Jax
Punishment.
The word sounded sweet. It was everything I’d been dreaming about since I first bought Liz at the auction.
My skin was itching for it. My body felt sensitive at all times.
But it hadn’t happened yet. And it was killing me.
Something had changed in Liz that night, and she wasn't trying to fight us anymore. We were no longer avoiding each other. We’d have breakfast and spend our nights together—that is, when we made it home on time.
To be fair, work was kicking both our asses.
For me, it was new clients, including my friend Emerson, whose situation was such a mind fuck that I didn't even want to get into it. I didn't know what was more taxing—Emerson and her fucked-up dad or Liz and her fucked-up ex-husband—but both of them were challenging to deal with.
Liz had multiple meetings with a new buyer that came to her as a recommendation—or more like an order—from the owner of the gallery. Every day she’d come home exhausted and more than a bit annoyed.
With all of that, neither of our schedules left any room for what she had promised in the bedroom.
And then, on top of everything else, when I got into my office this morning, I had a visitor. She was less of a client and more of a… pest?
I wasn’t even sure who referred me to her.
Parker Novak.
She was connected to Emerson because she was on the board of Emerson's company. She had ties to Claire because she was the owner of the company she worked for. But neither of them, knowing her, would've dared do this to me. So it had to mean she had sought me out herself.
She had an air about her as she sat across from me that just got on my nerves.
I had seen her only a few times in person, since she made most of her deals through her various subordinates. It was said that if Parker herself visited you, it was like a gift from the gods.
More like from the Grim Reaper.
She might look like a pretty package with her long flowy hair and makeup that made her almost copper red-looking eyes turn sharp as knives. In a tight black vest with a red jacket and matching suit pants, I knew she meant business. And that business usually entailed laying off hundreds of people.
Not her own, though. No, Novak Enterprises would always get out of it.
But every single company that had her as a board member somehow always got lay-off notices.
Always in the name of profit. She wasn't slick about it, nor did she try to be.
She was constantly in the media, not only regarding the accomplishments of her company but also how she was bulldozing everyone else's.
And if she wasn’t busy ruining people’s lives, she was divorcing her latest sad sack of a husband. After the first couple of times she bothered me, I decided to look into her, and even if I hadn’t, social media was always going crazy with rumors of who her next husband would be.
I think she’s on number six or seven? She went through them like candy.
My eyes flicked down to her slender ring finger, noticing it was empty. Last time she came in here, she’d been sporting a diamond so large that it could blind people. Tacky, maybe, but it still made a statement.
Pretty sure the last one thought he was claiming her. Poor guy.
My mind tried to imagine rings Liz might wear, but I quickly pushed that away. That was jumping way too far into the deep end.
Parker had come with an agenda, but I wouldn’t be giving her what she wanted. She would never get part of my company, no matter how sweet she made it sound.
“It seems like you’d get the majority of the benefits,” I said, leaning back with a smile. “I never said I wanted to go public, and I have told you multiple times that I don't want a board or investors. I built my company from the ground up without anyone else. I'm going to keep it that way.”
She gave me a smile that told me she’d been expecting that answer. I had rejected her five separate times—three of them in person.
She’s tenacious, I’ll give her that.
“I've been keeping it pretty business-friendly, but let me be honest with you, if that’s okay.”
I motioned for her to keep going. She shrugged off her jacket, leaving her in just her vest, and I leaned forward on my desk. I knew she wasn’t trying to convince me in some sensual manner—she was actually getting comfortable with me.
Which irked me because I didn't want her getting comfortable. I wanted her out.
“You’re growing stagnant. I have access to people you’ve never dreamed of. You got lucky with your connections, but if you want to go further, you need someone like me on your side.”
We held eye contact as she spoke. When her lips quirked into a smile, she looked like she thought she was winning this war.
“Who said I wanted to go further?” I asked, tilting my head and leaning forward just like she had.
From the outside, it probably looked like we were sharing secrets.
“Tell me, Parker, is this how you get all those husbands?
You come in, say you'll take their businesses to new heights, and marry them only to divorce them right after you get what you want?”
