my password and open up the accounts Ciara was working on earlier to go over what she completed.
I know she was pissed about being given such a mindless task, but after I caught her snooping, I wasn’t about to go handing her access to anything important.
Putting a ring on her finger doesn’t automatically buy her loyalty to my family, and I would do well to remember that.
When I open up the payment system, my stomach drops, and my back instantly straightens.
“What the fuck…” I set down my glass on the desk and click through a few tabs, my pulse spiking with every new page that appears.
It seems that Ciara didn’t just input the payments like I told her to. She changed the entire damn system from the layout all the way to the backend coding.
My teeth grind together as I realize that she completely wiped out the system my father built.
From the looks of it, her way is much more efficient and slicker as hell, but that doesn’t make up for the fact that she erased a piece of my father without permission.
I sit there for a moment and stare at the screen. Anger builds in my chest like a ticking time bomb as I try to think rationally.
The old payment system was outdated and easily hackable, so I should be grateful that Ciara saw its flaws and had the skills to fix it.
But I’m not. I can’t. Can’t be grateful when she had no right to make that sort of decision without so much as a fucking conversation.
The glass leaves my hand and shatters before I realize I’ve thrown it across the room. Shards of crystal cover the floor, cutting into my bare feet as I storm from the office, but I barely even feel the sting when my ears are ringing and my body is vibrating.
When I reach the upstairs hallway, I push open the bedroom door hard enough that it slams against the wall.
Ciara lets out a startled cry as she bolts upright, clutching the sheet to her chest, and she stares at me with wide eyes.
"Ronan?" She pushes her blonde hair out of her face. "What is it? What’s wrong?"
I stalk across the room to tower over her where she sits, propped against the headboard.
"You." My voice is low and dripping with rage. "You’re what’s wrong."
She frowns as she blinks up at me, still half-asleep.
“I don’t… What are you talking about?"
I grind my teeth so hard that my jaw aches. "The payments system. You fucking changed the entire thing!"
She looks confused for a moment, then her mouth drops open, and her entire body tenses. "I-I thought?—"
"You thought, what? That you could just waltz in here and wipe away everything my father built?"
She flinches as if I struck her, but she needs to understand she’s crossed a line.
“It wasn’t like that.”
“What was it like, Ciara? Huh?”
She looks away for a moment, taking her lower lip between her teeth. “I wasn’t trying to erase anyone. I just… The system was outdated. I thought I was helping?—"
"You don’t touch my systems without permission." I ball my hands into fists. "You don’t touch anything that belonged to him. Do you understand me?"
