Chapter 5
Castellanos went very still, and all the color drained from his face. He knew the name. Everyone in the weapons industry knew it.
Algerone let the silence stretch.
"Mr. Caisse-Etremont." Castellanos's voice cracked. "I didn't—I was just hired to—"
"You stole from me." Algerone flexed a fist, and the leather of his gloves creaked. "Seven billion dollars. Do you even comprehend that number, Mr. Castellanos?"
The prisoner's Adam's apple bobbed.
"I didn't think so." The cane tapped once and vibrated through the floor into my bones. "But you're going to help me understand exactly how this happened."
Then his hands moved to his jacket buttons, undoing them one at a time. The jacket slid away, and he draped it carefully over the back of a nearby chair.
He reached into his pocket and withdrew four heavy rings, sliding them on one at a time over the gloves.
The memory of Singapore struck like a bruise being pressed: his head in my lap after we'd lost three men, whiskey on his breath, the moment before I turned away and chose the empire over everything else.
"This should be interesting," Reid said beside me.
The comment forced me back. Reid stood close enough to hear any shift in my breathing, close enough to see if control slipped.
I was forty-eight years old, COO of a weapons manufacturer, not some infatuated subordinate watching his employer prepare for interrogation.
The distinction felt increasingly theoretical.
Algerone rolled back his sleeves. "You see these?" He held up his ringed hand. Even through the glass, the flat surfaces meant for breaking bone caught the light. "I'm going to ask you questions. How honest you are determines how often I use them. Understand?"
Castellanos nodded frantically.
The first blow came without warning. The crack echoed through the speaker, blood sprayed across concrete, and the prisoner's head snapped sideways hard enough that his neck popped.
Heat spread through my gut, and my cock twitched. Not shock or revulsion, but the first stirring of an erection.
He moved through violence the same way he moved through boardrooms, his certainty absolute, his efficiency devastating. Each strike was purposeful, and each pause was calculated. This was Algerone at his most essential: power made physical, authority made undeniable.
My cock stirred against my thigh.
"Wrong answer." His breathing stayed even while mine had gone ragged. "Let's try again. Who hired you?"
"Shaw." Castellanos spat blood. "Gideon Shaw."
I shifted my weight, trying to ease the growing pressure in my pants without drawing Reid's attention. The movement only made it worse. Fabric dragged against sensitive flesh, and I had to clench my jaw to keep my expression neutral.
Algerone circled behind the prisoner and grabbed a fistful of hair, wrenching the man's head back to expose his throat. The casual brutality of the gesture sent another pulse of heat straight to my groin.
Permission. The word surfaced unbidden. I wanted permission to kneel, to serve, to be allowed even for a heartbeat to give myself to the man whose forgiveness I would never deserve.
"Where's my prototype?" Algerone's voice had gone soft in a way that made every hair on my body stand on end.
Castellanos pressed his lips together and said nothing.
"Let me explain your situation." Algerone circled back around front, leaning on his cane. "Shaw knows by now that we have you. He's not an idiot. He'll assume you've talked or will talk soon. Which means your daughter Emma is now a liability to him."
Castellanos trembled.
"Your only chance of protecting her is to tell me everything right now. Where the prototype is. Where Shaw is. Everything. Then maybe, just maybe, I can get to her before he does." Algerone paused. "Or you can stay quiet, and Shaw will tie up his loose ends. Your choice."
Castellanos's breathing quickened, and his eyes went glassy with terror.
What destroyed me wasn't the threat itself but watching Algerone dismantle a man with nothing but cold logic and absolute certainty.
This was who he'd always been, who I'd always needed him to be, who I'd never allowed myself to have.
My cock thickened further, pressing insistently against my zipper.
The arousal built the way it always did now, not a sharp spike but a slow heavy tide settling low in my belly and spreading outward.
I was getting hard in an observation room at four in the morning watching my employer interrogate a prisoner, and there wasn't a single thing I could do to stop it.
I pressed my palm against the glass. The cold did nothing to cool the fever spreading through my veins.
My other hand curled into a fist at my side, nails biting into my palm because pain was the only anchor I had left.
