Thirty minutes later, Jack walks in, dressed the same as me, but with a white shirt rather than black, and sits across from me.
“Did you sleep at all?” he asks, eyeing me.
“Not much,” I admit. “Did you pay Johnny’s wife?”
“Yeah. She didn’t shed many tears. Sounds like he kicked her around a lot.”
I lean back in my chair.What the fuck is up with these assholes? My son included.
“Well, at least she’s taken care of now. Jack, we need to talk.”
He narrows his eyes and folds his hands over his lap. This man has been by my side since we were kids. A close friend to me since we were sixteen and he kicked my ass in a boxing ring. He’s quiet. He’s fucking badass, and there’s no one I trust more to have my back. This conversation is a long time coming.
“I was hoping that Elliott would get his shit together and become worthy of being my number two, but it’s plain to see that’s not going to happen. You know this business inside and out. Shit, you grew up in it with me, and you’re the one person in my organization that I trust implicitly. You’re being promoted.”
His eyebrows climb. That’s a huge fucking display of emotion for this man. He’s more stoic than me, and that’s saying a lot. “I pretty much already do the job, boss.”
“And now you have the title to go with it, along with the pay raise.”
“I don’t need more money.” He’s also incredibly stubborn.
I tilt my head. “Are you passing up an additional five million a year?”
“Fuck no. I’m not stupid. I’m telling you that I’m your number two whether it’s official or not. I don’t need the title.” His face hasn’t softened at all, but his eyes hold emotion as he stares back at me.
This should have been his position from the beginning, and we both know it.
“And that’s why you’re my number two. Effective immediately. Now, we need to plan a wedding for three days from now.”
“I thought it was in two weeks.”
“The timeline has changed.”
Four
NATASHA
My father would have beatenthe shit out of me if I’d let Julian’s men drive me home last night and he saw me get out of the car without Elliott there. Elliott always sends me home in a cab. Every time. I would think that it would bother my father, but it doesn’t seem to.
And honestly, I’m okay with that.
I’m always surrounded by the men my father assigns to me, and being in the taxi is the only time that I’m alone. I mean, aside from the driver, but they don’t care about me. They don’t even know who I am.
The fact that my father is okay with Elliott sending me home in a cab is insane to me, but he allows it.
No one was around when I got home, and I was able to sneak up to my room without being noticed.
I’ve managed to cover the bruises on my jaw with makeup, but there’s no hiding a split lip. My father prefers for me to wear dresses, but I put on a pair of white wide-leg slacks and a cream sleeveless blouse so I can hide my knee. I’ve managed to avoid my father all day long. I’m not sure where he is, but he’s not home, so I’ve spent most of the day in the library, alternatingbetween reading in a cozy chair and sitting with my one true love: the piano.
Movement at the entrance of the library catches my eye as I finish a song, and I smile at my mother, but that pulls on the split lip, and I wince.
“What happened to your face?” she asks. There’s no warmth there. No concern. Just curiosity.
“Elliott.” I shrug a shoulder, and her eyes narrow.
“If you fuck this up for your father, he won’t be happy.”
“I haven’t fucked anything up,” I reply. My mother is the one person in this world that I feel comfortable speaking my mind to. I’m never disrespectful, but I do stand up for myself. She hates me almost as much as Papa does, but she’s never laid a hand on me. “He got mad, that’s all. Mama, I don’t want to marry him.”
