“I want them up and running as soon as physically possible,” I growl, anger buzzing in my veins. I tell myself it’s because I need eyes on Tobias and any visitors that go into that building, but I know the real reason. Eleanor. On her own without any backup or support, no eyes on her.
My hand tightens around the glass of bourbon in my hand. Fuck.
I leave the guys in the house we use as a base, a large mansion with several rooms and garages on the outskirts of the city. It’s where all my security is, where we meet and talk through any decisions about the city, where we plan attacks and revenge.
Ace follows me out, close to my heels, “Your little pet have anything to do with this?” Ace asks.
“She’s not my pet,” I growl, “She’s an inside source to the company.”
“Who you’re fucking.” Ace presses.
“Fuck off, Abel.”
“Well did she have anything to do with it?” He continues.
“No, she didn’t.”
“Are you sure?”
I stop dead, back straightening, “Are you questioning me, Ace? Do you not trust my judgement?”
“Well, it was never part of the plan to bring in an outsider, this shit is sensitive.”
My fist hits the side of his face with a deafening crack. He stumbles back, hand going to his mouth to touch the blood trickling out the side.
“This is my fucking city! I fucking decide how it is done! I own you!” I bellow, “Don’t fucking question me!”
“King, mate,” Ace straightens his back but doesn’t cower. That was why he was my second, the only other fucking person, other than Isobel, I truly trusted. Micha was a good man, a loyal one, and he was earning his spot in my inner circle, but this fucker has been here since the beginning and will likely be here until the end. “We’re not fighting about this. I am just making sure you’re not looking through rose-tinted glasses. Outsiders don’t work for us, we know this.”
“We trusted the Silver’s enough,” I retort even if he was right. But Eleanor, she was different. I didn’t trust her, but I also didn’t think she’d stab me in the back either.
It was a tough call.
“Just watch your back,” he wipes the blood from his lip with the pad of his thumb, “she seems like a nice girl, but I wouldn’t want you to end up with a knife between your shoulder blades.”
“I can handle Eleanor.”
He smirks, “Can you?”
_
I sit at the desk in the office in my penthouse, what footage we did manage to get before the bugs went dark playing on the screen. The files from Alexander Silver lay open across the desk in front of me, the images of Tobias and his son at the top of the page. All the reports on the Syndicate and its members mention two other entities, two other men who control the whole thing. It looks like a mistake that Tobias had been leaked but I wasn’t going to complain. After receiving the information, nothing at all shocked me. Not the images of the politician beating a woman, not the mayor with his head buried between the legs of a girl or the pictures of the countless murders or the girls being kidnapped, tied up and gagged.
But this missing piece, this black area where these two heads were supposed to be was bugging me. Who were they?
I needed that information, I needed it to enact the full scale of my plan on taking these fuckers out quickly, and effectively.
I had been lucky for the most part that they hadn’t come for me yet, but even if they did, I’d be ready for them. I knew they had men in the city and across the country and Europe, and I’ll deal with that after I’ve dealt with them.
Wren had pulled through on her end, freeing the girls over in the US. The rest was on me.
I massage my temples, the footage showing me nothing but a normal every day working environment. Tobias filters in and out of meetings all day, Eleanor trailing him, bringing him coffee or his lunch, scheduling his appointments and that makes my fucking blood boil.
Garrett does little to nothing other than sit in his office and stalk down the halls.
I had everything on these two, their address, accounts, I had access to everything.
I needed fucking more.
I slam the lid of the laptop down and stalk from the office, leaving everything on the desk. I needed an out. I needed fucking something. Without thinking about it, I grab the keys to the Mercedes and head across the city, taking the roads blindly before I’m pulling up to that familiar building. I had been here only a few hours ago, but it’s now the early hours of the morning, the majority of the city sleeps and will remain that way for the next couple of hours. Her lights are off, curtains drawn, but it doesn’t stop me as I leave the car and let myself in, taking the stairs up quietly. I hesitate outside her front door, but continue on. She’s right there.
A body to forget everything with, warmth and innocence wrapped in a sinfully delicious body ready for the taking.
The click of the door closing behind me echoes through the dark living room. My shoes tap against the hard floor, and I push open her door, finding her curled in the middle of her big double bed, half buried under the sheets.
What stops me half-way to the bed is the clothes she’s wearing, no, not clothes, shirt. She wears nothing but the shirt. White. Creased and clearly worn.
My shirt.
I need to go. But I don’t.
This is a mistake.
But I still don’t leave.
She stirs, rolling onto her back, her dark hair sprawled across the pillow, lashes fluttering against the apples of her cheeks. Her bandaged foots rests on top of the blankets.
Exhaustion weighs heavily on me, confusion warring with desire, anger with lust. I needed to leave.
Eleanor rolls and her eyes open, half lidded and drowsy, but she finds me as if she knew exactly where I was. Seeing me doesn’t scare her, instead she sighs heavily and rolls onto her side, watching me where I stand.
“How did you get in?” She mumbles.
I don’t answer.
“What do you want Kingston? I’m tired.”
Leave now. The warning rings clear, yet my legs carry me forward. She watches me the entire time, and without hesitation, she lifts the blankets on the other side of the bed, moving over slightly to allow room for another person. To allow room for me.
I swallow, my stomach suddenly knotting.
I haven’t done this, slept in a woman’s bed, ever, not even after sex. It’s intimate and implies a certain level of trust. Neither of those things are what’s between Eleanor and me. But still, she invites me into her bed.
And for some fucked up reason I refuse to acknowledge, I strip out of my clothes, leaving me in just a pair of boxers and climb inside. She throws the duvet back over me and stays on her side, her back to me and the smell of me mixed with her own scent wafting past my nose.
It was a heady, intoxicating mix, one that fogs my senses and makes all thoughts other than Eleanor leave my head. She’s in my skin, buried so far under the surface and I have no idea how she got there or how it came to be.
Her back rests against my arm, her breathing evening out as sleep once again claims her and surprisingly, despite the frustration and the anger, two things that usually leave sleep a foreign concept, my eyes grow heavy, and I fall asleep to the soft music of her breathing and the scent of her in my nose.