“Where am I supposed to go?” he whispers, a noticeable tremor to his voice.
“I don’t give a single fuck.”
He swallows, straightens his back. “And if I don’t? If I refuse to leave?”
I smile, and it feels good to watch him flinch seeing it. “If you don’t leave by the end of the week, me releasing that video will be the least of your problems,” I promise him.
He stares at me, pale and trembling. “My God. It’s true, isn’t it?” he breathes. “All the things they say about you. The things they say you’ve done. It’s all true.”
“No, Daniel,” I tell him quietly. “The rumors don’t evenbeginto cover it.”
I let him see it, in my eyes, the truth of me. I’m not the monster everyone says I am behind closed doors.
I’m so much fucking worse.
When he finally flees my office, I check my phone. No reply yet from Doc.
Daniel didn’t just decide to grow a spine. Something made him think this play would work.Someonemade him think this play would work. And he was right. If that smug dickhead had just kept his mouth shut, if he had been able to stop himself from gloating…
I could have lost my position, my company.
Everything I’ve worked so hard to build.
Furious, I send another text.
Check their financials, all three of them. They’ve been paid off.
But I already know what he’ll find.
This was never about Oscuro. The club, the bomb, all these pesky little problems that just keep popping up in my businesses.
Annika was right. These were all distractions. Things to keep me occupied, to keep my attention away from the real threat.
Because Dante is coming for my empire. He’s trying to take down everything I’ve built, push me out of my own company. And he almost accomplished it, all while I was looking exactly where he wanted me to.
A sharp knock on the door cuts through my thoughts.
“Sir?” Devon, my assistant, steps in holding a manila envelope.
I glance at the clock on the wall, noting the time. “It’s too late for you to be in the office, Devon,” I say. “We don’t pay you enough to stay here after five. Go home.”
“I will, sir. But this just came for you. It’s marked urgent.”
I take the envelope from him and dismiss him with a nod, waiting until he’s gone before looking at it.
There’s no return address on the envelope, no stamps. Just my name and scrawled above it in thick black ink: URGENT. PRIVATE.
Suspicious, I slide a letter opener under the flap and tear it open.
Distractions. That’s been Dante’s play this whole time.
And this is his final move, the last piece to keep me occupied while he worked behind my back to push me out of my own company.
The paper inside is glossy, and when I pull it out and flip it over, my vision goes red.
A photograph.
Of Sydney, fast asleep on her couch.