There was a moment of silence before she leaned back into her chair with a small humph.
She was amused.
“If you must know, regardless of being over forty-five years old, I am leashed by my family's living trust. But while they get to pick who I marry, they don’t get to dictate how long it has to last.”
I raised my eyebrow at her. I had no idea why she was telling me this, nor did I know if I was the right person to hear it.
“Funny how none of them worked, isn't it?”
“Funny,” she agreed, her eyes running up and down my body. “Or you could say… predictable. They want me to marry a big, strong man who can put me in my place, but I think you and I can agree that big, strong men aren't our type.”
The image of Liz crawling over my body shot through me like a zap of electricity straight to the brain.
“No, I suspect you'd like something a little more docile.” I cleared my throat. “Regardless of how much our personal interests align, I'm happy with how my company is now. I don't want insane growth. I know when I'm winning, and I know when it's time to settle.”
She looked like she was going to fight me on that, but then there was a knock on the glass door of my office.
I had been so focused on getting rid of Parker that I hadn’t noticed two men in uniform waiting outside. When I met their eyes, they showed themselves in. I sent a look to my assistant, letting her know to prepare the usual protocol.
As she turned away to do just that, I looked at Parker.
“Sorry, it seems like we have to cut this short.”
“Oh, you're not sorry at all,” she said and grabbed her bag as she stood, looking at the officers with a sweet smile. “Hey, boys.”
But they didn’t take the bait. They likely knew who she was.
“Jax Steele, we're here investigating an assault,” one of them said, stepping forward to show me his phone, which was playing a video of me and Liz's stupid-ass husband getting into it on the street.
“Are y'all really so fucking dumb that you don't know this is AI-generated?”
They looked at each other before the one who’d spoken cleared his throat. First Parker, now the cops. I’d just seen them the other day. When would they learn to give me a fucking break?
“This was actually taken by one of the neighbors’ cameras, and—”
“Oh yeah? See…” Parker leaned forward, pointing at a part of the video where my fist was going through his skull. “You're here for assault, right? Something like that would kill a man. You need to up your game, boys. Maybe be a little less obvious?”
To be fair, it was almost like the altercation we’d had, except it showed me pummeling into him while he lay on the ground.
I kept watching because it was actually really well done.
Normally, you could spot AI-generated video with only a glance, but with this one, you really had to watch it closely.
I’d been there, so I knew how it went down, but I imagined cops like these, who could barely tell the difference. Or maybe they could, but they were banking on others not being able to so they could put whoever they wanted in jail.
One of the many dangers of AI, especially the unregulated kind. But no one in this day and age would regulate it because they stood to make far too much from it.
“Hmm.” Parker twisted her body so her back was to me and she was facing them.
She held up one finger. “No search warrant.” Finger two.
“An AI-generated video.” A third finger.
“And I suspect this is not the first time you have visited this office in the last two months, is it? I think it's been about—”
“Eight times,” I finished for her.
She snapped her fingers. “Right! Eight times. Now, that's a waste of taxpayer dollars if I've ever seen one. I guess you guys might want to busy yourselves with something else before we use all this evidence to sue. And trust me, I have a really good lawyer. I'm sure you've met her.”
Their faces paled.
“You don't need to get involved with this. We are here for—”
“Me, I know. But haven't we been over this? Now, before you start a scene,” I looked to the side where all my employees were gathering by my office door. A swell of pride ran through me when I saw my assistant bring out her phone. “Let's just act like we are amicably parting ways. Deal?”
“Let’s not embarrass ourselves, okay, fellas?” Parker added, and when they didn't move, she let out a tsk. “Brian, I know you know better than this.”
It surprised me that she was on a first-name basis with the police, but it just meant that she and I were probably more similar than I let myself believe.
“Let’s go,” Brian whispered and started to pull his partner away.
“No, we are here for—”
“She's the police commissioner's ex-wife,” he said, a little louder than necessary. “Chief will have our balls if she mentions anything.”
With that, it finally dawned on his partner’s mind that picking a fight with Parker wasn't a good idea.