"Get rid of him or keep him," my father says. "But decide quickly. The Castellanos are watching and they will find the weakness. They always do. If you keep him, then youkeephim. Full security every hour of the day and be prepared for him to die anyway."
He leaves and I resist the urge to ram my fist into the wall. Theo is mine and he is going to be perfectly safe. I look after my things.
9. Theo
I've been staring at the same column of figures for twenty minutes and they keep sliding sideways.
My eyes ache. The monitor is too bright. The air conditioning in the suite is set to the same temperature it's been set to all week but my skin feels hot and tight, like I've been sitting too close to a fire.
I push back from the desk and press the heels of my hands against my eyes. When I open them, the spreadsheet is still there. The numbers are still wrong. No, they’re not wrong.I'mwrong.
My brain is wrong. The instrument I've relied on for eight years to keep me alive, keep me fed, keep me invisible, is malfunctioning and I know exactly why.
It’s been five days since I kissed him. Five nights on the sofa. Five mornings waking up drenched in his scent with my cock hard and slick on my thighs and the taste of him still ghosting across my lips even though it can't possibly still be there.
My heat is very close. Maybe a day or two away. Maybe a lot less.
I can feel it the way you feel weather changing. There’s a pressure in my lower belly that doesn't let up. A sensitivity across my skin that turns the fabric of my shirt into something abrasive.
And his scent, which was already devastating, has become something my body processes like oxygen. The penthouse is saturated with it and I'm breathing it in with every breath and every breath is a little more fuel on a fire that's already out of control.
I go back to the spreadsheet. I force my eyes to focus. The numbers resolve for a moment and then blur again.
It doesn't matter. I don't need the spreadsheet. I have it all in my head. I am almost sure I know who is involved within the Grand and I can pinpoint most of the outsider players, at least the regular ones.
Still, I want to put more work into it. I need to mapexactlywhat is happening. Suspicion isn’t enough. I need one hundred percent proof before I tell Novikov what I suspect because the problem is what happens when I pass over that information.
I know what Novikov is. He kills people or he has people killed. He runs an empire built on the threat of violence and the occasional delivery of it. Viktor suggested putting my body in a ditch and Novikov didn't flinch. The only reason I'm alive is because my scent made his knees buckle before Viktor could finish the sentence.
If I give him the names, I'm the mechanism. Someone else might pull the trigger, but I'm the one who aimed the gun.
But if I don't give him the names, I have nothing. No leverage, no usefulness, no reason for him to keep the deal to let me go. Assuming the deal was ever real.
I close the laptop. The monitor goes dark and the room is suddenly quiet except for the hum of the surveillance screens on the wall and my own breathing, which is too fast.
I'm sweating. My shirt is damp at the collar and between my shoulder blades. I pull it away from my skin and the movement sends a ripple of sensation across my chest that has no business being there.
I need suppressants. I need to get out of this building. I need air that doesn't smell like him.
I don't have any of those things.
I open the laptop again and pull up the surveillance feeds from the high-roller room, not because there's anything left to find but because watching the tables is the closest thing I have to counting cards. The rhythm of the deal and the chips are almost enough to quiet my head.
Almost.
I make it another hour before I hear the front door.
His scent reaches the office before his footsteps do. It’s fresh and strong, and layered with the cold of outside, which means he's been somewhere.
My body is already responding, the low pulse in my belly sharpening into something urgent. I clench my jaw and stare at the screen.
He appears in the doorway. I see him in my peripheral vision. He leans against the frame and I can feel his attention on me.
"How's it going?"
"Fine."
"You've been in here all day."
