Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
CADE
Isaac Stengal’s a real piece of fucking work.
He doesn’t see me, I don’t think he heard me come in, but I time my knock perfectly a couple of beats into the silence after his less than polite command to Violet.
It’s a tricky moment. I can’t let this get to a physical altercation, can’t punch his light out, no matter how much I want to.
Because if I touch him, I might kill him.
I just want to get her the fuck out with her job intact.
Hopefully, he’ll wonder whether I heard him proposition her, which now takes away the air in his slimy sail.
“Violet.”
She looks at me, relief blooming on her face, and she wobbles.
I smile at her and open my arms.
She moves, so do I.
I take her and kiss her lips. For the show. But also because I need to taste her, feel her safe in my arms.
It’s like fireworks, everything in me bursts into colorful life, and all I’m doing is pressing our mouths together.
I lift my head. “There you are, honey. Just arrived. Sorry I’m late. You ready to go?”
I ignore the daggers from Isaac that dig into me. The fucking prick.
The asshole.
I desperately want to break every bone in his body. And I want to rip his dick out from the root and feed it to him, fist first, down his throat.
I don’t even look at him as he stands there, his hard on going limp in his pants.
He puts his hands on his desk. “We hadn’t finished—”
I lift my head and move in front of Violet. “Oh, you finished. Very definitively.”
I stare at Isaac.
I’m stronger than I look. And I can fight. I have a black belt in jiu jitsu.
It’s not all sitting in front of the computer.
We need to be agile, hold our own, and on occasion, take out men way worse than Isaac, all in the name of getting the job done.
This is one job I’d like to get done.
He’s bad news.
Digging into the dark web has shown me that, looking at him confirms it.
The blond, super hero type with the rotten core, the wrong kind of desires because they stray right into non-consent, imbalanced power, disrespect.
I might treat Vi how she wants to be treated sexually, but there are rules. She has her safe word. What she says goes.
There should be concrete rules set out. And I need to get to that. But everything I do with her is done with the understanding it’s mutual.
That’s not the point. He’s the point.
And I’ll destroy him if I have to.
He takes a step back, his gaze shifting from me. And I wait. Until it shifts back, and I see it. The understanding that I’m a lot more than I seem.
I’m sure he’ll try and dig into me, but all he’ll find is an IT guy working for a hole-in-the-wall IT company.
And I’ll know if he does.
I put my arm around her waist. “Vi’s hard working, I think we’ll both agree there, but I’m a little greedy and impatient, I don’t like waiting for her, so from now on, she leaves when everyone else does.
And she’ll get all her work done during the day.
I get the office can be a crazy place, but if she needs to come in to finish something, she’ll meet me, and I’ll come with her.
Your waiting room is lovely. I guess you could say I’m a little… jealous.”
Isaac eyes me with dislike, but I don’t give a fuck. I hate him too.
I squeeze her waist, turning her toward the door. “Come on, Vi, that reservation won’t wait.”
And I lead her out.
Outside, she half collapses against me. “He…”
“I know, I heard.”
Then she pulls back, frowning. “How… We didn’t have plans. Did you just appear like magic?”
No, I was listening in to the bug I put in Isaac’s office this morning when I came by with her bag and the flowers.
There’s a camera in there already, but I wanted sound. I wanted to hear him if he started anything. A man like that makes moves fast after a lot of blathering, and if I hadn’t been listening, hadn’t been across the street at the coffee place, then I would never have gotten here in time. And…
Well, I shudder to think what would have happened.
I know Violet thinks she had it under control, but she’s small, and she was scared. And if he isn’t buckling from her first threat, then chances are a man his size could overpower her.
Easily.
He was trying to intimidate her, but give him time, and he’ll be assaulting her, too.
I really want to kill the fuck.
I force myself to smile at her. “No, not magic. I just came from an in-house job. Sometimes, I have to go to a site, and it’s in this area, so I figured why not stop by and check up on you.” I shrug. “The door wasn’t locked, so I poked my head in. Good thing I did.”
“Thank you so much, Cade. How…I’ve been so horrible to you.”
Her eyes go bright, and it’s like a knife in the heart. “Hey, you’re never horrible. What happened?”
I pause, giving her time.
When she doesn’t respond, I bite back a sigh, because there’s shame and guilt in her expression.
She shouldn’t feel either one of those things.
But, I just say, “I didn’t hear what he said, just saw your face.”
She sighs.
I book an Uber home. I’m not letting her alone. I can’t.
