Page 32 of Greed

“Maryland, she went back home to Maryland,” the man whimpered as my fist tightened slightly.

“And when is she due to return?”

“I don’t know,” the man said. I looked around the small space and spotted a couple of packing boxes.

“Is she moving?” I really didn’t want the answer to be yes. For whatever reason, I was fascinated with the girl, and the thought of her leaving for good did not sit well in my stomach.

“I don’t think so, but I don’t know for sure.” The man let go of his head as I released the power over his mind and then let go of his hand, and he sank to the floor. I could’ve been more subtle, to the point that he wouldn’t even have noticed my influence, but this was more efficient, and I liked seeing him in pain.

“What are the boxes for then?” I nodded to the three average boxes sitting in the narrow hallway.

“The bitch kicked me out. After all I’ve done for her over the years, she kicks me to the curb. She knows I don’t have a job right now. It was a bitch move, and I should’ve left her uptight ass long ago.”

My lip curled up as I reached out and grabbed the man by the neck. Pulling him to his feet, I slammed him against the wall. His eyes went wide as I proceeded to lift his feet off the floor. Fear danced in his blue eyes as I felt my eyes flash with power and knew that they were glowing slightly. It was rare that my anger would make me show even a modicum of my true self to a human, but this man was pushing the right buttons.

“What the fuck,” the man whispered as he stared into my glowing orbs.

“Does Minetta know you have a ‘girl on the side’ that’s carrying your child, James?” I snarled, my voice deepening with the building rage. “Does she know you’ve been stealing from her for years and planned on leaving her once you used her connections to get a job where she works? Does she know you made friends with some men there and planned on getting her fired so you wouldn’t have to work with her? And does she know that you never loved her although you claimed that you did? My guess is that she doesn’t know any of that, and she never will.”Pulling James back, I slammed him against the wall again because it felt good to do so.

“You’ll not pursue a job at her work. You can cancel that interview that’s set. You will not get her fired, and you will never darken her door again.” A trickle of true terror traveled through James’s body as the stench of fear wafted off of him like a spoiled cologne. “I’m pretty sure she’s not the one who is the bitch in this situation. If anything, I’d say she wisened up.”

I let go of his neck, and he dropped to his feet, but I placed my hand on the wall beside his head, making sure he still felt as trapped as he was.

“Do not mess with me, James. I will hunt you down like the stuck pig you are, and I will hang you over an open spit of Hellfire for all eternity. Now get your shit and be gone. Do not bother Minetta again, or I will return.”

James’s eyes were wide. Every muscle coiled to bolt the first moment I allowed him. I leaned in close to his ear. “You should know, I’m not a very nice person when people don’t listen to me, and I actually kind of like it when they don’t. This is where you leave while you still have two functioning legs and the junior one in the middle because I’m tempted to rip off all three.” I stepped back from James and felt my eyes return to normal. “I meant go, now,” I said quietly. James acted like I’d shot him out of a cannon as he dove toward the boxes.

Arms shaking, James stacked them on top of one another and bolted out the door. Bending, I grabbed the sneakers that were obviously his and threw them out the door after him. One hit him in the back of the head the other one hit the middle of the back as he loaded his vehicle.

Smiling, I slammed the door. Now that the trash had been taken out, it was time to learn more about my mysterious little raven beauty.

I really had started out trying to be nice, but my patience quickly evaporated as the words, ‘the money is gone,’ came out of Nikolas’s mouth.

“What do you mean the money is gone?”

“Please don’t kill me,” Nikolas begged as he knelt before Brill and the two young warriors that he’d brought with him.

The reaction Nikolas had when Brill walked into the room and showed his real face and not the human illusion demons created when here on Earth had me laughing so hard that my sides hurt. It had almost been enough for me to let the man go knowing that his nightmares would stalk him as punishment, but that was not my way. You didn’t get to steal from me and live.

“I have to tell you, Nikolas, you’re not off to a very good start.” I rose to my feet, and he grabbed at my legs, the desperation evident in his eyes. “Where has the money gone, Nikolas?”

“I don’t know. I…I…was going to put it back, I swear. I stole it to invest, and I was going to take the interest and pay back what I’d taken, but it disappeared out of the account.”

“So, you wanted to get rich off my money and my hard work, and then before you could put the money back, it gets stolen from you?”

His eyes looked extra large behind the thick glasses he was wearing, making him look like a bug. Nikolas nodded furiously as tears streamed down his cheeks. Annoyed, I snapped my fingers, and the two warriors each grabbed an arm and pried his fingers away from my pants. The one warrior tossed the much smaller man over his shoulder as Nikolas screamed hysterically, squirming like a worm on a line.

“Last time Nikolas, where did my money go?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know who would’ve known that I’d taken it in the first place. Maybe someone in the office, or someone at the bank that I transferred it to, I swear I don’t know.”

The warrior slammed Nikolas down on the metal slab table with a bang. Nikolas’s face contorted with pain and made a stupid-looking duck face as all the air was driven from his lungs.

The man coughed and cried as the warriors strapped him down, his arms secured above his head while his feet were cinched to the bottom corners of the table.

“Please, please, please, you didn’t need the money. I meant no harm. I borrowed it. I swear I didn’t plan to steal it.”

Marching over to the table, I leaned over the man, my eyes glowing bright with anger. “Whether I need the money or not is not the point. It was mine, I’d earned it, and you took it. That is a cardinal sin to me.”