Chapter 2
Ares
Fuuuuuuucccck.
I’ve been told I’m an asshole more times than I can count, but hearing her say it in her own language takes the cake.
I ball my fist, grind my teeth until my jaw aches, and replay her words over and over, buzzing in my head like a swarm of angry bees.
Exacting. Ruthless. Insane.
I always knew there was a side to her I’d never see. The raw, unpolished, and untouchable side behind all the preening and perfection she’s cultivated for years. I’d been wondering when she’d finally break.
But this… this is worse.
She isn’t breaking. She’s absorbing it and swallowing it. Letting it sit, fester, until it turns into hatred, one that’s enough to feel.
Exacting. Ruthless. Insane.
Every word lands like a bullet slicing through skin, and I can’t move, can’t breathe, can’t make it stop even as the car moves smoothly through the city.
I hadn’t gone into the coffee shop to listen. I went in because she was late. Because five minutes can turn into something unacceptable when the day is already mapped down to the second. Because inefficiency irritates me, and Lily, of all people, should know better.
The bell above the door had chimed. The familiar smell of coffee and heat had wrapped around me.
And then I heard her.
Frustrated in a way that had nothing to do with theatrics and everything to do with attrition.
I groan, low and guttural, like something’s twisting inside me. It’s exhale and pain and fury all at once.
“Boss… you okay?” Alonso asks.
I clamp my jaw, try to straighten my posture, but Adam’s silhouette shifts in the rear-view mirror.
“Boss… are you good?” His voice is calm, but carries the bite of knowing me too well.
I snap my eyes to him, teeth bared in a half-smile I don’t mean, half-grimace I can’t contain.
“I’m fine,” I reply, but it’s hollow. The words don’t touch what’s boiling inside.
They don’t push further.
I grip the armrest harder than necessary as I pull up her contract. I know it by heart. I know the clauses, the language, the careful neutrality of it. Compensation was clearly stated. Availability outlined without apology. Expectations defined in clean, unemotional terms.
She signed it without flinching.
I remember noticing her firm hand that day. There was no hesitation in the stroke of her pen. Most people pause, even briefly, when they realize what they’re agreeing to.
Lily didn’t. She read every word, asked only two questions, then committed.
Nothing was misleading.
I’ve reviewed it enough times over the years to know I haven’t crossed a line that wasn’t already drawn. I demand a lot but I give exactly what I promise in return.
That’s always been the balance.
I sit back against the seat and let my gaze harden, letting logic do what it’s supposed to. Letting it strip the situation down to facts. She’s compensated generously. She’s respected professionally. She has autonomy that most people in her position don’t.
She can leave.
The thought lands fully formed, and immediately rejects itself because I don’t want to replace her.
I can’t replace her.
The realization doesn’t come with drama. It's like something true for a long time and has finally decided to announce itself.
I’ve replaced assistants before without guilt. There’s always someone else, someone eager, someone ambitious, someone who mistakes proximity for intimacy and inevitably tests boundaries they shouldn’t.
Lily never has.
She does the job, impeccably, and leaves no opening that could be misread.
And that… that is the problem.
She’s the only one who’s never crossed a sexual line with me.
And infuriatingly, she’s the only one I’ve ever wanted to cross it with.
The position I had her in my head this morning—just before she showed up—sprints through my mind, making me straighten, my spine taut, as if the thought itself has spikes.
Bent over my kitchen counter, in the red heels she wears every Friday for the past three months, her skirt pushed up around her waist, and me coming up behind her…
I inhale sharply, adjusting myself, and clearing my throat.
But the thoughts don’t stop. They pour in now, breaking the tight lid I keep over them.
All the places I’ve fucked her in my head float about now.
The hallway outside my office late at night, pinned against the glass walls, her legs around my waist, her heels kicked off somewhere.
The conference room after hours, spread open on the desk, glass walls reflecting the city with papers thrown about.
