My Rose

14. Briggs

Chapter 14

Briggs

“If I cannot move heaven, I will raise hell.” ― Virgil

T he sensation that I was floating was something entirely new to me. Until I opened the door to my estate, and my father was standing there, his hands tucked into his front pockets with a look I’d grown to know so well—irritation. “Briggs. There’s a business meeting we are late for. Didn’t Dean call you?”

I pulled out my phone, where ten missed calls, and almost fifteen texts filled the screen. Shit . “I’ll go get ready. Give me five.” He nodded, then checked his watch. I walked by him, expecting some kind of gut punch for being late, but his hands remained tucked away.

“Hey, there you are!” Dean’s arm slid over my shoulder as I entered the hallway that led to my room. He lowered his voice. “What took you so long?”

“I didn’t see the calls.”

Dean rubbed his knuckles into my side. “Ah, so you took my advice for once?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I didn’t want my father to hear any part of this conversation.

He grinned. “Sure, you don’t.” He leaned in closer toward my ear. “You got a little lipstick on your face.”

I grunted and rubbed along every place she’d touched, though doing so felt wrong. “Where are we being sent now?” We walked into my room, where I started to quickly undress as Dean turned around. I walked to the en-suite, finding the pressed suit left out for me. Rhonda saved my ass more times than I could count. Any wrinkles and I’d be reprimanded for looking indecent.

He inspected my face as I returned to the bedroom. “The usual spot for meetings this late. Cappolla Properties is finally meeting with us. Ernie and Mick, the owners.” My throat closed, and that euphoric, floating sensation after finally giving in to the woman I wanted crashed to the floor. All gone and wasted .

“Here.” Dean pulled out two blue pills and held them out to me. I took them with ease and tucked them into my pocket. “Just in case you don’t want to be up here tonight.” He tapped his finger to his temple. Our meetings at the club usually required a certain level of inebriation—hence the Molly I just slipped into my pocket. It was fucking lewd, but I’d been doing it for years now. Rolling and talking business was as easy as doling out punishments to those who did our company wrong. To make as much money as we did, you had to be willing to get dirty. At least, that’s what Father believed.

“I thought he would be gone for a few more days,” I said while cuffing my sleeves.

Dean leaned against the wall. “He found this to be more important.” He shrugged with one shoulder. “Just got back in.”

“Fuck.” That meant he’d be extra touchy, more on edge than usual. “Where’s Jasmine?”

“Sent her back to the penthouse. She’ll be good there until we get back.” I wondered how much of our business Jasmine truly knew about. She seemed pretty intuitive at the diner, and I saw that same intuition in Rose. I could only hope I’d be able to hold Rose back from all of it for as long as I could. Possibly, indefinitely. She’d never agree to be near me if she knew the shit I’d done. And if my father ever knew about her…

Well, that was exactly why I chose to stay away in the first place. My mind was spiraling—so many scenarios running through my mind that it was hard to focus on the present. And the present me really fucking wanted Rose.

I’d make it work .

I lowered my voice more. “I promised I’d take her out tomorrow.” I pulled out my phone, typing out a quick message to Rose about not being able to take her out like I planned to.

“Ah, so you got the girl, huh?” I glared at him as I slid my phone back into my pocket. I’m sure he was aware of what his girlfriend said to her—they were in the same damn car when Rose called her. Jasmine knew her friend was incapable of keeping her gorgeous mouth closed with as much anger as I fueled her with. Put her words and my actions together, and now she was mine. He released a chuckle. “She’ll understand. I could always ask Jasmine to come back down for the day to keep her company.”

“Jasmine is better off far away from here.” Like I wished Rose was right about now. The further away from him , the better off she’d be.

I checked my watch, relaxing into my suit jacket. Four minutes. That’s how efficient I’d become. Four fucking minutes to prep to be with women I didn’t want, take pills I didn’t want, and wear a suit that cost tens of thousands of dollars that I would never purchase for myself. No surprise there— I’d prefer to be in my sweatpants right about now .

Preferably with Rose tucked in my arm.

We walked down the hall, and my father stood from his position where he’d been on one of the couches meant purely for display. “Ready to go, Father.” Dean moved to stand next to him, probably checking his phone for last-minute details about the company we were trying to acquire.

“Ernie is the shorter, fatter one. Mick is the one with a buzz cut,” Dean said as he put his phone away. I remembered them from the teleconferences we scheduled, but I didn’t think the acquisition was this close. Certainly not the day before my first date with Rose. Something must’ve changed their mind.

