23. Vuk
CHAPTER 23
Vuk
“S ir, you can’t go in there. Sir!” The assistant scrambled after me, his shiny loafers squeaking against the marble floors.
I ignored him the way I ignored the other staff gawking at me as I stalked through Beaumont’s office.
I’d waited all weekend for this, and my patience had reached its limits.
After Ayana finished with my makeshift rage room on Friday, I’d driven her home and made sure she was safely inside her apartment before I formulated my plan.
It’d taken every ounce of restraint not to find Wentworth fucking Holt that same night and kill him. But there was something I needed to do first, and acting on impulse was never a good idea.
I stopped at the corner office and walked in without knocking.
Emmanuelle Beaumont didn’t appear surprised by my arrival. She must’ve gotten a warning call from the front desk.
“Vuk Markovic.” She waved off her assistant, her eyes glinting with amusement when I closed the door in the man’s face. “What a surprise. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
I took the seat opposite hers and eyed her dispassionately.
She was, objectively, an attractive woman, but I’d dealt with enough snakes in my life to recognize one when I saw it.
Behind that polished veneer lay the cunning mind of a viper. She hadn’t risen to the top of her field by playing nice, and I would’ve admired her for it had her ruthlessness not affected Ayana.
I cut to the chase and slid a pre-written piece of paper across her desk. It contained two words: Wentworth Holt.
“What about him?” Neutral tone, neutral expression, but she was clued in to what happened. I sensed it in her placidness. That was the calm of someone who was trying too hard to pretend they didn’t know what I was talking about.
There was a ceramic cup full of basic ballpoint pens next to me. I bypassed those and plucked the five-hundred-dollar personalized Montblanc straight out of her hand.
Emmanuelle’s mouth tightened, but she was smart enough to stay quiet.
I wrote my answer in precise black strokes.
He assaulted Ayana after Friday’s photoshoot.
Writing it down brought my rage to a high simmer again. Only cowards attacked people who they didn’t think could fight back. Wentworth knew the power he wielded, and he’d used it to take liberties he had no right taking.
It was the worst sort of gutlessness.
“That’s interesting.” Emmanuelle’s expression shifted back to neutral. “Wentworth called me this morning, screaming about how Ayana assaulted him . He has the injuries and ER records to prove it. He said he’s on the verge of pressing charges.”
Let him.
She stared at the words on the paper. The implied threat behind them hung heavy in the air.
When she spoke again, caution edged her voice. “I’m not his boss, Mr. Markovic. I don’t let him do anything. I have no control over his decisions.”
But you have control over your agency’s bookings. The simmer had reached a boil, but I kept it contained for now. Don’t put any of your models in a room with that man ever again.
“That’s quite a demand for someone who doesn’t work in fashion and whom I’ve never spoken to before,” Emmanuelle said. She studied me. “You’re Jordan Ford’s best man, correct?”
I responded with a cool stare. We both knew the answer.
“I’m curious.” She ran a sharp red nail over the black text on the paper. “Why are you the one here discussing the situation and not her fiancé?”
Because she’s fucking mine .
Jordan was her fiancé in name, but I was the one she’d turned to first. I was the one who understood what she needed—not comfort, but vengeance. I was the one who would kill and die for her in the same breath.
No other man could match that, ring or no ring.
I smiled. It lacked the emotion of a true smile, and it was a deliberate facsimile of the real thing. The motion twisted the scar around my mouth.
Emmanuelle swallowed. A flicker of revulsion crossed her face.
I stood, and she blanched when the metal legs of the chair screeched against the floor.
I walked out without answering her question.
I waited until I hit the sidewalk before I pulled out my phone and logged into an encrypted app.
I’d wanted to confront Emmanuelle about Wentworth, but I’d had another, ulterior motive: the tiny surveillance device I’d stuck to the bottom of her desk while she’d been distracted by my note.
It was currently broadcasting loud and clear from her office.
I was about to pocket my phone when it buzzed with a new text.
Sean: We’re ready for you.
This time, my smile was almost genuine.
The day was looking up already.
* * *
Forty minutes later, I arrived at an industrial neighborhood deep in Brooklyn. Unlike the trendy areas closer to the city, this particular corner of the borough was a collection of graffiti and empty streets. Abandoned warehouses squatted along cracked sidewalks paved with grime. Even the skies here loomed grayer overhead.
The chances of anyone randomly wandering by were slim to none.
I parked behind warehouse number five and entered through the back exit.
Sean was already waiting for me outside the old storage room in the back. “We picked him up on his way home,” he said. “No one saw us, and we kept him blindfolded the entire time so he doesn’t know where we are.”
Good. I reached for the door handle. I was hungering to get in there, but my security chief stopped me.
“One more thing.” His voice lowered. “I investigated your…friend’s claims. No one would give me a straight answer, but they heavily suggest that he’s telling the truth. The entire underworld’s on edge. They’re rarely so jumpy unless something big is happening.” Sean rubbed a hand over his mouth. “We could try to hire the Brotherhood through a proxy and see what happens, but that would be risky.”
I agree. No proxy. A proxy could be traced back to us. If they were caught, the Brothers would torture them for information, and it didn’t matter how tough the subject was. Everybody broke, sooner or later.
I’ll take care of that situation going forward. Wait here until I’m finished.
