I tilt my head to the side and glare at her. “I don’t give a fuck.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispers, and then she stumbles away, out of view. After the door closes behind her, I walk back to my office and slam the door shut before I scream and shove my hands in my hair.
Fuck.
“Jack!” I yell, storming out of the office again, and find my number two walking down the hall toward me. “Have some of my personal things packed up. I’m not staying here.”
“Are you going to the penthouse, boss?”
The penthouse is gutted, and I’ll never live there now anyway.
“No, the apartment below it,” I reply. His eyebrow lifts, but he doesn’t say anything as I stride away. “And I want anyone who’s ever fucking crossed me in the cell by the end of the day. I need to make someone bleed.”
Twenty-Seven
NATASHA
His eyes arewhat destroyed me. The hate in them, the way he stared at me as if I disgust him. I was still so upset after meeting with my father, and then Julian was there, so cold and hard, the way he used to be when I first met him. The man standing before me wasn’t my husband.
He was the ruthless made man that my father warned me about, and with Papa’s words still ringing through my mind, I stood there and watched everything he told me come true.
My Julian discarded me, and the whole time, I did what I’d been raised to do.
Stay small.
Stay quiet.
Do as you’re told.
He called me a traitor, but that can’t be right. I told my father no.
“I told him no,” I murmur, holding onto my aching wrist. It’s starting to hurt worse, with its own pounding heartbeat, and I cradle it to my chest.
“Shut up,” Benji barks, glaring at me in the rearview mirror.
My hand comes up to touch my necklace, and then I remember that it’s gone. I dropped it when I fell at the house, and I have no idea where it skidded off to. There was no time to look for it.
When the vehicle stops, I look up to find that we’re at the gates of my father’s estate.
You’d better hope and pray that the piece of shit you’re married to never tosses your ass out because you won’t be welcome at my house. I’ll kill you before I’ll let you through the door.
I can’t go in there. Ican’tbe here.
“Please don’t leave me here.”
“Boss’s orders,” Gary says with a shrug, and the two of them climb out of the car, open my door, and roughly yank me out, then do the same with the trash bags. They toss them next to me and leave me at the gate as they drive away, kicking up dirt in their wake.
I don’t hold the tears back as I look around helplessly. What am I supposed to do? I can’t go to my father’s house. Julian has done the one thing he swore he’d never do. He cast me out.
I’m sure that means that I’m not allowed to contact Lulu or Scarlett, either, since they’re his family.
I don’t have anyone.
Pulling my phone out of my purse—thank fuck I still had it looped over my shoulder—I order an Uber. It takes me a long time to figure it out because I can only use one hand and I have to get my payment information set up.
Shit, payment information.
I don’t have any money.