“Got it. Is the company going under?” My father’s hand twitched at his side. Dean stepped in front of him, blocking me from his view.

“No, Briggs. They have just finally decided to sell. You will help seal that deal tonight,” my father demanded from behind Dean. I nodded, focusing on the cuff links on my wrist as my father stepped around Dean and led the way out to the limo that would take us to the hangar just outside of town, where we kept our private jet.

My father’s blond hair whipped in the wind and his green eyes narrowed on me as I entered the limo. We were the mirror image of each other. We even had the same jawbone structure and shape to our eyes, the same slight widows-peak in our hairline. I wondered if he ever felt guilty watching me do the things he made me do—if he ever saw himself in me when I did whatever he needed me to do. But then I remembered how often he’d thanked me or said he was proud, which was never, and those thoughts left my mind immediately.

The girl on top of me was rolling her brains out as she ground down on my crotch, my completely limp dick screaming for her to fuck off as my lips remained in a tight line. My father was across the circular room from me, talking business matters with Ernie, who looked more interested in the women around us than hearing whatever numbers my father was rattling off. Ernie’s business partner, Mick, was in the same boat as him. I grimaced internally at the way the red, low-hanging lights made his hair look, especially as he bent down to motorboat one of the girls whose top was somewhere on the floor, mixed with several other women’s bras, nipple tassels and thongs. The sheen of Mick’s bald patches glowed against the red, a few strands greased and pressed down to try to cover the bare spots. Saying he had a buzz cut was an understatement. It looked like he went through a wood chipper, his teeth doing no justice for that crude imagery.

A blonde woman wearing nothing walked into the room with a tray and set it down on the table in the middle of a low glass table. Mick slapped her ass as she walked out, making her release a forced moan. Pigs. They were all pigs. I couldn’t really fault the women because they were about to make a shit ton of money. Probably enough to pay their bills for months, if not more. We were similar in a sense—they went to work and put up with whatever the men here wanted, all to survive, and I did the same by the hand of my father. I didn’t want to be in this fucking room, and if it wasn’t for Rose, I would have already taken the drugs in my pocket to numb my brain.

I leaned back and looked over at Dean, who took out a wad of hundreds and tucked it into the thong of the girl who bounced on his legs. It was clear he wasn’t enjoying himself, just as I wasn’t, but we had to at least act the part to close the deal. Ernie and Mick had been on the fence about selling to us, and although my father seemed all too eager to bring them here for that final push, something wasn’t right. Dean whispered something to the girl on his lap, and she nodded, then got up and sauntered over to Ernie, who held his arm out to her as she moved closer and closer. The woman already on Ernie’s lap tilted her head back to greet the other girl, pushing her fake tits up that glistened with his saliva.

I rolled my eyes up to the ceiling in an effort to keep my meal from the diner down.

“Briggs.” My father’s voice cut through the bass of the club. The woman straddling him tossed her head back, exposing the long, bony column of her throat that was covered in bruises as I looked over at him. I made a mental note to get her name and get her the fuck out of the club after tonight. Being rough in bed was one thing, but the mark by her eye went above her being a good sub, and with the way she was moving, I wasn’t sure she was even aware of them. Most of the women here got touched, but no one was allowed to hurt them.

“Son,” my father called for me again, drawing my attention back to him. My brows dipped together as Ernie, and my father nodded in my direction. I didn’t miss the glance Ernie threw toward my crotch, and I fought the urge to curl my fist in. I’d heard one of the men was into voyeurism, but I was hoping they’d be blasted out of their minds between the coke, Molly, and alcohol and didn’t think twice about it.

Ernie hollered over the music, “I bet you’re dying to fuck her, aren’t you?” I acted as if I didn’t hear him while he proceeded to slap the ass of the girl on top of him. I didn’t miss the disgust on her face as she glanced back at me over her shoulder, almost begging me to do something to end it. Maybe it was just my imagination at play, but I had to believe Dean and I weren’t the only ones who didn’t want to be here.

Ernie snorted deeply, probably trying to take in more of the coke lining his nostrils. "How about a blowie from Smurfette?" The woman on my lap stopped moving and rolled her eyes at the comment. Her hair was electric blue, cut into a bob, and the words she muttered under her breath, I whole-heartedly agreed with—Ernie was disgusting .