“I just…he hit on me again.”
“That fucker, we’ll go to the cops, the press—”
“No. No, it’ll kill my career even before it had a chance to start.
” She lowers her eyes, then looks at me pleadingly.
“I want this job, this career, I mean. It’s what I’ve worked toward for as long as I remember.
I want to make a difference, Cade, and I’m not letting him get in the way.
Besides, nothing happened. Your interruption came before anything could happen. So, I’m fine.”
“Okay, but you’re coming to my place. I’ll make you some Irish coffee, I’ll feed you pizza and if you try and run away, I’ll chase you.” I pause. “That last part’s a joke.”
“I know.” And she swats me lightly with her hand, then she moves slower, sagging against me. “You smell nice. Like a desecrated church.”
I can’t help it, I start laughing as I slip an arm around her, letting her warmth and softness sink into me.
I’ve never wanted this side of things, the tender softness, but with Violet, it might not be bad. Not bad at all.
“You hang around a lot of desecrated churches?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“I think that’s what you meant.” I wrap my other arm around her, too, needing her here, close. Safe, Mine. “Otherwise, what happened at that church?”
“Weekly sacrifices. Pagan rituals. Naked ones.”
“If people painted in animal blood and howling at the moon comes next…”
“You’ll run?”
“No. I’ll ask you if you follow me every full moon.”
She looks up at me and laughs, too. “Idiot.”
“God, she’s discovered the truth.” I lean in a little. “And you smell like flowers.”
“Are you flirting?”
“Here’s the Uber.” I release her because I’m definitely fucking flirting, but this is so different from The Ghost. This is far more complicated.
I’m already fucking her, and I know it’s wrong, but emotional shit might be worse.
There’s Jack…
But what about him?
Jack didn’t do a thing to keep her, and he cheated. If he hadn’t cheated, I’d never have answered her email, and if he’d tried being a decent boyfriend… Then she might not have emailed at all.
But I know that’s a lie.
All of it.
I’ve been attracted to her for a while and never allowed myself to admit it. And if I’d gotten that email, I’d have turned into pure earth scum and answered her.
“Oh.” Disappointment colors her tone as I let her go. “You’re heading home?”
“I’ve finished work, as have you, and as nice as it is just loitering on the sidewalk like a couple of street punks, I figured the uber will take us to pizza and Irish coffee.”
I love the smile that lights up her face.
“Shit, you did say I should go to your place.”
I open the door for her. “No, I said we were doing that. Besides, I told dickwad we were going to dinner, so get into your chariot.”
She does, and I get in after her, happy to get the fuck away from there.
Violet leans against her seatbelt as we cross the bridge, staring out at the water as we cross to Manhattan.
Thing is even if she bought the bullshit she fed me about ‘nothing happened so everything’s fine,’ I don’t.
I heard the oily menace. I heard the threats. I heard how confident he is that he’ll manipulate his way into her panties, or at the very least, his cock into her mouth.
He was a little scared of me having heard, but men like that talk big to themselves. Convince themselves they are god on earth.
He’ll be bouncing back and planning again.
Worst thing of all with this is he’ll fucking can her after he gets her and ruin her career.
That’s what men like him do.
And now he knows I’m in the picture, what if he somehow ups his ante or moves it from the office to a more intimate setting? Like turning up at her place? Or following her?
My place is big. And now that Jack’s moved out, it’s even bigger, or so it seems.
I’ve got his room, and there’s also a spare one that has an old fold-out sofa and work out shit and a broken computer and other hardware that I keep because I never know when I’ll need it. She can have that.
It’s not until we’re at my place and I tell her I need to check in with work that I realize I’m not going to let her leave.
I don’t think about what that means with The Ghost. I’ll have to either retire that or keep it text based… Or up it to more risky stuff, like what half her fantasies are about.
Question is, would she do that with him—me—if she was here?
But it doesn’t matter.
What matters is her safety.
What matters is her somewhere I can keep an eye on her. Keep her safe.
With Vi in the bathroom, freshening up, I go into my room and call Enzo.
“Is this trouble?” he asks.
“Maybe.” I pause, thinking about the next words. “Remember the apartment where we put those cameras in?”
“Yes?”
“I need you to trash the place. Or get someone you trust to do it. Simple break in toss shit around, underwear drawer, and so on. I don’t want things broken. I just want her to feel a little…violated.”
I stand with my back to the wall, watching my open door. I’ll see her if she comes looking.