My foot kicks at the prone body in the middle of the kitchen floor, naked save for the towel someone dropped across his hips to conceal his cock underneath. There’s red lipstick stains on his chest and stomach and his skin is beaded with sweat, no doubt most of it is the alcohol seeping out of his skin seeing as he drank so fucking much.
I kick him again when he doesn’t stir, harder this time, and he startles awake reaching for a gun that he’ll find is not at his hip.
“What the fuck!?” Ace grunts when his bloodshot eyes find me standing above him.
He’s the only one left in the house save for the staff cleaning up the mess left behind. It’ll take a lot of scrubbing and bleach to get the stench of sex and bodily fluids out of the carpets.
“Get up, get dressed, we’re moving forward.”
He knows exactly what I mean as his eyes widen and mouth drops open, “Now!? Today!?”
“Yes.”
“King, mate, what the fuck!?”
I shake my head and turn my back, giving him some privacy to clean himself up and get dressed. Ten minutes later, wearing the same suit he had on yesterday, Ace stumbles out of the kitchen, rubbing his eyes.
“If I knew what we were doing today I wouldn’t have got so fucked up last night,” he swallows down half a bottle of water, “why the rush?”
“Isobel,” that’s all I need to say.
“Fine,” he shakes his head, “I assume you’ve got everything arranged?”
A curt nod, “Spare suit in the upstairs bedroom, change. We leave in twenty minutes.”
With Ace busy I take my leave, exiting through the door where I lean against the wrought iron railing that surrounds the porch of Crimson. People bustle up and down the street, sparing little attention on the house or me standing on its porch.
People didn’t know who I was. My enemies don’t even really know who I am. While my name is recognizable to most, not everyone knows my face and while the Syndicate have heard of me, they’ve never once seen me. It was my advantage.
For the most part, the organization have left me alone, knowing I have the power to crush them and that’s not because of the information I hold on them.
They have no idea I have it. They are blind.
Ace comes out fresher than he was before, and we say nothing as we head down to the Mercedes idling on the side of the road.
The drive through the city is slow with the stop start traffic, but finally we pull up outside a huge glass building and climb out.
Tobias and Son Enterprises is a huge and well-established finance company, one of the biggest in London, but it’s run by a man more corrupt than even I am.
“Are you sure now is the right time?”
“It needs to be,” I say and head through the revolving doors. Warm air greets me as I push through to reception and head straight for the desk to announce my arrival.
“Harrison Donovan,” I say the alias name to the girl behind the counter, “here to meet with Mr Franco.”
“Of course, sir,” the girl nods demurely, her manicured nails clipping against the keyboard a few times before she stands, “right this way.”
Ace and I follow her to a wall of elevators, “Go on up to floor fifteen, Eleanor will see you through to Mr Franco.”
She leaves us to it, heading back to her station as we climb in and hit the button to take us up.
“Mr Franco,” Ace spits.
“Hold your tongue,” I snap before the doors slide open to reveal a long brightly lit hall with doors to meeting rooms on either side. At the very end a large white desk dominates the space, dotted with greenery and artwork and then further behind a view of the city beyond. My city.
A small woman sits at the desk, head down as she works on the computer. I can’t see her face, but her hair is a thick curtain of chestnut locks, glossy in the overhead lighting, and it falls in waves around her face. She doesn’t immediately look up when we stop in front of the desk, and it’s only when Ace clears his throat that her head snaps up. She’s quick to snap the book she was reading closed.
“Fuck,” she hisses under her breath, so quietly I’m sure she thinks we didn’t hear. Ace flicks his eyes to me, a frown pulling down his brows. In her obvious state of distress, I can’t help but quirk my lips and show my amusement on my face. Now that I’m looking at her, now that I’m seeing the face hidden by all that hair, I can't help but admit that the girl is fucking stunning.