The elevator… I’ve imagined pinning her there more times than I allow myself to count. Her back against cold metal. Her breath stuttering, not in fear, but surprise.
I groan, more frustration than sound, and press a hand to the brink of my nose. Keep it in your pants. Get it together. I repeat it like a mantra, over and over, but it doesn’t stick.
Then the company building comes into view, massive and unyielding, glass and steel slicing into the sky.
The sight of it shoves the filthy thoughts back into the shadows, crowded out by schedules, meetings, and the rhythm of business waiting at the front doors.
The car moves forward, pulling me toward it, toward the work, toward everything that demands attention.
It slows, the tires rolling over the familiar concrete of the company lot. Adam opens the door before I can even think about moving.
My feet hit the pavement, and I'm strolling toward the building, shoulders back, and spine taut.
The glass doors slide open as if on cue. The moment I step inside, the space itself seems to shift. People pause mid-step, mid-conversation.
It’s subtle. But it’s there. The room rearranges itself around me, bending its rhythm to the authority I carry.
Even in motion, I feel how easily order follows me.
“Who am I taking out?” Halfway down the hall, Matteo appears, like he’s stepped out of a shadow that wasn’t there a second ago.
“What?” I lift a brow, forcing calm I don’t feel.
“You’ve got that look on your face…” He falls into step beside me.
“What look?”
“The one that says the other person is a dead man walking.”
I slant my head to shoot him a glare.
Dark hair slicked back just enough to show the sharp line of his forehead. Brown eyes. Broad shoulders. A monstrous beige suit that makes him look ridiculous.
“For starters… you.” I scowl at him.
“Me?” He frowns back, amused.
“You live in an apartment full of mirrors and still step out looking like that?” I scoff.
“We all don’t have the luxury of Lily, do we?” He straightens his suit, flipping me off.
I pretend the sound of her name doesn’t hit close to my balls.
“We all don’t have the luxury of Lily, do we?” He straightens his suit, flipping me off with that casual arrogance that makes my teeth grind.
I pretend the sound of her name doesn’t hit close to my balls.
“If you’d stop pissing where you eat, you’d have a secretary last more than a weekend.”
He laughs and we step into the elevator together. Doors slide closed.
“On the other side of business.” He clears his throat, adjusting a navy-blue tie.
“Go on.” I press the button for my floor. “But lose the tie while at it.”
“Oh, fuck off.” He shoves me lightly, but grudgingly lets the tie fall loose.
He goes on, filling me in on the meeting with the club owners in my territory, the new levy on late payments, how they reacted, what was said back, who pushed and who folded. I listen, parsing every detail.
Matteo isn’t just my cousin. He’s my enforcer. My right-hand man. He might look sloppy at times, but that’s a facade. Behind it is efficiency, and a mind that works faster than anyone I know, except maybe Lily.
We reach my office, and my mother stands just outside the door, statuesque as always in a white jumpsuit. Silver threads streak her raven hair, pulled back just enough to reveal the hard line of her cheekbones, the cutting set of her jaw.
“My boys,” she calls, eyes like knives; gray, piercing, scanning, measuring. “Ready for the board?”
“Always.” I straighten, spine rigid.
“Let’s go over it.” She steps aside, a silent command for me to enter. “You have at least five minutes to convince me your father has no cause to turn in his grave.”
“He’s been doing a good job, Aunt Issa,” Matteo chimes in, airy as ever.
“His father was voted CEO five times in a row before his death. If Ares can’t do ten, then he’s failed.” She tosses me a small, chipped smile.
I nod.
Isabelle Greco. My mother, indeed. Truth is, she stopped being a mother long before I can remember, more driller than nurturer from the moment I started talking at two. Everything I know, everything I am, she drilled into me, lesson by lesson, word by word.
We step inside my office.
My mother was right. Five minutes was all she needed, but even that didn’t take three.
“See you in there,” she announces as we walk to the door. She seems lighter, more at ease, after hearing about my progress with the Chinese market expansion.
