Chapter 24 Ransome
RANSOME
I hate parties.
Business parties, Bratva parties, holiday parties—all of it. Fucking trash.
Unfortunately for me, being a CEO of a massive company means I have to attend a lot of parties. Not just attend, but be in the limelight. Another thing I hate. It looks bad if the man of the hour isn’t at least smiling, which also means I have to be fake. Another thing I loathe.
Jenica, of course, is doing enough camera hamming for both of us. Which means I am nursing my third shot.
“It’s a double-edged sword, really,” Jenica says with a sugary smile that I know is laced with salt.
“Being the wife of a man like Ransome is very pressing. All the cameras and interviews, not to mention hosting parties and being in the spotlight at charity events like this one. It can be very exhausting at times.”
“I can’t imagine,” says another woman, one who has had enough plastic surgery to almost look like Paris Hilton.
“Don’t get me wrong. It certainly has its perks too. Doesn’t it, darling?” Jenica turns to me with a fluttery laugh. All the while, her eyes are shooting a discreet threat into mine.
I force a half-assed smirk before planting a one-second kiss on her lip-glossed mouth. I fucking hate lip gloss. It’s slimy, sticky, messy, and tastes like synthetic fruit. It might as well be cough syrup.
I can’t understand why women insist on wearing it. We know their lips don’t have the same texture as Welch’s Grape Jelly. And believe it or not, we actually prefer it that way.
I respond with nothing more than a low, noncommittal hmm, and she laughs again as she places her hand on my thigh under the table. Then, as the conversation at the banquet hall table continues to buzz, she turns her head to the side so no one can see her expression or hear her voice.
“Would it kill you to pretend like you want to be here?” she snaps.
“But I don’t want to be here,” I say in a low tone.
“Well, obviously. But you could at least pretend not to be repulsed by the idea of being here with me. You’re making us both look bad. And when I look bad, daddy hears about it.”
I forced another smirk, bite my tongue—literally—and snake an arm around her too-tiny waist.
“Better?” I ask with little to no affection.
She doesn’t respond, but her rigid body tells me I’ve pissed her off. Damn.
The night drags on at a snail’s pace. Every moment that I have to spend promoting Apex and flaunting the company’s success and their heart for charity—which is a lie, because companies like this don’t give two shits about anybody—is painfully long.
All I can think of is leaving, ripping my tie off, and grabbing a drink that actually soothes my nerves, not the watered down bullshit this pop-up bar is serving.
My mind is also on Amara.
I can’t help but wonder how she’s doing. How the massage went. If she’s feeling better or needs anything or—
“Ransome, honey, you are a million miles away.” The wife of one of the other Apex bosses rips me out of the moment with her cackling voice. She’s in her sixties and wearing enough make-up to supply half a Sephora store, and it’s not doing her any favors.
“Thinking about work,” I say, picking up my glass with a staged smile that I can’t imagine anyone buys.
“Isn’t he always?” Jenica laughs. Meanwhile, her hand on my thigh travels north an inch.
I clear my throat, reach under the table, remove her hand, and place it in her own lap.
She stiffens again.
“These events are always so marvelous, but they certainly do take it out of you,” Granny adds. “I know my William is always spent after all the mingling.”
“I’m sure he is,” I bite out. But as much as I can’t fucking stand small talk, my tone isn’t directed at her. It’s in response to Jenica’s hand, which is once again on my thigh, this time even higher than it was when I removed it.
Again, I grab it, this time simply flicking it away.
“I want to hear more about the two of you,” another woman says.
She’s dating one of Apex’s higher-ups. He’s in his fifties and she’s maybe old enough to drink the wine sitting in front of her.
She has a lot of audacity to be speaking at all, considering she is most likely just his flavor of the week, but clearly she has no gauge for what’s appropriate in settings like this one. “How did the two of you meet?”
“Old family friends,” I answer before Jenica can say anything she shouldn’t.
“Wow. So always under your nose, but overlooked for so long,” the old lady romanticizes.
“Far too long,” Jenica jokes, and everyone laughs. She tosses me a smile and kisses me, and I am forced to endure it. Meanwhile, her hand finds my thigh again, this time only a centimeter or so from my crotch.
When I can actually feel her pinky on my dick, I draw the line.
