He tapped his fingers against the rim of his glass, studying me over it.
“What I’ve always wanted. A partnership.”
The door opened before I could answer.
Alec sauntered in first, Nick right behind him—helmet tucked under his arm. Alec’s gaze went straight to Eric. Nick’s didn’t. His locked onto Ella’s face, pale and unmoving.
“I think my current partners would want their say in our business,” I drawled.
Envy bled through Eric’s eyes as they crossed the room. Nick dropped into the chair beside him, casual, invasive. Alec leaned against the corner of the desk, solid and unyielding.
“You’re putting some beef on, Eric,” Alec remarked mildly.“Loosen your shirt collar and let it all hang.”
Nick slapped Alec’s leg, chortling.
“What happened to respecting your elders?” Nick mocked.
“Now, now,” I said, lifting a hand as Nick pulled out his cigarettes.“Let the man speak. He may have a viable business proposition.”
Nick lit up and blew smoke deliberately in Eric’s direction.
“You let Graves in,” Eric said, lips pursing in disapproval.
“And that burns you,” Nick drawled.
Eric turned towards Ella.
“Now you’re keeping a two-bit council-scheme slag between you.”
Alec slowly cracked his neck from side to side.
“There are plenty of other establishments, Eric,” I said lightly.“Why are you so eager to get into ours?”
His smile thinned.
“You bend the rules.”
His attitude wasn’t new. People often presumed my family came from old money—but we didn’t. And yet here he was, seething that I’d allowed the average man and woman into my circle, as if proximity alone offended him.
I took in the room.
The hostility toward Eric was unanimous.
Ella sat rigid at her desk, eyes bright with unshed tears. Our gazes met for the briefest moment before she dropped hers to her laptop, fingers hovering uselessly over the keys. She didn’t need to look at him to feel the weight of his words.
Nick was too busy annihilating Eric in his head to notice anything else—jaw tight, shoulders set, violence simmering just beneath the surface.
But Alec noticed.
He always did.
His attention flicked to Ella, caught the shine in her eyes, the way her breathing had gone shallow. Something dark and calculating shifted behind his expression.
Eric, oblivious or arrogant enough not to care, sat smiling—utterly unaware that he’d just stepped into a room full of men who already knew exactly how they’d like to dismantle him.
He’d gotten to Sophie—and protecting Ella was now our prerogative.
This was the world we’d dragged her into.
