6. Heavy-Handed
Chapter 6
Heavy-Handed
L ennox looked up at the nondescript, single-story building from the backseat of his Rolls Royce and scowled. Even on the outside, it was run-down. The paint was old, dirty, and patched in places where work had been done more recently. One of the front-facing windows was cracked. An outdated sign over the inset door proclaimed it to be the business he sought, but that did little to reassure him.
He could tell at a glance this was no place for his omega.
Brinley Young. Her name repeated in his mind for the thousandth time since he’d read it on his computer screen that morning. He felt his scowl soften.
Even his own search had yielded minimal results, which assured him she didn’t have much of a record to find. Brinley was a full ten years his junior at only twenty-six. According to the background check, she’d been working at the archaic publication now before him for three years. She had a small apartment in a cheaper neighborhood deeper into the city, the one car he’d seen in the security photos registered in her name, and no living relatives. She was well and truly alone.
Or she had been.
“They’re here, Mr. Mitchell,” his driver said, speaking quietly.
Lennox stretched his neck. “Good. Wait with the car.” Ideally, he’d be leaving that building with Brinley on his arm. But he had no way to know if she was in-office, and he wasn’t going to wait to take care of his necessary business. He would find her regardless.
The pair of attorneys he had called for met him on the sidewalk. “Everything’s prepared to your specifications, Mr. Mitchell,” the younger male said as he patted his briefcase.
The elder of the two turned his head to scrutinize the building. “You’re sure about this, Lennox?”
Lennox grunted, busied his hands with buttoning his suitcoat, and said, “What it is today is potential. Potential that its current ownership is severely underutilizing.”
“If you say so.”
Lennox didn’t take the tone of uncertainty personally. He’d worked with the demon too long to make that mistake. He strode forward, leading the way into the poorly labeled and worse maintained building.
They were met with a small, sparsely furnished, unmanned lobby space and a handwritten note taped beneath a tap bell telling them to ring the bell for service. As if it were some two-star motel.
Lennox felt the scowl return to his face and continued past the lobby space, down the adjacent hall and around the sharp corner. The rest of the building opened up into a wide common area that was brighter thanks to numerous overhead strips of fluorescent lighting and occupied primarily by double-wide banks of cubicle offices. From his position he counted at least eight. His search had told him there were a total of twelve employees, plus one owner, for a total of an unlucky thirteen names attached to the business. They were definitely operating at minimum capacity.
Worse, somehow, was that it smelled like a locker room. Someone had open, half-finished fast-food on their desk while they chatted on the phone. Another had what looked like a cheap air freshener designed for small, enclosed spaces dangling precariously from the corner of their monitor. One person looked up at him as Lennox and his pair of lawyers walked past and the pen he’d been holding slipped from his fingers.
There was a defined path around the cubicle station, with doors leading off the wall in three different places. One was partially open and revealed a restroom. Another was closed and bore no label, so Lennox assumed that was the owner’s office. The one tucked at the most out-of-the-way spot simply had the letters HR printed across the frosted glass of the door. So at least the company was making an effort on that front.
The general clamor of voices died down until only those making necessary phone calls remained talking. All eyes seemed glued to him as he stepped up to the unlabeled door. He ignored the stares, rapped a single knuckle on the frame one time, and pulled the door open.
“What?” the man behind the desk snapped as the door swung wide. He was scribbling something on a paper and didn’t bother to lift his head. “How many times do I have to tell you assholes not to just barge in here when I’m working?”
Lennox made room for the lawyers, waited until the door had been shut again, and stepped forward. He tucked his hands in his pockets and frowned at the already irritating man behind the desk. There’d been no sign of Brinley on the floor and exactly one unoccupied cubicle. He was trying very hard not to jump to conclusions about that.
Aloud, he said, “You’re going to want to pay attention to this, Neil.”