I smirked and grabbed onto her hair, pulling her close as she whimpered, which still did nothing for the flaccid situation below. Apparently, it wasn’t just my brain that only seemed to revolve around Rose lately. “Leave,” I growled in her ear, releasing my hold and slipping cash into her hand. She got up, her bleached eyebrows shooting toward the ceiling as she looked down at the amount I gave her, then left as fast as she could on her stilettos—one of the only pieces of clothing she managed to keep on.

I stood and refrained from swiping away whatever nauseating smell she left on my body as I walked over to Ernie, slipping my hand into my pocket. “Is she being good to you, Ernie?” I sat down beside him and eyed the woman straddling his legs, whose ass twerked over and over above the small bulge tenting his pants. Poor asshole. That at least explained why he was into watching.

“Fuck yeah she is.” A smack rang out in the room, pudgy little red marks blooming across the pale thigh of the woman he thought needed more marks on her skin. “Your girl had other things to do?” He glanced down at the spot between my thighs, and a shudder ran through me .

“She’s not the best to handle me.” I shrugged, flicking the tip of my nose with my thumb. “Tongue-tied,” I added. I truly had no idea if that was true or not, having never been with the blue-haired one before, but it would have to do. There was no way my cock was going in anyone’s mouth unless it was the woman consuming all of my thoughts. I was willing to bet that when her red lips wrapped around me, drooling for me while I pumped into her, it would be the best sight of my life.

Ernie cackled and dipped his head into the pair of still-wet fake tits in front of him. I quickly pulled my hand from my pocket, producing one of the blue pills Dean supplied me with earlier, and slipped it into Ernie’s drink beside him. Mixed with the coke coursing through his system, he’d soon forget all about watching me so we could get on with what we really came here for.

My father lifted a brow yet didn’t motion to take the drink from Ernie as near-wasted business man lifted it to his mouth. Would I be screwed later? Without a doubt, yes. Even if the deal was sealed and Ernie had the time of his life, if my father ordered me to do something, even with just his eyes, I had to obey or risk the consequences.

Rose was worth those consequences.

My father waved over a woman and pointed a finger at me. She was the same naked woman who brought in the tray of blow, her golden hair bouncing eagerly along with her tits as she treated my legs like her own personal saddle. “I always like the blonde ones best. It looks good wrapped around my fist,” Ernie said as his gaze bounced between her hair and mine, then took a large swig of his drink .

I chose to ignore that because soon, I’d be closing this deal and getting the fuck out of here.

I ran my hand through my hair, considering dyeing the strands for the first time in my life. “Yeah, Ern. Can I call you Ern?” He laughed and slapped his hand around my shoulder. “Tell me, Ern. What makes you so eager to sell to us?” Something was definitely off. I didn’t care what Father said. No business owner with a multi-million dollar profit in their second year decided to sell in the span of a few weeks. Not when their projected growth was almost triple that for next year. My father’s eye twitched as he glared at me, but I just slid my hands up the woman’s body and settled them on her waist.

Ernie’s eyes widened while my skin crawled.

“Well, you were all so convincing, and Mick and I have decided to look into other, more diverse business ventures. This was just the beginning.”

Bullshit.

I waited at least fifteen minutes, fifteen whole minutes of letting the blonde-haired stripper grind on top of me while Ernie got more comfortable. It was absolute torture. “So, Ern.” I let one of my hands go up further until my fingers were playing with the ends of the woman’s hair while I tried to imagine the strands a dark brown hue instead. Ernie’s nostrils started to flare eagerly, his pupils pushing the boundaries of his light brown irises while his eyes stayed trained on the gold around my fingers. The Molly was kicking in. “Let’s say we decide to lower the purchase agreement. Say by a thirty percent margin. What would you say to that? ”

“Briggs,” My father seethed my name through his teeth. Not that that was anything new. Dean shook his head in the back corner, wondering what the hell I was doing. Not only was I dead-set on not fucking a single woman in this room, I was also not an idiot. Business is what I was born and bred to do.

“I’d…um…” The girl on Ernie’s lap turned and started grinding down on him harder, mesmerizing the fool.

I carried on. “You’d have to agree to that, no? Because your projections were actually way off for the upcoming year and the next. By at least a third, if not more. So you’d agree that only a thirty percent decrease in our purchase agreement would equate to a profit on your end, gauging you’d miss at least a forty percent decline, which we would be inheriting for the next year. Because those numbers are way off, too, aren’t they?” Ernie’s fingers went up, his brows coming together as his pupils struggled to focus on just how many fingers he had that weren’t trailing off his hands. Rolling was a bitch. Good thing, too, because I didn’t have any facts to back up my claims. But judging by his face and Mick’s across the room, I wasn’t far off the mark.

