Chapter 22
Jameson
“YOU WANT TO FIGHT me for her?” Archer asked me even though he was on his knees now in the guys’ bathroom on piss-stained tiles about to beg for his life.
We’d caused a damn scene that Cal would have to clean up tomorrow, but he was good for cleaning up messes anyway.
If there was footage of Diamonds acting out in the news, he got rid of it before it saw social media outlets.
I wasn’t concerned about that.
I was concerned about my own men turning against me for my pretty little teacher.
“Fight me and you lose, Archer, every fucking time.” I had my damn pistol out, and I wanted to use it. My finger itched to pull the trigger on him because I hated men who weren’t loyal to a fault.
Didn’t anyone get that? How could they not after what I’d done to my father?
“That’s the problem with you, dumbass. I won’t fight you. I’m on your side. But you can’t trust a fucking soul.”
I didn’t need a lecture; I needed him to shut up. The gun was at his temple as fast as my fist had connected with his mouth earlier. Through clenched teeth, I told him, “You knew better than to dance with her.”
“Calm the fuck down,” Cal yelled from behind me, but he didn’t step in my way. This was my choice, and he knew it. No one was saving Archer but Archer himself.
And that fucker didn’t even flinch. He was as unhinged as all the rest of us. “Mia deserved a good night after weeks of being holed up in a place she doesn’t feel like she fits in. You’d be wise to make her feel differently.”
I shoved the barrel harder against his skull. “You want to give advice with a gun to your head?”
“Wouldn’t be the first time.” He rubbed at the blood trickling down his chin, but I wouldn’t feel bad.
He may have been loyal for years, but it didn’t justify his behavior now.
“I spent time with her, man. You’re not going to win over that girl by blowing the head off of her friend.
That’s what I am to her … and nothing more.
You and I both know it. You’d be wise to believe her if you want her. ”
An actual war ensued in my head, wrestling with the jealousy in me, with the adrenaline that pumped through my veins, with the rage I wanted to succumb to rather than the understanding I had to embrace.
As I lowered my weapon, he grumbled, “She’s not a Diamond, and you’re never going to win her over by acting like one.”
I didn’t kill him, but I might have broken his jaw when I whipped him across the face with the butt of my gun. “Fuck!” I raged and spun on everyone.
Hades rolled his eyes and said, “Guess it’s better than a cleanup here tonight. Go send our girls out so you can get your ass chewed out by Mia.”
The fact that I ground my teeth together and had nothing to say to him was how I knew I looked like a damn pussy-whipped ass. But I still stomped my ass out of the bathroom and over to the balcony and told everyone to leave.
“Except you, darling devil. You and I have unfinished business that needs attention.”
She crossed her arms, displaying her cleavage as a damn distraction, I swear, as her curls whipped wildly in the wind. The moon lit her back, shining like a spotlight on the fucking suit jacket she was still wearing.
It wasn’t hers.
It was his.
On my girl’s shoulders. Keeping her warm when it should have been mine.
She was mine. Didn’t she know that?
Her girlfriends left us, but not before Pink gave me a look. “Adamantem infractum manet only applies with the syndicate, dumbass. Not your heart. Remember that.”
My men flanked the balcony entrance as the women walked back inside and left only Mia and me. I let the air cool me down as I stood there taking her in. She stood on top of this city like she had nothing to cower from, and maybe she didn’t.
I owned this city, but it was clear she owned me.
I walked over to her and leaned on the railing, crossing one boot over the other as I stared her down. “You were dancing with my security.”
The energy that rolled off her seemed to combust, and damn did I love watching her fury erupt. She tried to hold it back, I knew that, but her beauty came when she was unhinged. “I can’t believe you!”
“Believe it. I’m taking you home.”
“Oh, the hell you are. I intend to stay out until I’m done here.”
“Done with what, exactly?” My tone held an edge.
“Dancing. Mingling. Maybe more.” She threw her hands up. “I’ll do what I want on my own time.”
I swear she wanted to grate on every one of my nerves tonight. “You’re done now.”
“Why? Because you watched me on security cameras and raced over here like a Neanderthal when you saw me dancing with someone else?”
“Not someone else. My team.”
“So you’d be fine if it were a random guy?”
“Mia, if a random guy tries to touch you after tonight, I’ll deliver their hands to you personally.”
