Shark (Wall Street Beasts 1)

“Uhm… Alex is my…”

“Alex is a man who swept you away to his secret island paradise and fucked you right in the ass, metaphorically, and I have no doubt, literally.”

She blushed furiously. How did this man know what happened on a literal secret island? He must have people everywhere. Or drones. Or maybe teeny tiny spy devices. Shoe phones. Something like that. Maybe all of the above.

“I love Alex. I don’t want anybody else touching me. I’m not in an open relationship. I’m in love.”

Indigo’s upper lip curled in disdain. “Love is ridiculous.”

“Probably. But I’m in it deep.”

“As deep as he is, no doubt.”

“Hopefully.”

Indigo smiled. It wasn’t a pleasant smile, but it also wasn’t an entirely cruel smile. He seemed amused by her, in his dark and twisted way.

She had a chance to truly examine his face. He was handsome, but in a way that made him look unremarkable. His age was somewhat difficult to pin down. He wasn't young, and he wasn’t old. She guessed they had a name for that. Middle aged. He was middle aged and middle appearance-d, and an absolute maniac in every sense which mattered.

They fell silent then. Whatever Indigo had in mind, it seemed to be proceeding according to his plan. The more she thought about it, the more she was somewhat sure she was safe. Safer than she would have been, left to Christo’s tender mercies or the unwelcoming arms of the law.

All things considered, the night had not gone badly. She’d expected to end up in some kind of custody.

She curled up a little in the seat.

“Making yourself comfortable?”

“May as well,” she said. “I know when events have overtaken me. I am very overtaken right now.”

He looked at her, cocking his head to the side as he gave her an extensively searching gaze. There was coldness to this man that would have scared the shit out of her before the rest of her life happened.

“You're not afraid of me, are you?”

“I had my face peeled off so I could rejoin society without being arrested for federal crimes I didn’t commit. My fear-o-meter is all kinds of off.”

“Ah,” he said, nodding understandingly. “I’m on my third face.”

“Cool," she replied.

“I thought you’d be more typically dramatic,” Indigo murmured.

“HOLD ON!”

The driver called out just seconds before the brakes went on hard, tires screeching, throwing them both toward the seats in front.

“Roadblock!”

There was a roadblock waiting for them. Heavy armored vehicles blocking all three exits of the intersection, and more coming up behind them.

Indigo threw the door of the car open, grabbed Sophie by her hair, and pulled her out more roughly than she, or her follicles, would have liked.

“I’m sorry, Indigo. But you can’t have my girl.”

It was Alex, looking like a tactical superhero. He was wearing a bulletproof vest over his dress shirt, and had a bunch of tools and toys strapped to his arms and legs.

“I’m impressed. You’ve pulled out all the stops.”

“If you were literally anybody else, you’d have a bullet in your head right now,” Alex growled. “Let her go.”

Indigo did as he was told. Sophie scrambled away from him and ran to Alex as fast as she could. He enveloped her in one arm, pulling her close to his body.

“Are you alright?”

“He didn't hurt me,” she reassured him.

“The dramatics were unnecessary,” Indigo said. “I’d decided to return her to you regardless. I don’t need to have her to control you, Alex.”

“Is that right?”

“You know very well that I can take her whenever I want, and have anything I please done to her. As long as I am alive, as long as she is alive, as long as any of us are alive, I own you through her.”

Sophie hated the way Indigo spoke to Alex, and the way he spoke about her like she was nothing more than an object to be used one way or another. It was galling to her pride.

“Get fucked,” Alex snarled. “Get in your car and get the hell out of here.”

“Careful, Alex. I didn’t lay a finger on your love interest. I could have taken her apart. I could have destroyed her mentally and emotionally. You could be getting back nothing but ashes. We both know that. Take what you’ve been given and be grateful for it.”

With those parting shots, Indigo got back into his car and drove away without any further interference from Alex.

Sophie stared up into Alex’s face, so glad to have been rescued, but confused as to why the whole thing had been so anticlimactic. She’d expected to see Indigo’s brains on the pavement.

“Why didn't we just kill Indigo?”

“It’s not that easy. Indigo has so many dead man’s switches… killing him means putting thousands, perhaps even millions of lives at risk. Think of the world as a web. He’s at the center of it. He doesn’t control everything, but he controls enough of it to bring everybody else down. So we can’t kill him. We have to neutralize him. This is the way our world works. It feels like an eternal struggle sometimes. We can never relax. We can never show weakness. And sometimes we have to deploy our private army to reclaim the love of our life.”