I’d told Sean and only Sean about Roman’s visit. He’d been appalled and outraged that someone had successfully broken into my house. It’d taken him less than an hour to find and patch the security breach. Roman had snuck in as a member of our bi-weekly gardening service, and the guard in charge of screening all visitors had slacked on the job. He’d been fired immediately and replaced with someone more senior.
It was a stupid mistake we couldn’t afford to make with the Brotherhood back in the mix.
Sean also hadn’t been thrilled to hear about Roman’s proposition. However, he knew my relationship with the Brothers was complicated, and he’d refrained from passing judgment beyond several warnings not to trust Roman.
“Understood,” he said. “I’ll keep a lookout.”
I twisted the handle and entered the storage room.
I’d bought the warehouse years ago using a shell company. Its ownership was buried under so many layers of paperwork it would take an entire team of top-notch forensic accountants years to trace it back to me.
I’d left most of the warehouse as it was, but I’d soundproofed certain rooms, including the storage space. It was impossible for people inside to hear what was happening outside and vice versa.
Acquiring and retrofitting the warehouse without tipping anyone off about its true ownership had been a pain in the ass, but it was worth it.
The warehouse was for special cases. I didn’t visit it often, but it had its uses.
The man inside straightened when he heard me enter. He was tied to a chair with a blindfold on.
I walked over and calmly removed the piece of cloth with a gloved hand.
Wentworth Holt stared up at me, his face pale. A flicker of recognition passed through his eyes.
“What is this?” His voice shook. “What’s happening? You need to help me! You need…” He trailed off when I retrieved a piece of paper from my pocket and placed it neatly in his lap.
It was a printout of his schedule last Friday with the Sage Studios photoshoot circled in red.
Wentworth was a predator, but he wasn’t stupid. It took less than a minute for the puzzle pieces to click.
“Is this about Ayana?” He let out a nervous laugh. “Listen, man, I don’t know what she told you, but she came onto me . She was practically begging me to?—”
His words cut off with a howl when I slammed my fist into his face. I was pleased to note his nose hadn’t fully healed from Ayana’s headbutt, and it easily broke again from my punch.
The pain must’ve been excruciating.
“I didn’t even do anything!” Wentworth shouted. Blood and tears poured down his face. “It was just a stupid kiss. You can’t…you’re a businessman, right? I recognize you from the papers. You can’t do this. It’s…I…this is kidnapping!”
One, I hated people telling me what I could and couldn’t do.
Two…
I typed out a reply on my phone. It’s only kidnapping if you’re not dead.
The second my implied threat sank in, Wentworth’s eyes rolled so far back in his head that I could see only the whites, and he fainted dead away.
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
I stared down at his limp form. My lip curled with disgust.
What was it with these men in fashion? First Hank, now Wentworth. They loved terrorizing other people, but they couldn’t handle a fraction of what they dished out.
They thought Ayana was weak, but she was a thousand times stronger than they were.
I checked my watch. I had a tuxedo fitting and a meeting with Singapore in two hours.
Instead of wasting time, I slapped Wentworth awake and ignored his babbles of terror as I picked up a hammer from a nearby table. I untied his arms and placed his right hand on the table.
It was his dominant hand—the one he used to shoot photos, and the one he’d used to touch Ayana. To grab her and hold her down while he tried to take what wasn’t his.
It was the hand he used to make her fucking cry.
Wentworth must’ve read the intentions scrawled across my face because his pleas reached a fever pitch. He wasn’t stupid enough to try and escape, but his cries only added to the icy rage tunneling through my veins.
I pictured Ayana’s tear-streaked face. Replayed the sounds of her sobs. Remembered the way she shook in my arms.
Crimson washed across my vision, and I let all that pent-up rage explode as I smashed the hammer onto Wentworth’s hand.
The sickening crunch of bone was so loud I heard it even over his inhuman screams.
I tossed the hammer aside and channeled the rest of my anger with my fists. Knives and guns were nice, but when it came to venting, nothing beat an old-fashioned pummeling.
Wentworth’s sobs fell on deaf ears. How many times had he ignored someone when they screamed for him to stop? It didn’t feel so fucking good when he was on the receiving end, did it?
Sweat coated my skin. My knuckles were bruised and battered from the beating, but I kept going until his wails faded and he passed out again.
Only then did I stop.
I stepped past his broken body and signaled for Sean to take care of him. The worst of my rage had abated, but a tint of red lingered in front of my eyes.
Wentworth had gotten off easy. I wanted to cut off his dick and make him choke on it, but that would’ve been too messy. So I left him with a bloody face, a shattered hand, and an unspoken warning never to go near or even think about Ayana again.
It went without saying that any attempt to tell people what happened today would not end well for him. Maybe Emmanuelle could connect the dots given the stunt I’d pulled in her office, but Wentworth’s fate was a subtle warning for her as well. She was smarter than him, and she’d keep her mouth shut.
By the time I left the warehouse, my breaths had calmed. Ayana would never know what I did. She didn’t need to; all she needed to know was that the problem was taken care of.
No one hurt her and got away with it.
Now that Wentworth was taken care of, my attention shifted to another loose end.
All signs pointed to Roman telling the truth about the Brotherhood’s civil war. He could be lying about the details, but I didn’t have the luxury of nitpicking when there was a target on my back.
He’d left his burner phone number for me before I kicked him out of my house for good the other day. I sent him a short but succinct message.
I’m in.