Chapter 28 - Ethan
I’m lost in contracts at work, my mind drifting back and forth to Leo and what he is doing. I know he’s in the mailroom, but I want to see him. I thought having him would ease the longing, but it’s only made it worse. I’d prefer him here, chained to my chair while I work.
“Ethan, there is a woman here insistent on seeing you,” Mara, one of the admin girls says, her head peeking around my open office door.
“Who?”
“Sarah, she said you know her,” she says, rolling her eyes like it must be some kind of groupie.
For three seconds, I consider refusing because I’m over the tediousness of the situation. I can’t lose my cool here. But then I remember Leo’s face yesterday morning and decide that this needs to be finished.
“Send her in.”
Mara does not hide her relief when she leaves.
A few moments later, Sarah enters as if she owns the place.
She wears confidence like stolen jewelry: too bright, too loud, poorly fitted.
Her eyes sweep my office with naked calculation.
It’s all about what she can take, never once having the thought to work hard for what she wants.
Her expression, of course, is dark and non-friendly, giving off fake confidence like she thinks it would be intimidating. She needs to learn to study her victims, instead of using bravado and screeching being her only weapon. Knowledge is a key weapon and so is timing before you strike.
“So,” she says. “This is where you work.”
“I own it,” I reply, which she already knows.
She lifts her chin. “Of course you do.”
She sits opposite me without invitation, crossing her legs.
Her gaze flicks to the door, the walls, the security panel.
I’m not sure this is what she was expecting, but her upturned nose is an interesting reaction from someone who has nothing.
Well, she has one million dollars that she appears to be spending on herself, judging by the designer boots and long coat she is wearing.
You can cover shit in diamonds, but it’s still shit to the core.
“You look disappointed,” I say.
“I expected… more,” she lies, with no idea who she is speaking to.
“So, how much?” I ask, and she laughs softly.
“You’re direct.”
“I’m intelligent and you’re as easy to read as a label on a ketchup bottle.”
She leans forward.
“Clever, but let’s not waste time with insults, Ethan. You have something of mine,” she says.
“Do I?”
“You have my husband.”
“No,” I correct. “That person no longer exists.” Her mouth tightens with frustration.
“I have evidence,” she snaps. “The contract. The money. The arrangement.”
She reaches into her bag, but doesn’t pull anything out. Is she for real? I’m offended to be insulted by such mediocre blackmail.
“I could post it,” she continues. “Online. Send it to the press. Tell them you bought a man. Kidnapped him.”
I tilt my head slightly, imagining all the ways I could end her life. Would I do it fast or slow? Slit her throat? Strangle her? Or manufacture the perfect “accident”.
“You misunderstand your position in this game,” I warn. “You’re threatening me,” I say calmly. “With information I already control.”
“You think you do.”
“I know I do.”
“Reputations are fragile,” she scoffs, with no idea of the real world, and even less of an idea of the monied world.
“So are liars,” I retort, and her eyes sharpen. She really is a slippery snake.
“I want payment,” she says. “For my silence.”
“Of course you do.”
“Enough to start over, a million is worth nothing these days for what I want,” she says as she flicks her hair over her shoulder.
I smile, but not with kindness as I stand and circle the desk, stopping in front of her.
Towering above her with the threat of attack.
She swallows hard, unable to hide her misjudgement of this situation.
She’s way over her head and that thought may finally be clicking in that pea sized brain of hers.
“You came here believing you were dangerous,” I say, and she rolls her eyes. “You’re not dangerous.”
“I can ruin you,” she warns, but it’s all fake.
“No,” I correct. “But you can be an annoying inconvenience.”
She stands too, anger flashing behind those god awful fake eyelashes that look like spiders trying to escape.
“You think you’re untouchable?” she says, and I want to laugh at the irony as I am exactly that. Untouchable.
“I’m the ending for people like you who don’t know your place.”
“You’re sick,” she says, laughing harshly.
“Yes, and here you are trying to push my patience.”
“You know what’s funny?” she asks, and I say nothing.
“Leo was my way out, you know, small town. Nothing there. I used him to escape that hellhole,” she says, her words are cold with pride.
“He was useful. Quiet and obedient, which I’m sure you’ve worked out.”