The man’s hand finally went still and he lifted his head. “Excuse—” He cut himself off, eyes blowing wide and darting between the three of them repeatedly. Every time his focus seemed to settle on Lennox, a bead of sweat popped out on his forehead and he looked away again. “Shit. Lennox Mitchell.” He shoved to his feet and wiped his palms on the sides of his pants like a nervous school boy. “Neil Waters,” he said as if introducing himself were necessary, holding out one hand. “Wh-what can I do for you, Mr. Mitchell?”
Lennox dropped his stare to the proffered hand but made no effort to take it. “I’ll be blunt, Neil. I’m prepared to buy out your business, property and all, right now.” He tipped his head toward the silent men at his side. “These are my lawyers. All you have to do is accept the check and sign the papers. Of course, if you want to call in a lawyer of your own to go over the contract first, that’s your prerogative. But my generosity won’t last, so I wouldn’t drag your feet if I were you.”
Neil sputtered, his face going pale. “I don’t understand,” he said on an exhale. “You want to … buy my paper?”
Lennox pulled one hand from his pocket and motioned the younger attorney forward.
The eager-to-please young man stepped up, propped the briefcase on the edge of the desk, and swiftly unlocked it. He didn’t ask a single question before withdrawing a plain folder and from there extracting a single, crisp paper. He held the paper out toward Neil patiently and finally said, “All our terms are explained here, Mr. Waters.”
Neil looked between them one more time before reluctantly tugging the paper closer.
Silence held in the room as he read it over.
The bottom edge of the paper crinkled in his grasp and he looked up again, color returning to his face as indignation took over. “Where the hell do you get off? If I sign this, I’m agreeing to forfeit my entire career!”
“In a manner of speaking, yes,” the younger lawyer said smoothly. “You could freelance or work beneath someone else if journalism is truly your calling, but owning and operating would require you to move out of state.” He swiftly slid the check across the desk.
Neil’s eyes locked onto it, watching as it neared him with something like apprehension. “This is…”
“My most generous offer,” Lennox said. “Your retirement package on a silver platter.”
Neil stared in visibly agonized silence at the check, hand hovering partially over it as though he were afraid to touch it. “You think,” he finally started, speaking slowly, “you can just … buy me out?” He lifted his gaze again and dropped his tightly curled fist to his side. “This is my life’s work!”
Lennox hummed. “Then perhaps you should have treated it better.”
Neil rounded on him. “Who do you think you are?”
The aggressive response only pulled a slow, dangerous smirk over Lennox’s face. “Better.” He let the word linger long enough to watch it stoke the fire in Neil’s eyes. “I’m not the fool who let his ‘life’s work’ rot away in a dilapidated building, held afloat on the shoulders of less than a dozen employees all crammed together in one cesspool of a workspace.” He took one step forward and leaned in, using his larger frame to crowd the blustering moron. “That would be you , Neil. You are the one who did those things. Just like you are the one who sent a beautiful, vulnerable woman into the fucking lion’s den last night without any protection whatsoever.” Lennox drew a breath but did not otherwise move or raise his voice. “And now I’m here.”
The fight had drained from Neil’s face before Lennox finished, and Neil’s eyes were wide with both understanding and something like fear.
Lennox slowly straightened. “Show him the other list,” he said without breaking eye-contact.
He heard the briefcase snap open again. The flutter of paper quickly followed.
Neil finally looked away, his attention drawn to the next paper being held out for him. He gulped audibly and dropped so hard into his chair the chair threatened to upend him. “What the hell is this?” There was no fire in his question. The words were practically a whisper.
“That,” Lennox said, “is the list of infractions attributed to you, your business, and your employees while acting under your direction, that my team has been able to dig up in the past four hours.” He tucked his hands back into his pockets. “I would advise you to consider how much more they’ll uncover if they have the full day.”
Neil slowly lowered the full page of aforementioned code and ethics violations before turning his head toward Lennox again. “Why?”
“My generosity expires twelve hours from the moment I set foot into your office,” Lennox replied. “If you haven’t accepted the offer by then, I’ll take the updated list from my investigative team to the governor. He’s a busy man, but he’ll make time for me. And I’m sure he won’t appreciate hearing about all that unscrupulous behavior and blatant disrespect in one of his busiest cities.” Lennox shrugged for good measure. “What he does after that will be up to him.”
