Magnetic.
Both pulling and pushing at once.
I was still thrumming when the bedside lamp was turned out, but my eyes were too tired to follow his body in the shadows when he got back to his feet and left me.Chapter SixBrandon“Seriously, Bran, what the hell is going down here?”
Eric’s face was a picture of white horror, and for once the idiot was right on point. He followed me from the office, keeping hard on my tail as I made my way to the rear of the house. I’d abandoned my handset inside and didn’t even have my cigarettes from my jacket pocket. There was only me and the cutting winter chill through my shirt, staring up at the glittering dawn with a scowl on my face from the back porch.
My brother let out a sigh and moved closer, folding his arms over the balustrade and taking in the same view.
“Drake isn’t gonna get over this shit,” he said, like it needing voicing. “Viewing levels spiked at ten last night. Fucking loads of viewers. Loads. He wanted action. They all did. I don’t get it…”
I didn’t have an excuse for any of it, and I didn’t force one. I’d been ignoring the messages from Drake on the encrypted portal, knowing full well what would be heading my way from the piece of shit.
He wanted action with Annabel Fisher, and cash lining his already fat pocket.
I wanted to know what was happening with Rebecca Lane’s disappearance and what the fuck that cunt had to do with it.
I’d tell him to fuck off in a heartbeat and the thrill would last me for weeks. I’d love to ditch him in a cesspit of has-beens and never set eyes on the old fucker again.
I’d love to do a whole host of vile acts to the piece of shit, but it would be a dumb-fuck move on my part.
Henry Drake may have been on the later side of life, but a run in with him couldn’t be taken lightly. He was powerful. Dangerous.
Yet, so was I.
“What’s he said to you?” Eric asked, interrupting my own grim thoughts.
“Nothing that’s any of your business,” I told him.
He sighed and shook his head, a damned sight more together a figure than he had been when I was dragging him from Annabel’s room and pummelling shit out of him just a short period ago.
Bravado was a fool’s friend. Unfounded arrogance was another.
Eric had both on his contacts list.
I wasn’t going to tell him about Drake’s previous message. The one before I’d bailed all the further and long before the host of abuse that had followed.
No more fuck ups. Tonight needs to be your best fucking game face. The stakes are high. Clients waiting. Ten p.m. fucking sharp.
Paige Emmerson deserved every sliver of punishment she’d be receiving from me. The girl’s idiot endeavours to save her idiot sister had cost me a whole fucking mountain of conflict.
“You gonna go up and put on a show?” my brother prodded, ignoring my blatant reluctance to speak in more than grunts to him.
The dawn was breaking through the treeline opposite. Barely suitable timing for our US viewers, let alone the European ones.
That’s why I told myself I wouldn’t be playing with Annabel Fisher’s filthy little body for the sake of another filthy payday.
That’s why I told myself I wasn’t racing upstairs to salvage some dregs of the business relationship between me and the man who’d put me on this dark road in the first place.
“No,” I told Eric. “I’m not.”
His next sigh was louder than the one previous. The shake of his head nothing short of disbelief.
“You could do it. Make it good. The viewers will get the notification. Be able to watch at their leisure. At least it would be new material, right?”
“No,” I said again. “I’m not putting on a performance in some half-assed fucking bid to save the day.” I paused. “I’m especially not putting up a performance because my prick of a kid brother tells me it will do me a fucking favour.”
“Fine,” he said. “I’m just a prick then. Always just a prick. Ignore me.”
“Oh, I will,” I replied. “Don’t you fucking worry.”
Finally, he left me to it. Ploughing on back inside with a grunt of expletives and hunched shoulders.
He was right. He was always just a prick. Just a fucking shame he was still treating it as some unfair revelation rather than a common fucking truth.
I gave one last look at the incoming dawn before I turned tail on the porch myself.
Eric wasn’t back in the office when I entered. His station was clear and monitor black when I took up my own seat and faced the inevitable Drake stream of insults through the message portal.
Four messages.
Are you out of your fucking mind? Get that fucking show started before I take it over.