My father picked up on it as well. “Ernie, Mick. Did you think we were stupid?” We . As if he had the balls to push the matter. Even though I’d just saved the man millions, I knew I’d be beaten senseless the moment our plane lifted from the tarmac. What I did was bold, and although I’d been correct in my assumptions, I’d also risked making my father look like a fool—inexcusable like the rest of my brilliant behavior usually was .

Mick stood up and glared down at his watch, his eyes blinking rapidly. “Mr. Andrews, Mr. Van der Hall. Briggs.” His eyes narrowed on me as he motioned toward the door, urging Ernie to crawl out from underneath the ass of the stripper and follow him out. Ernie slid out from beneath the woman and scrambled forward, almost falling to his feet before Mick caught him.

“I expect a new agreement in the morning, or the deal is off.” My father rose from his seat, the rest of the strippers hightailing it from the room as Dean reached for his gun. It wouldn’t be the first time a deal went south, but Ernie and Mick weren’t packing any heat. They were too new—too clueless. If any guns were to go off, they’d be ours.

If that new deal didn’t accurately reflect their projected profits and real margins, I knew exactly where I’d be sent in the next couple of days and the two men who would be strapped down, waiting for me.

The moment Ernie and Mick left the room—escorted closely by Dean and two bodyguards—my father turned to me. “What the fuck was that, Briggs?”

I stood and squared my shoulders. “I just saved us tens of millions of dollars, Father. I thought—”

“That’s the problem. I don’t bring you to these things to think . You had one job, one fucking job. We already looked into the terms—”

“Not well enough,” I muttered under my breath, and my father’s nostrils flared. He took three strides closer to me, and I didn’t even flinch as his hand smacked across my jaw, turning my head to the side with the force.

“Talk back to me again. See where that gets you.” He fixed his suit jacket that had fallen slightly out of place. I rubbed at my jaw, my fingertips dragging across my lip. Blood. And we hadn’t even left the club yet. “If that new deal isn’t on our desk tomorrow, and they pull the plug on it, it will be on your hands.”

I laughed. “I figured as much.” He’d turned before I spoke, but immediately after, he spun back around, only this time he held a gun. A gun that slammed right into my ribs. He had always been careful like that—if he wanted to do some damage, he aimed for below the face, just in case I was needed for other business matters.

I wanted to react, wanted to pull my own gun from my waistband, but who knew what would happen if I did that? He’d probably go to Dean next, and Dean didn’t deserve to take any beatings for me.

“Is that all you have?” I taunted, my hand covering what was possibly a fractured rib. I wasn’t a coward. I just didn’t want the people I cared about to be affected. As for me? He could do whatever the fuck he wanted to do to me. Pulling a gun in retaliation was one thing, but smart-mouthing? That was doable.

He grinned, flipped the gun in his hand to hold the muzzle, and swung harder. The breath was taken from my lungs and it took everything in me not to fall to one knee. My right hand braced on the bench as I leaned forward and coughed.

“So many life lessons you have yet to learn. You’re a pathetic excuse for an heir.” His finger tapped along the safety. “You don’t deserve the future I laid out for you. You’ve always been such a selfish little shit.”

“Selfish?” I stood and straightened my back, fighting against the pain on my side as I spread my arms wide. “Look where the fuck we are. You run your business on the heels of selfish men. What makes them any better than me?”

His lips twisted before he spit on the floor beside me. “You’re also weak. No son of mine should be writing in journals or have his head in the clouds with boyish dreams.”

“Well, father”—My fist balled tightly at my side—“I’m the only option you have.”

My father’s jaw worked as I stepped closer, his chin tipping up to see me better. “Then stop making me regret not killing you all those years ago and start acting like the man I've tried to show you how to be.”

I glared at his back as he left the room. When we finally made it back to the estate, my father and Dean went back out immediately, leaving me at the front door. The pain on my side was radiating to the point that standing and walking normally was difficult.

My body ached as I slid into my bed and reached into my back pocket for my phone. It was shattered—beyond repair. I chuckled at the irony, clutching onto my side and groaning at the tender flesh.

Canceling my first date with Rose had been the right decision. There was no way I’d let her see me like this.