“Get real.”
“Real? I’d douse a man in acid for looking wrong at you.”
“What?” She breathed out, probably trying to comprehend if I was serious.
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “They’d deserve it too, Mia. I swear to God.”
“You’re a real piece of work.” She started to walk past me, like that was the end of the conversation. I grabbed her elbow, and she gasped at our contact, her chest moving with it.
Fuck if I wasn’t going to look. That sweetheart neckline was where every man’s eyes had been tonight. “Why fight me at every fucking turn, Mia?”
“Because it seems someone has to! You don’t get to just interrupt girls’ night because you can.
We were just having a good time!” she screeched.
Her composure was completely gone. She shook with the same level of emotion I’d felt on the way here.
I’d pushed my bike to a hundred fifty on the highway in order to make it here in record time.
Now, her anger had skyrocketed to the same level as my jealousy.
“A good time, Mia? With his cock against your ass?”
“Well, if you want semantics, abso-fucking-lutely. And”—she leaned in, giving me a view right down her dress, moving her hands to her hips while she snarled—“since you’re asking, I’ll let you in on a secret: His cock was big enough to feel good against it too.”
Her rage danced in my face, igniting my jealousy and fury to meet hers.
She wanted a fight, and I was more than happy to give it to her. She didn’t think she had to be worried about how pissed off I got; she would soon learn. I rubbed a hand over the scruff of my jaw and told her, “You must be plastered to think talking to me that way is warranted.”
“I could be stone-cold sober and not give a flying fuck how I talked to you after the way you acted in there.” Her tone sounded like she wanted to tear me limb from fucking limb. “Don’t you ever lay hands on my friends again.”
“I’ll do whatever the hell I want with my team.” I pushed off the railing and moved toward her, willing her to back down.
“Not for me you won’t.” She stepped right up to my chest. “You think Archer wanted to dance with me? No. He did it to be nice, because I wasn’t willing to dance with other guys but still wanted to have a good time.
Because your ass didn’t come out to dance with us, so I chose someone else.
I’m allowed to have a good time. I fucking deserve it.
And Archer doesn’t deserve your anger. You owe him an apology. ”
An apology? Did she know who she was talking to? I saw red. No, I saw fucking black. She was going to make me lose every ounce of control I had left. She was sawing on the thread that was holding me together on purpose, I swear. “You’re out of your damn mind.”
“You can apologize to him, or I can go sleep at a hotel.” She even pulled the phone out that I had bought her to start searching for accommodations.
I snatched it from her and launched it over the balcony. It shattered into a million pieces, but she didn’t even flinch or look down. Most everyone shrank when I embraced my anger, most everyone knew they should fear it. Mia Darling? She stared at me like I were a child.
And then she followed up on that look with, “Having a tantrum like a five-year-old—like a literal student of mine—when you’re an adult will get you nowhere. I’ll just walk to a hotel and ask for a room.”
“You stay at home, or you don’t have a job, Darling,” I growled, ready to fire her and hold her captive.
She laughed at my threat. Laughed! “Tell me, you have a handbook on my duties, Mr. Knight? Is there a page I should look at on sleeping arrangements? How about fraternization?”
I grabbed her by the neck and shoved her into the railing, but she didn’t gasp in concern now.
She clawed at my grip and tried to knee me in the balls even if she was practically hanging off the tenth story.
“No rule book is going to be made for working within the syndicate. I could drop you off the side of this damn building and no one would say shit. You’re my employee.
Mine.” Her eyes shifted with that word, but I was on a roll.
“And so I do what I want with you. Not Archer. Not Hades. No one but me.”
The city pulsed like it was alive as we stared at each other on that rooftop for a moment before she murmured, “Great. How lucky I am that I got you as a boss.” Her tone was soft, almost too soft, as she bit her lip and then looked up at the stars.
“A man who considers killing me or dropping me off this balcony without a second thought, while I only considered if I made him proud with taking care of his daughter today, or if he thinks of me at night like I do him.”
That vulnerability. So fast it hit and scattered my emotions. So fast she dropped her guard that I didn’t know what to do but take what I wanted from the real her before it was too late.
“Darling Mia” fell from my lips before I yanked her small neck toward me so I could devour her lips, so I could taste the sweet cherries that I craved, that I’d been fiending for since the last time I got access to them.