If I didn't hold onto something, I was going to do something unforgivable in front of Reid.
Drop to my knees. Press my forehead to the floor.
Beg for permission I would never deserve.
"I'll talk," Castellanos whispered. "I'll tell you everything. Just please—"
Algerone struck him again, not because he needed to but because he could, because he wanted Castellanos to understand that cooperation was not negotiation.
A sound escaped me, barely more than a breath, but Reid's head turned.
"?a va?" he asked.
"Fine." The word came out strangled. My vision had gone hazy at the edges, and my breath had abandoned all discipline.
The worst part wasn't wanting him but knowing I no longer had the right to kneel.
I'd forfeited that privilege twenty years ago in Singapore, and I was still paying interest on the debt.
Through the glass, Algerone continued his interrogation, and each question, each answer, each casual display of dominance registered in my body like a strike. Heat and pressure built until my cock ached against my pants and my thighs trembled with the effort of standing still.
"I need to make a call," I said.
Reid glanced at me. "I can—"
"I'll handle it." I was already moving toward the door. Distance was survival, and staying meant breaking, and staying meant Reid seeing the visible evidence of what watching Algerone had done to me. "Back in fifteen."
The executive bathroom on that floor was single occupancy. Private. The door locked behind me with a sound that felt too final.
I turned on both taps to cover any sound, then stood there staring at my reflection. I looked composed, professional even. The lie held even as everything underneath was coming apart.
Get control. You're in your fifties. This is absurd.
My hands moved to my tie anyway.
The ritual felt inevitable once it started.
I loosened my tie and draped it over the towel bar.
My jacket hung on the hook. I removed my shirt, folded it, and set it on the counter.
There had been a time when these same hands had undressed Algerone.
When removing his tie had been service, not solitude.
That version of intimacy was gone. This was all that remained.
The tile was cold when my knees hit it.
Kneeling at fifty was different from kneeling at twenty-five. My joints protested. The position required conscious adjustment to avoid pain that had nothing to do with penance. I could have been kneeling for him all these years. Could have had this—had him—instead of choosing empire over intimacy.
Lucky Losers. The name felt like mockery now. I'd built a legacy and lost everything that mattered, and here I was alone on a bathroom floor with nothing but decades of denial and a body that reminded me how much time had passed while I'd made the wrong choice over and over again.
I knelt there in my undershirt and boxers, hands braced on my thighs, breathing in the scent of industrial soap and my own shame.
This position was a confession, the thing I'd denied myself for thirty-two years.
At my age, wanting him should have dulled.
Instead, it had only sharpened, honed by proximity and denial into something that could still destroy me at four in the morning on a bathroom floor.
My hand slid beneath the undershirt.
The first touch against my nipple was almost tentative. Then I pressed harder. Pinched. Twisted until the ache bloomed sharp and clarifying. This was penance, the pain I could control when everything else had spiraled beyond reach.
I wasn't fully hard yet. Arousal built differently now, deeper and heavier, a slow climb centered low in my gut. I palmed myself through the boxers and felt my body begin to respond.
My left hand maintained its punishment while my right freed my cock from the boxers. The cool air made me harder. I reached for the soap dispenser and worked the slickness over my length because there was nothing else and friction without assistance was futile at this age.
The first stroke made my thighs tremble.
I didn't want his body. I wanted his authority. His permission. The thing I'd forfeited the right to receive.
My breath came in controlled silence as I stroked myself slowly, letting the desire build. Decades of discipline meant I made no sound even now, even alone, even falling apart. The only noise was water running and the obscene slick sound of my fist working over my cock.
The fantasy that arrived wasn't explicit. It was worse.
I imagined being allowed, being seen. Algerone acknowledging my existence enough to give an order I could obey. The devastating relief of hearing "kneel" from his mouth. Of being permitted, even in his contempt, to serve.
I pinched my nipple harder, chasing the bright spike of pain. My other hand found the perfect rhythm, steady and building. The pleasure didn't arrive as a spike but as slow, inexorable pressure, full-body and draining in the way it only was at this age. My breath stuttered despite my control.