I take her by the hand, but instead of shoving it away, I stand up, pulling her with me. Then I plaster on the fakest smile I can manage for the entire room to see. If attention is what she wants, attention is what she’ll get.
“Speaking of which,” I start in. “You’ll have to excuse us,” I tell everyone as I tug her away from the table.
“Ransome, darling, where are we going?” she asks through a clenched smile.
“I think we need a little privacy, darling,” I say to appease the crowd.
But once we are outside in the crisp night air, the nicety is gone.
“Have you lost your mind?” she snaps.
“No. But clearly, you have,” I snap back. “What the hell was that in there?”
Jenica’s eyes widen. “You mean me acting like a loving wife? Me talking you up all the while getting the cold shoulder?”
“There was nothing cold about it,” I argue. “You saw to that with the stunt you pulled under the table.”
“Oh, excuse me for trying to love up on my husband!” she cries out. “Do you know how many men would kill to have me on their arm?”
“So maybe you should be married to one of them,” I growl. “And relieve me of the burden.”
Jenica winces at that. Maybe it was too much.
Too far. But honestly, she knows the agreement.
It’s not like either of us wanted this. She’s never actually shown interest in me before.
It’s staged. It’s required. It comes with the territory.
It’s the only thing that keeps the people we actually care about safe.
She swallows. Replaces her look of hurt with a look of guarded anger. “Well, if that’s how you really feel, then you don’t need to worry about me pretending anymore. Obviously your heart is… elsewhere.”
“My heart isn’t anywhere,” I say. Which might be a lie, but it’s none of her fucking business. “What’s important is where my head is at. And my head is just trying to hold all of this together.”
Jenica opens her mouth to say something else when the patio door opens.
Damon, the chief of police for the NYPD and a close friend of mine, walks out.
“Sorry to interrupt, Ransome. But we have a problem that needs to be addressed.”
I don’t even look at Jenica before following Damon back through the building.
Damon looks back at me as we head to the front doors. “There’s a lot of commotion on the streets, I think, just from all the bigwigs you got in this building right now. I want to go through some safety procedures.”
I can tell by his tone that all of that is just a cover-up for something else.
Once we are outside—where there is no commotion whatsoever—Damon turns to me. “A few of my men have spotted Tristan Chadovich.”
My pulse roars. “When? Where?”
But Damon holds up a hand. “Don’t get too excited. They were brief sightings and he’s never alone.”
I nod once. “Makes sense that he would have human shields when he shows face in public.”
“There’s not much we can do without cause. But we are keeping an eye on him.”
“Good.”
“That’s not all, though.”
Of course not. That would be too good to be true.
I motion for him to go on, and he does.
“In the last two weeks, there have been several breakouts from the prison, all maximum security.”
“How many is several?” I ask.
“Five, last I heard. We’re thinking it’s an inside job—that place is airtight.” He exhales frustratedly. “Either way, we’ve got dangerous men on the loose. And all of them have similar criminal records.”
“Such as?”
“Dealing. Assault and battery. Murder.”
Fucking great. Sightings and jailbreaks, all connected to Tristan. Looks like the guy hasn’t taken a single day off from making my life harder.
Sounds suspicious to you?” Damon asks.
I look over the city, my eyes thin. “If you’re asking if I think it’s a coincidence?”
“I’m asking if you think it is.”
Tristan is breaking out violent criminals. He’s risking himself to do it. And since I doubt this is him being charitable, that leaves only one option.
He’s amassing an army.
“Not a fucking chance.”
I head back inside. I don’t plan on sticking around much longer, though. That’s one of the perks of being a CEO. I get to call the shots on when I arrive and when I leave.
Jenica spots me and I bite the bullet. I should be standing next to her. The last thing I need right now is bad publicity. Holes in the armor.
But just as I’m about to walk over to her, my phone rings.
It’s Amara.
“Hey—”
“Ransome?” she whimpers as soon as I pick up. “Thank God you fucking answered.”
She sounds scared, agitated. Seconds away from a panic attack.
My hackles go up. Amara may be a lot of things, but she has never been the kind of woman to make a big fuss about nothing.
And my instincts tell me that, whatever this is, it’s not nothing.
“What is it?”
“I need you to come home. Now.”