Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
Fiero
The night feels electric when I pass through the curtain into the main lounge.
I don’t walk any deeper into the room—I don’t want my presence to be noted on this night of all nights.
The focus should be on the Angels up for auction.
That’s what the guests have paid for and that’s why everyone is here. Not for me.
And this is yet another reminder of why I’m so different from my father.
He would have wanted all the glory. This would have been his event, something everyone should have been grateful to him for arranging. He’d have put his name at the top of the list, primed for the first pick of whomever had put themselves up for auction.
Not me. I’m a businessman. Allowing our paying guests to take center stage is a business move. They pay, they get what they came here for—they’ll come back. And I would never take my pick of the Angels.
If I found myself interested in any woman, I wouldn’t need to pay for their company. I have enough of them queuing up to get into my penthouse apartment.
Not interested.
The only thing that fuels me is power.
It was the one thing that evaded me growing up, and now I have it. Power lines the walls of this club and lights up the life I’ve created. It’s what has enabled me to erase every chink and dent in my existence. There’s only one blemish left to wipe off, and that’s Pfeiffer fucking McAllister.
I have cameras all over this club, recording movements, conversations, business deals. I have one trained on the host podium, which comes in handy when you want to eavesdrop on guests and staff members alike.
I’ve heard every conversation she’s had at that podium and find it especially interesting that she didn’t even arch a brow at the mention of my name.
Maybe I really was as insignificant as she made me feel.
I thought that witnessing her blank reaction to the Bellucci name would have made me murderous, but it didn’t. It simply made me more vengeful. It doesn’t matter how much she’s grown, how fucking gorgeous she still is, how well she treats my guests, she’s going to pay for what she did.
I head straight to the offices. Time is ticking and I want to see the list. I may need to make some flattering introductions, some gentle pushes. If a guest leaves here without a Fallen Angel, I’ve failed, and I don’t tolerate failure.
I pull up the screen and tap on the list, my eyes scanning side to side as I make my way down. Then my gaze snags.
Because halfway down is the one name I would never have permitted.
Hers.
My jaw locks. For a second, I imagine it must be a mistake. Or a joke?
No.
There’s not one person in this venue who would have a death wish that barbaric.
My gaze tracks right to the signature. It’s definitely hers. It’s the same as the one she used to write on her schoolbooks. Perhaps a little more refined now, but she writes the P and F the same way, wrapped together, and the A in McAllister with a long, curly flick.
My chest separates like someone drove a knife into it.
Na ah.
Absolutely fucking not.
I read it again, just to check if I’m hallucinating. Negative.
My fists curl. She thinks this is going to get her out of this little arrangement. She’s hoping some generous guy with a fat wallet is going to bid high, give her a shit ton of money and allow her to pay off that motherfucker’s debt.
I laugh out loud. It’s not a bad plan, really. Or it wouldn’t be if she knew who she was dealing with.
But she really doesn’t know who I am, does she? Maybe I should tell her. Watch that sweet little smile drip off her face like tomato sauce. Then again, what fun would that be?
I haven’t had my fill of her misery yet.
I haven’t even started.
My fingertips tap over the screen and in a millisecond, her name is gone.
I don’t go back out front right away. Instead, I make my way past the meeting rooms and into the control room where we keep all the monitors.
Another operator sits up sharp when I enter.
If I looked more closely, I’d probably see his fly undone, porn playing out on the phone in his hand.
Not watching the monitors like I pay him to.
If I wasn’t single-mindedly preoccupied with my little captive, I would quite possibly kill him for it, but I am, so he’s safe. For now.
I lean against the desk scanning all the screens until I find her.
There she is.
Gliding across the lounge floor with a tray in hand.
I shouldn’t be watching her move through the tables, carefully and gracefully, like she belongs here. I already spent three nights in here getting my fill. But my gaze tracks her without any effort, noting the line of her neck, the curve of her jaw.
Leaning closer, I see the twitch of a smile. It’s small and polite, hitting a nerve deep in my chest. It dimples her cheeks, the way her smiles always did. I’ve never forgotten those sweet indentations and the way they warmed my whole body.
For a second, she looks exactly like that young innocent girl I was mad about, before—
My teeth grind, a memory infusing my muscles with acid.
She’s still smiling when a male guest taps her arm lightly as she sets down a drink. It’s a nothing move, totally harmless, but she flinches like she just got electrocuted.
He doesn’t notice her rapid retreat and the dip of her brow, her lips moving in a hurried gesture, but I do.
The more I look, the more I see. Her demeanor is pleasant and guests seem to warm to her everywhere she turns. It doesn’t irritate me to high heaven like usual though, because I’ve spotted something they’re too blinded by her beauty to notice.
She never lets them get too close, angling her body away when she lowers the drinks, not stepping into anyone’s space, flicking her gaze periodically to the exits and the alarm buttons discreetly positioned around the room.
She seems to be shit scared of this place and everyone in it, so why is she putting herself up for auction?
Surely if she can’t bear to have anyone near her, she certainly wouldn’t want to give herself intimately to just one man—or woman. She’s desperate and doesn’t know what she’s letting herself in for. And that’s dangerous.
That’s the justification I make to myself as I stalk back to the office, pull up the list and re-add her name.
And it’s the same justification I apply when I add my own to the column beside it.
Pfeiffer McAllister has a winning bidder, and she’s going to be mine.
Mine to win.
Mine to seduce.
Mine to ruin.
I bury my head in the books for the rest of the night to keep my mind from straying to what’s going to happen later. But the books aren’t working, so I’m faintly relieved when a knock comes at the door.
Remo doesn’t wait for an answer before stepping in.
“How are the bids coming along?” he asks, cutting across me to the list on the screen. A slow smile spreads across his face.
“She put her name down,” he points out, unnecessarily.
“I can read.”
“Thinks she’ll be able to pay off that asshole’s debt in cash?”
I don’t look up from the contract I’m preparing in readiness for my little pet. “I expect so.”
Remo steps further into the room, folding his arms. “Why is your name beside it?”
I don’t respond because he has a brain.
“You never touch your girls.”
The words on the pages in front of me begin to swim. Remo, more than any of my brothers, knows what I went through after I dropped out of school. He understands my perfectly rational hatred for Pfeiffer McAllister better than anyone.
“Who says I’m going to touch her?”
He lowers himself to a chair opposite and crosses an ankle over his knee. There’s a warning note in his words.
“If your feelings have changed—”
“They haven’t,” I bark.
He’s used to frayed tempers in our family and he doesn’t flinch. In fact, he thrives on dark edges.
“She thinks being selected is her ticket out of here. That she gets some semblance of control over this situation. I want to make it crystal clear that this is not her fucking show. She’s under my control now. She only gets to leave when I say she can leave.”
“Does she know who you are yet?” he asks quietly.
I pause, chewing over the question. “No.”
“So, she may not mind you touching her,” he says, a curl to his lips.
A flare of heat ruptures my chest, whipping my breath. “I don’t want to touch her.” I realise it’s a lie when I have to force it out through gritted teeth. “I just don’t want anyone else to.”
Remo watches me silently, a world of opinions on the tip of his tongue. But he surprises me with his one, sharp, targeted piece of advice.
“Be careful, brother. That sounds like jealousy. And jealousy is a dangerous thing. It makes men start wanting things they were never meant to have.”
I don’t look up again until he’s left the room, but the tightness across my shoulders lingers, telling me it might be too late for that.