Neil huffed. “You’re bluffing.”
Lennox furrowed his brow. “I don’t bluff, Neil.” He extracted one hand again and made a circular motion with his pointer finger, blatantly telling his team to pack it up. “You have less than twelve hours to make the smartest financial decision of your life, or lose it all. Your choice.” He turned, heard paper shuffle quietly and the subtle click of the briefcase as it snapped shut, and his arm was lifted toward the doorknob before Neil found his voice again.
“Wait. Please.”
Lennox only glanced over his shoulder with a calculated air of impatience. Beside him, his attorneys moved closer.
Neil dropped his head into his hands, slumped over his desk, and barely spoke loud enough to be heard through the added barrier. “I’ll … read it over.”
Lennox bit back his victorious smile and shifted his focus to the lawyers. “Get to work, gentlemen.” They were more than capable of handling the job from this point. Neil was clearly not the sort of man capable of standing between a demon and his closing commission.
With Neil Waters’ office door closed again behind him, Lennox took one more look around the main space. His singular exit had not gone unnoticed by several of the staff, but none of the eyes looking back at him were the right shade of brown. The omega he sought was not present. Had she been sent on assignment?
Lennox strode up to the nearest cubicle and regretted the choice before he could open his mouth. The male gaping up at him like a fish was as unimpressive as they came. He had muddy brown hair that had already receded notably along his scalp, a rounding beer gut, and a clinging, stomach-churning stench. It was hard to imagine Brinley working in the same vicinity as this male.
“Uh,” the man stammered. He shoved to his feet, smearing his hands across his shirt as if to wipe them clean. “L-Lennox Mitchell, sir, it’s an honor—”
“I’m looking for Brinley Young,” Lennox said sharply. “Where do I find her?”
The man faltered, confusion overcoming his features for a prolonged second. Then he scoffed and made a dismissive gesture. “Brinley? That stupid bitch fucked up a big job, then had the audacity to beg for sick leave. Waters fired her ass about an hour ago.”
Lennox felt his lip curl. For an irrational moment, he had the powerful urge to storm back into the office and rip up his check and go straight to the more aggressive tactic. But that would only satiate him for a minute. As would punching the asshole who’d just insulted Brinley in the face. Instead of surrendering to either urge, he spoke in a low voice. “What’s your name?”
“Oh.” The man blinked. “I’m Jerrod.”
Lennox held his stare. “I look forward to our next conversation, Jerrod.” The words were civil, but he made no effort to hide the threat in his voice. Nor did he wait to hear the man’s response before turning and striding away. If Brinley had been fired, she was as likely to be home as she was out on the streets doing any number of things. That would make finding her more difficult.
Wait. Sick leave? She hadn’t seemed like the kind of woman who reacted poorly to a lecture, and in general people with those types of attitudes didn’t retain jobs for multiple years. But she’d been fine the evening before. More than fine.
Another possibility slammed into Lennox so unexpectedly he nearly tripped on the sidewalk.
She’d said she had a couple of months before her next anticipated heat, and she was obviously on medical suppressants. But even the best medicine only worked so well. Was it possible taking her first knot had forced her body into a premature heat cycle?
The idea sent an inappropriate thrill through him.
She was probably alone, feeling like crap, and thinking she was suffering one of the worst days of her life—made worse on the heels of a night she couldn’t possibly regret. He didn’t get off on any of that. But soon, if not soon enough, he would ease every single one of those aches. There was just one thing he had to do first.
“Home,” Lennox said, a little too sharply, as he ducked into the car once more. “I need to shower and burn this suit. After you drop me at the house, take the car out to have the interior detailed, too.” Jerrod’s obscene body odor still clung to him like a curse. He couldn’t show up at Brinley’s doorstep with that stench hovering around him, least of all if she was nesting.
Fuck, he prayed she was nesting. He was hard just thinking about it.