18. Chapter 15 – Aaron
“ Y ou have a beautiful smile, Aaron. Please use it.”
Hillary turned to face the cameras with a well-placed smile of her own as she muttered the admonishment under her breath; the quiet command hung loosely on her tongue.
I forced the subtle smile I had perfected in a mirror decades ago; one that conveyed warmth without attachment, humility without admission, charm without interest. A slight flash of teeth with a bow of my head. It would be all this crowd would get out of me today.
Not that I didn’t agree with the cause. Our joint venture in the tech sphere would bring thousands of much-n eeded jobs into Carlisle and the surrounding towns. The educated and the blue-collar workers would get their equal share, and our company would reap the rewards of high profit in a boom market.
Money my parents had no rights to. Another move in the forward direction.
Hillary cut the garish pink ribbon that had been of her choosing with flourish, and the burgeoning crowd cheered when she tipped her glaring pink hardhat in their direction.
She was a beautiful showman, and the people loved her.
I was her accessory, the wealthy man she had convinced to be a part of the endeavor. The people couldn't care less about me, save for the cohort of women who continued to throw themselves at my feet, as if I would hand-select one of them to bring them to bed.
I squinted into the barrage of women who’d showed up today, all hovering at the front of the crowd like a pack of fertile wolves in stiletto heels and revealing skirts. I felt no emotion or desire whenever I briefly caught sight of their perky breasts and bright lips. Their bodies blurred together into one thirsty entity.
Surprise filled me when a familiar face held my stare in earnest—my employee from Club 7—the one whose name I didn’t know.
A question from a media hack pulled my attention, and when I returned for a second glimpse, she was gone. But I was certain it had been her.
Why would a highly paid prostitute attend an event like this?
An irrelevant question when my life hung in the balance. Even so, it intrigued me. Perhaps I was clinging to any morsel of distraction that could relieve me of my mental burdens.
Hillary’s soft hand landed gently in the small of my back and nudged me leftward to leave the podium. I cast one more p racticed smile, waved to the crowd, and sauntered off into the wings of the makeshift public relations staging.
“What’s with you today?” my blonde companion asked with a confused frown, her blue eyes scanning my face for any signs of inner turmoil. She was astute, Mi Reina , and she would read the story on my skin too clearly for comfort. I needed to divert her.
“You are not fucking me anymore,” I commented casually, lazily rolling my neck and adjusting the cuffs on my suit jacket. “I’m finding it hard not to be … distracted.”
It was not a lie, and yet, a total misdirection. I had missed the softness of her flesh and the warm slickness of her cunt, but I knew those days would come again—they always did. My conversation with Veronica and Vicente had left the rancid flavor of death on my tongue, and I had found no substance that would rid me of its sourness.
The breathy sound of an exasperated scoff met my ears. “Nice try. You have an entire arsenal of employees to help you with that problem. Tell me the truth.”
Fire licked up my spine as I stared into her gaze, finding the fierce raging sea of challenge in her eyes. My redirect had been meant as her distraction, not mine, but I was finding them to be one and the same.
The corridor of the building was empty as the crowd dispersed beyond its walls. The factory would open tomorrow and welcome six hundred new employees to build computer parts for Google and Apple. But in this moment, we were alone.
I shifted my weight forward, closing in on her smaller frame like a predator cornering prey. She backed up against the wall, and allowed me to hover over her as I took up all the space between us.
I brought my face to hers and tilted my head to brush the bridge of my nose up the column of her neck, inhaling the notes of vanilla and honey in her perfume. She shudde red but made no move to lean into me. Instead, she tilted her head to the side, increasing my access to nip and suck at her pulse points.
“The truth, Mi Reina ,” I whispered into the shelter of her skin, “is when I am fucking them, I am fucking you. I only see your face. I only feel your wet cunt wrapped around me. I only feel your tight ass holding onto my cock.” I wrapped my hand around hers and brought it to the swell of said cock in my dress pants, its angry head desperate for her touch. “If I need to vacate Club 7 to indulge in the real thing, so be it.”
I ground my erection into her hand to further my point, then promptly released her and stepped away from the wall to allow us both a moment to cool down.
Her words from our previous encounter had stayed with me, despite my drunken haze. With Veronica and Vicente throwing me to my death, I would choose who to spend the remainder of my days with. It wasn’t a choice at all–it was a compulsion, a reckoning.
The dazed clouds of her expression dissipated quickly, leaving a neutral mask behind.
“That’s not what I meant, Aaron.” She pushed off the wall and straightened her skirt, pulling the collar of her blouse up to hide the red patch of flesh I’d left in my wake. “I also never agreed to an exclusivity clause.”
I quirked an amused brow. “Oh? I was under the impression Kellan was no longer a contender.”
“Who said anything about Kellan?”
“You forget, Mi Reina —I have known you most of your life. You have a particularly fiery disposition when Kellan pisses you off. He has pissed you off, yes?”
Her glare was telling enough. “There is no exclusivity clause, Aaron.”
I shrugged with indifference, unafraid of another man’s position. I was not so filled with hubris to think I had any guarantee of living past my conversation with Antonio. I would take what I was offered in the time I had left.