The veil I so carefully hold in place in my daily life starts to flicker, her presence is testing my limits. I want to wrap my hands around her neck until she stops breathing.
“He dreamed small,” she continues. “Art. Metal scraps. Garbage ambitions, so dull, so pathetic.” She shakes her head in disappointment.
“You know what we have in common?” she asks.
“Nothing, but I know you believe we are alike.”
“Yes,” she says eagerly. “We’re both predators.”
I step closer and she takes a small step back.
“You’ve no idea what it entails to be me.”
She smirks. “At least I admit what I want. I want money,” she says as she studies me. Then her expression shifts, looking for a new angle.
“You really chose him?” she asks. “Over me?” her voice now takes on a timid tone. This is beyond embarrassing now, but I let her speak.
“I would have been a better investment,” she says as she steps closer. “I could have given you more.”
She reaches for my sleeve, and with an automatic reflex, my hand reaches for her throat and tightens. The fear in her gasp is beyond satisfying.
“Do not touch me again,” I warn as I squeeze tightly and push her over to the wall behind her. My office is all glass but nobody is outside at their desks. Lunchtime. Her bravado fractures as she grapples with her tiny hands to free herself.
“You think you’re special?” I hiss, pushing my face into hers.
“Take this as your last warning. You come near him again, and I will make sure I’m the last face you will ever see.
Don’t underestimate what I can do to you, Sarah.
And what I can get away with. Remember, you know nothing about me,” I say before pushing her back into the wall and releasing her.
She holds onto her neck, looking at me like she has just met me, seeing me for who I really am.
“You’re a freak. Wait until Leo finds out about this,” she whines.
“He already knows, but feel free to go and cry to him. I promise you, he won’t give a shit.”
“People like him don’t belong in your world.”
“They belong wherever I decide. You’re the outsider here, Sarah. I suggest you take the money Leo gave you and leave.”
“You think this is over?” she barks.
“You came here to sell silence and expected me to pay, using blackmail as your weapon. That was a mistake,” I say as her eyes narrow.
“I was considering mercy,” I continue. “I was going to actually offer you some compensation so you would leave and start anew. But I have now decided to revoke any such offer,” I say as I walk back over to her, and she flinches as her breath quickens.
“You chose blackmail,” I say as I run a finger over her cheek, and she pales slightly.
“I don’t negotiate with parasites.”
“You can’t touch me,” she snaps. “I’ll scream.”
“No one can hear you, they have gone about their day, off eating lunch with their friends.”
She looks at the walls again to see no staff. No help. She’s cornered.
“What are you going to do?” she whispers and I lean closer.
“You will disappear.”
“Or?”
“You will discover how small you are and how very little people will grieve your death.”
I think the message may finally be getting through as her lips tremble. For the first time, she looks unsure.
“You think you’re powerful,” I murmur. “Because men wanted you and made you feel special. Important. But all they wanted was a whore for the night, a normal working girl to fill their fantasies before they return to their wives,” I say before I straighten.
“I own outcomes, Sarah. I own Leo and you will accept that. You won’t touch him again. You won’t speak his name. You won’t exist in his world,” I say before moving back to sit behind my desk.
“But if you try to come back in any way —” I let the silence finish the sentence.
She grabs her abandoned bag off the floor and scuttles toward the door, flushed and panicked.
“You’re insane,” she says, like that’s supposed to bother me.
“Yes, I am.”
Before she leaves, she turns back to face me one last time.
“You’re wrong about him,” she says weakly. “He’ll hate you one day.”
I smile softly because she has no idea what is between me and Leo.
“He already does and he wants to be with me anyway. You’re not even a thought anymore, Sarah. Now fuck off.”
She leaves and jogs down the corridor, and I relax now that that bitch is out of my office. She thought this was a negotiation, but all it became was the footnote. Leo will never see her again, and not because I told him not to. But because some wrongs are corrected quietly behind closed doors.
I open my desk drawer and remove a small velvet box, where inside is the bracelet. Platinum, simple and unbreakable. I imagine it around his wrist. A circle of promises with a lock disguised as devotion. He will never take it off, even in death it will remain until his turns to bone and dust.
I will always know where he is, and he will always know who he belongs to. Me.