Charles picked up after half a ring. “Sir?”
“I want all the security footage from the past day sent to me within the hour.” I dispensed with the niceties and rubbed my thumb over the turquoise ring in my pocket.
No matter how cold the temperature or how long I left it untouched, the stone was always warm.
“Of course. For which camera?”
“All of them.” Stella lived on the tenth floor, but the perpetrator had to have entered and left elsewhere in the building.
“All of them? Sir, that’s—”
“Someone broke into my girlfriend’s apartment today, Charles.” My easy tone didn’t match the danger rising beneath its surface. “You must know that already since you’re my head of security. Perhaps you even have a lead on who broke in. So tell me. Which cameras should I look at if not all of them?”
Silence thundered for a beat before he responded. “I’ll have it to you in thirty.”
“Good. And Charles?”
A nervous swallow rattled the line. “Yes, sir?”
“Fire every security personnel who was on duty today.”
I hung up before I had to listen to his tedious protests.
The security team at the Mirage was good, but they weren’t irreplaceable. There was a reason they were guarding a building and not my VIP clients.
And if they couldn’t even do that right, then they had no business being in my employ.
I provided my staff with exceptional pay and benefits, but I expected exceptional work in return.
Brock showed up soon after my call with Charles with a duffel bag and the unicorn. He set them down in the living room before he turned and ran a hand over his buzz cut.
“Boss, I—”
“You’re dismissed for the night.”
My anger had cooled enough for me to recognize that it wasn’t Brock’s fault the stalker had snuck into Stella’s apartment. His job had been to keep an eye on her, not her house.
Still, my irritation ran sharp enough to turn my words into blades.
Relief spread across Brock’s face before he tensed again. “Just for the night, right? Not forever?”
My lips thinned.
“Right. Gotcha.” He nodded and hoofed it out the door. “G’night.”
I exhaled a long, slow breath and pinched the bridge of my nose.
Sometimes, I truly despised people.
And objects.
I glared at the raggedy stuffed animal polluting my living room. I didn’t understand why Stella loved it so much, or why her followers would rather cuddle with it than me—I hated cuddling, but it was the principle of the matter—but since she did, I swallowed my distaste and took it to the guest room along with her luggage.
“You have a visitor.” I dropped the thing on the bed next to her and resisted the urge to Lysol my hands.
Stella blinked down at the unicorn but didn’t touch it.
“Figured you’d want its company.” Though God knows why. “I also brought some of your clothes and toiletries.”
A strange awkwardness prickled my skin at her continued silence.
Fuck, I hated this. Less than an hour in my house, and she’d already thrown me further off my equilibrium.
But the discomfort was worth knowing she was safe.
Right now, I didn’t trust anyone or anything to protect her except myself.
I cleared my throat and nodded at her bathroom. “A hot shower might make you feel better. Wash off the day.”
No response.
The less Stella reacted, the more the pressure in my chest expanded.
I didn’t know where it came from, but I loathed it as much as I loathed polyester, incompetence, and dessert.
Since she didn’t seem interested in moving on her own anytime soon, I opened the bathroom door to start the shower but immediately grimaced.
Christ.
I hadn’t entered this bathroom since I moved in years ago, so I assumed the foul smell had something to do with the long-unused drain.
My housekeeper kept the marble floors and counters squeaky clean, but she hadn’t said a damn thing about the smell.
Could no one do their job right?