“Attend the gala with me. We can discuss our reparations then.” My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I took it out to skim the message. I frowned in irritation at the simple words on the screen.
“I have a prior commitment,” she blurted, but didn’t elaborate. “I’ll meet you there—and then we can discuss … reparations.”
“That is all I ask.” I forced a smile and brushed a kiss against her cheekbone before heading down the hallway to prepare for my next meeting. The heaviness in my stomach for what I was about to do rose to the confines of my throat.
“I will see you soon,” I promised, knowing full well that promise might not be kept.
“What is this about, Rodriguez?”
Kellan’s gruff, booming voice was an irritant to my soul, grating my eardrums with the pompous command in his tone.
He exuded the arrogance of a man used to getting his own way, without the time or willingness to bend to the whims of others. My temperament was the same.
His presence held a power within it, quiet and controlled like a lion knowing nothing in the savanna could harm him save for another lion.
I was the other lion.
We were cut from the same cloth; whereas mine had been sewn into a fine suit, Kellan wore his like a caveman’s cloak. Refined versus rugged. My smooth grace versus his rough saunter.
We stood in my newly acquired warehouse, now well into the construction stages. The powdery dust of freshly screwe d drywall settled onto my skin in a fine mist and the fading scent of sawdust lingered in the cooling air of the evening. My teams were on track to meet my impossible timelines to get the building operational.
I had originally purchased the building as a way to secure the Rodriguez assets in this part of town; a stronghold for our legions of men to house our most valuable illegal assets in a secure facility on neutral ground.
All that had changed course with my parents’ decision to join with the enemy they used to plot against. It was no longer a fortress against Alvarez as the Rodriguez heir, and I was going to have to decide what to do with a fortified climate-controlled, sound-proofed building with three bank vaults, a private fight ring with theater seating, and a dungeon-style fetish sex club. I had an idea, but it would only be useful if Antonio agreed.
Dead men couldn’t run businesses—legal or otherwise.
“I have a proposition for you.” I leaned against an abandoned ladder in the center of the room and folded my arms across my chest, grimacing at the layer of white chalk that had wiped off on my shirtsleeve.
“So?” Kellan mimicked my stance and tossed me a pointed glare. “Out with it.”
“My parents are pulling out of the agreement. They’ve partnered with Alejandro Alvarez and have sent me to deliver the message. They are hoping you will kill me as penance, so they will be set free to carry out their whims as they see fit.”
Kellan's bushy eyebrows raised a fraction. He brought his hand to his face and stroked down his short beard as his icy blue eyes stared through me. A jarring laugh burst from between his teeth, all but shattering my composure.
“You have big balls for a robot, Rodriguez. I’ll give you that.”
My lip curled into a sneer. “My cajones are not the topic of conversation. This is the position I have been put in. So, I have a counteroffer for you.”
“Oh?”
“Give me their territory. I will operate against them and their alliance with Alvarez. This building is under construction to house much of our operations under one roof. Let my parents wallow in their misery with their poor choices when Antonio doles out punishment. I can be your ally.”
I stood to my full height, dusted off my dirty sleeves, and faced him as the man I was; the equal lion. His face betrayed no emotion, but he shrewdly assessed my mask as if I was capable of letting my feelings slip through, unlike the robot he claimed me to be.
Bastard.
“You say a lot of pretty words, Cabron .” He stepped forward, stopping a few feet in front of me. I refused to move. His next words would release me or seal me to my fate.
“You realize that this isn’t up to me, right? Antonio wants to increase his cut, not lose it. He’ll probably tell me to kill your parents, and then kill you for good measure. He’s done worse for less—and you know this, or you wouldn’t be coming to me.”
I dipped my head, acknowledging that was true. Kellan might spare me, but Antonio surely wouldn’t, not without someone arguing for my case.
A better man might attempt to leave this life—sell my shares and start new companies, or keep my shares and silently slink away to another end of the earth, away from the criminal empire I was blooded into.
I was not meant for picket fences and puppies. I was bred to build underground kingdoms of power and pain. I would leave in a body bag, but not sooner.
I h ad many men who were paid to die for me, but to what end? I did not want Antonio’s position or that of Alvarez, ruling from a throne built on a pile of corpses. I was satisfied with my one kingdom, providing small, dark joys to the wayward masses in need of an escape. I did not need the promise of more.
“I am not so filled with pride I can’t bargain for my life. If I am to be thrown to wolves, I can at least choose my pack, yes?”
The blond commander whistled through his teeth and shook his head, a meaty palm rubbing down his face. The tattoos along his knuckles taunted me—“hell” and “hope”—their jagged typeface a brutal reminder of the situation I found myself in.
“Alright. I’ll take it to him, but you might not like the answer.”
I nodded swiftly. “I will take that risk. When you have your answer, I will invite you back to show you what I have here. We could be good partners, you and I.”
The grunt I received in return was not at all reassuring. I certainly didn’t want to work with a man whose ego rivaled mine, but if that was what fate delivered, I would accept it.
It was better than a battle to the death. One I would not win.
He turned on his heel, footsteps echoing into the emptiness of the unfinished space as he left me and my destiny behind.