The image that destroyed me was simple. Algerone's face as I'd seen it through the glass, his expression cold but focused.
Beautiful in his absolute certainty. If he ordered me to my knees right now, despising me as he did, I would still obey without hesitation. Without pride. Without any conditions.
Release built in my spine and spread through my thighs.
When it hit, I had to brace my soap-slicked hand against the vanity to stay upright.
My breath cut off completely. The orgasm rolled through me in waves, each one pulling something fundamental out until I was empty and shaking and still kneeling on cold tile with the evidence of my complete collapse spreading across my fist and stomach.
I stayed there longer than necessary. Let the cold bite. Let the shame settle into my bones where it belonged.
Then I stood carefully and cleaned up mechanically. The water was still running. I washed thoroughly, dried my hands, and straightened my undershirt. The tender ache in my chest would last for days.
My shirt was buttoned, my tie straight, jacket on. Every hair was in its place.
The mirror showed the same composed professional.
The lie held, but the need would return. It always did.
The walk back down the hallway required more effort than before.
I kept my posture and breathing perfect, fully aware of both.
My knees ached with every step, and would for days.
Shame burned along my collarbones and up my throat, a flush I couldn't control but could hide beneath collar and tie if I kept my composure.
A faint tremor had started in my hands. I forced them still, tucked my tablet against my chest, and made the shaking look purposeful rather than involuntary.
What I'd just done had solved nothing. I was still starving, still wanting, still completely and catastrophically in love with a man who despised me for excellent reasons.
I was too old for this kind of collapse.
The observation room door appeared ahead. I adjusted my cuffs, straightened my already-straight tie, and pushed through the door.
Reid looked up from his tablet. "?a va?"
"I'm fine." The words came out sharp, clipped, and, perhaps most frustratingly, in English. The mother tongue Reid and I shared had made us friendly over the years. Answering him in English probably felt like answering the phone with a hammer.
His eyebrows rose. "Tabarnac, what's gotten into you, là?"
The casual familiarity grated on my raw nerves. "I don't have time for this, Commander. What did Castellanos reveal while I was gone?"
Reid studied me for a beat too long, then apparently decided not to push. "He broke completely. The prototype is already on a plane to Zurich. Left two hours ago. Shaw's there personally. Hardin was working for him the entire time."
"Zurich." I made myself approach the glass. Through it, I could see Algerone standing over Castellanos, who slumped in the chair looking utterly defeated. "Then we'll need to coordinate with—"
The door to the interrogation room opened, and Algerone stepped through, pulling off his gloves. He moved past us toward the observation room exit, already halfway through removing the second glove when he glanced at me.
Just once, but it was enough.
His expression was clinical and impersonal, the way he'd look at any subordinate delivering a status report. His green eyes swept over me with complete detachment, assessing and dismissing in the space between one heartbeat and the next.
It gutted me.
"We leave for Zurich in three hours," Algerone said without stopping.
His tone was perfectly neutral. "Private jet.
You'll coordinate with the pilots, handle logistics.
" He handed the gloves to Reid instead of me, and I immediately glared at Reid.
"Castellanos gave us everything we need.
Commander, see that his daughter is relocated safely immediately. "
"Yes, sir," Reid said. “And the prisoner, sir?”
Algerone glanced back at Castellanos through the two-way mirror. “Make it quick and clean.”
Reid nodded. “Yes, sir.”
"Will that be all, sir?" I managed to keep my voice steady.
Algerone paused at the observation room door. "For now. I'll meet you at the hangar. Don't be late." The dismissal was clear in his tone.
Then, he was gone.
I stood there for a moment before my composure could crack any further, before Reid could see what Algerone's indifference had done to me, before I did something unforgivable like follow him and beg for permission I would never deserve.
“I hear Switzerland is beautiful this time of year,” Reid quipped.
I turned to him with a glare that would have made any other employee shrivel. He just smirked at me, even as I yanked Algerone’s gloves out of his grip. “I’ll see to cleaning these personally,” I announced and walked away before he could get the last word in.