It’s not that I need her permission or validation. It’s that she’s brilliant, a force of nature. Whatever she talks about, she knows it inside and out. My father expanded more when he met her, and continued to, both on paper and in the shadows of the underworld.
We step out, and my stride falters. Lily stands there, juggling the coffee cup, tablet, and files like she’s balancing the world in her hands.
“Good morning,” she chimes, giving a polite bow toward my mother.
“Morning.” Isabelle gives her a quick once-over, then adds, “Clean the coffee stain off your shirt.” And she struts off, leaving an invisible trail of authority behind her.
“Thanks,” Lily chuckles after her, nodding her head repeatedly. Then she looks at Matteo. “Good morning.”
“Lily.” He winks at her. “See you in there.” And just like that, he’s gone too.
“I… I huh… I’m sorry I took longer than necessary.” Her hand holds the cup out toward me, the gesture almost ceremonial.
I don’t take it. Instead, I start moving toward the other elevator, the one that will take me straight to the boardroom.
“Sir?” Her voice follows, like she’s testing the water. “The coffee machine was broken…”
I don’t answer.
The elevator doors slide shut with a soft whoosh, swallowing the sounds of the floor. I stand back against the panel, letting space between, giving her room or maybe giving myself space from the tension she drags in with her.
“Sir…” She shifts, gripping the files and coffee like her life depends on it. “Mr. Greco… I mean… Boss,” she stutters.
“It’s Ares, Lily,” I clip. My eyes catch the tilt of her head, the way she’s trying to put herself together, trying to act like she’s not spiraling.
“I… I wanted to…” She clears her throat. “The coffee machine was truly broken.”
I cut her off with a glance that stops her mid-word.
“But it’s a good thing you…” She swallows, then tries again. “It won’t happen again.. E…ever.” Her words falter.
I note the heat in her cheeks, the way her hands grip the papers, the subtle shift of her weight from one foot to the other.
I take my time looking at her now, really seeing. The fatigue in her eyes. The way her collarbones have grown more pronounced under the blouse. And her lips with no trace of her favorite blush, the one she wears when she feels at ease.
“You need a break,” I tell her, the words rougher than intended. My hand twitches, almost reaching to cup her face, but I stop myself, mentally kicking the idea into the shadows. “You need some time away. From me. From the job.”
“What?” Her eyes widen. She opens her mouth, then closes it, lips trembling. “I… I can… I don’t…”
“It’s not optional, Lily.” I cut her off again. My tone isn’t just command; it’s assertion, absolute. She freezes. “Take the rest of the day off. And the weekend.”
“Why?” She tries to push back, stepping forward, her voice pitching. “I… I can manage. I don’t need… it was just one mistake.”
I lean just enough to meet her gaze, but not enough to get lost in it.
“If I didn’t know better.” My voice drops an octave, “I’d say you enjoy spending time with your ruthless, exacting, and insane boss.”
Her breath hitches, and I catch the flash of shock, embarrassment, and something that trembles just beneath the surface, flickering across her face before she schools it away.
This little woman.
Eyes like dusty coal, dark until the light hits them just right. Hair the color of noodled honey, a shade darker than her skin. She stands there trying to be composed, trying to be professional, trying to be untouched and failing in the smallest, most human ways.
Her throat works as she swallows. Her shoulders lift a fraction, then settle.
For a brief, dangerous second, the elevator feels too small. Like it learned her shape and adjusted itself accordingly.
“Good.” I step back.
The doors ping open, and I move toward the boardroom.
A dark thought flits across my mind with punishment of a kind that isn’t professional. The kind that comes with her thrown over my lap, her bare ass up, spanked until she learns to behave.
But I force it away.
I shouldn’t have gone into that coffee shop. Knowing now that I affect her, that I register in her body and not just her workday, is gasoline poured straight onto a fire that’s been simmering for two years.
And burn, I shall.