Kingdom Come

He stepped back and clapped. Here comes the finale. Because men like him always had to have the last word. “You’ve got me.”

I did but didn’t say it.

“But remember this, Mr. Black, if anything happens to my daughter, the next conversation we have won’t be as friendly.”

He opened the door and left. Seconds later, I watched the security footage on my laptop as Eliza escorted them out the front exit and locked up after them. She armed the system before ambling back to my office. I was sitting in my chair when she arrived.

“Tell me,” I said, because they couldn’t have gotten in without help. Haddad was rich, but he wasn’t subtle. He was a showy guy who was more apt to breaking and entering with a battering ram than with a tech guy who could beat my security.

Her head dropped as I steepled my fingers much as Haddad had earlier.

“I told you how I was feeling,” she said, and I nodded. “I went to a bar last night where I met him.”

It took me a second to realize she meant one of the three men who had come to the office. My guess was the bald, well-built guy.

“I was needy and somehow we got on the subject of kinky sex. He offered to take me to his place and play with his toys, but I just met him.”

Clearly it had been a setup she hadn’t seen coming. I’d thought better of her.

“So you thought, why not bring him to the club?”

Her voice broke as she rambled. “I didn’t think. I’d turned down his offer last night but rang him up this afternoon out of desperate need.”

We all had needs and if not taken care of, they can lead to mistakes. “That’s the problem.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I was trying to be safe. The club was closed. I told him to meet me here. I didn’t expect him not to be alone.”

“How about the fact this isn’t your personal playground?” I interjected.

“It won’t happen again.”

“You’re right it won’t,” I said.

“Are you firing me?” she asked, enormous eyes shimmering with tears. Eliza wasn’t a crier.

“I’m thinking about it. Go home.”

“I’m really sorry.”

“Go home and think about how you put us both at risk.”

She turned and walked out. Part of me wanted not to care about her safety. I had no idea if they were waiting. I couldn’t be sure how much she’d revealed to him. I watched her on the camera until she drove off into the night.

After arming the system and checking every camera to be sure I was alone, I closed the laptop. Then I pulled a false drawer from the bottom of my desk and took out another laptop. The one on my desk was more for show. There was nothing on the hard drive. Access to the cameras was through a secure closed internal internet access with a firewall most hackers couldn’t penetrate.

Still, Haddad had been left near the laptop for I wasn’t yet sure how long. It was compromised as far as I was concerned.

I wove my fingers together and flexed them before placing them on the keyboard of my real computer. I had work to do. My bluff had been a bluff to a point. If something happened to me, I had someone on the outside who would send out certain files to police and media. But I didn’t have someone watching twenty-four seven. I couldn’t trust that. I scrubbed through the files every night and categorized them. Certain files were uploaded to the cloud my designated person would gain access to in the event of my death.

On top of that, I had to consider my security system also compromised. I had to view all the footage from the night before and reset the protocols. Then I would need to contact Griffin and let him know. It would be a long night.

No way I’d make it back to Lizzy’s bed.TwelveLizzyMonday came way too fast. I’d slept most of Sunday, making up for the night before. I ached in places I didn’t know were possible. Unfortunately, because I’d woken up late again on Monday, I couldn’t linger in the shower and replay those events in my mind while using my fingers.

By the time I got to my office, I was grumpy for several reasons. One was I wanted to call Striker and beg him to fuck me. Right on my office desk if he didn’t mind. The other had to do with a shadow outside my window that made me mutter a few curses.

“That frown is not a good look. What’s crawled up your ass?” Anderson complained. He handed me a steaming cup of coffee, which was much appreciated.

“Can you grab me another?” I asked with fake sweetness.

“Do you think you really need this much caffeine when you’re already on bitchiness overload?”