Chapter 37
Chapter Thirty-Seven
There is a bang and a crash outside my office. Raised, angry voices filter into the room. “You can’t see her without an appointment—” Suddenly the door flies open, the door handle impacts the wall with a crunch, and a puff of white dust rends the air.
“I don’t know how you did it,” he says as he stomps into my office, panting. He pauses at the edge of my desk and points a trembling finger at me.
With calm nonchalance, I gather the documents that are spread across my desk and slide them safely into my top drawer. I wave away my hovering, worried staff, rest my palms on the desk, and plaster a pleasant smile on my face.
“You disappeared from a locked room. It was supposed to be impenetrable,” he whines.
“You had a void band on. How the fuck did you get past five of my best guards? I stationed them right outside.” He runs his hand through his hair in frustration, and his floppy blond hair awkwardly sticks up.
“I had a visit from the vampire council’s enforcers.
Some questionable evidence has come to light.
Evidence that was held on my secure servers.
The information could only have been obtained by someone hacking into my computer system.
Which I’ve been assured isn’t possible. It is the same computer system that handles my security cameras, the same cameras that had you lying facedown on the bed.
Yet, the entire time, the room was empty—”
I interrupt his rant. “Hello, Luther, what a pleasant surprise, it’s so nice of you to visit my place of business rather than simply kidnapping me.” I follow my words up with a patronising smile.
The pureblood is wearing yesterday’s clothes.
His once-pristine suit is now wrinkled. Perhaps I should have bided my time in sending out the information and not made it so obvious, the link between my escape and the data leak.
Luther isn’t certain of my involvement and he is still seriously underestimating me.
Oh heck, I am surprised smoke isn’t coming out of his ears. He slams his hands down on my desk. The heavy desk squeals in protest as it is shunted a few inches across the floor towards me. I rest my elbows on the desk and prop my chin on my hands. I flutter my eyelashes at him.
He leans over the desk until our noses almost touch. “You little bitch, I am going to kill you—”
“Oh, okay. That’s nice…um hm…you might want to work on that temper, Luther…eww…no one likes a spitter.” I scrunch my nose, sit back in my chair, and wipe my face. “Humans use a saying: ‘Say it, don’t spray it.’”
“—I’m going to bleed you dry.” So vampy, I almost shiver. “I have your mother—”
I gasp and press one hand against my lips and the other on my chest. I open my eyes comically wide. “Oh no, not my mum, your partner for almost thirty-five-years…whatever shall I do?” I drop my hands and give him a toothy grin.
“—and your hellhound.”
Everything stops.
My silly quips freeze in my throat, and I almost stop breathing. Fear floods me. When I look into his livid eyes, the hair on my arms rise.
He has my hellhound.
“I am listening.” It’s not my voice that comes out of my mouth. It’s throaty, dark, not human. I can feel my eyes going black. Instead of being hazy, like it was in the early days, my eyesight becomes pinpoint-sharp, magnified.
“You fix what you did.” Luther prods the top of my desk with his index finger, and his voice drops into a low growl.
“You send a retraction, admit liability. You tell them you lied.” I’ve seen the evidence, and there’s no retracting that shit—Luther is delusional.
“Then you make sure you have all your affairs in order.” He digs into his trouser pocket and slaps a business card on top of my desk. “Come to this address.”
“When,” I growl.
“Ten this evening.” My eyes flick to the clock: it’s eleven a.m….I have eleven hours. I nod and he turns on his heel and stalks out of the room.
Rein in your temper, Emma. Wield it like a weapon.
My nostrils flare with my poorly reined-in anger and I close my eyes for a second. In a poor attempt to get a grip on my wildly beating heart, I take a deep, shuddering breath. I force my eyes back to normal. Freaking out will not help John.
God, I’m so angry. I have an urge to run after him and pull his head off—with the increase in my strength over the years, I’m pretty sure I could do it.
Instead, I call Ava. “Have you got a location on John? Drop everything for a moment. I need a location on him and everything you have on this address…” I rattle off the address from Luther’s card.
“Boss? That you? You sound…urm…okay. One sec.” I wait. My breath rasps through my tight throat and my heart continues to slam into my chest as I wait and Ava plucks stuff out of the internet ether. I strum my fingers on the desk and rub the side of my face when my eye twitches.
It’s a long time since I’ve been this angry, this afraid.
For John.
Our relationship is the epitome of complicated.
Over the years I’ve attempted to date, sort of.
One guy was nice, but after a few weeks, he ghosted me.
I later found out the guy had a visit from John.
To be honest, it was a kind of relief. Dating is naff.
I felt so guilty…like I was cheating on the hellhound.
Which is ridiculous…you can’t cheat on a man that you’ve never had a relationship with. Can you?
I guess when you have had your soul mate handed to you on a silver platter and then you tell fate to go shove that platter…I compare everyone against John and they don’t stand a chance.
God, how I’ve missed him.
I huff. It’s not like he’s breaking down my door—not that he can, what with my living in a pocket dimension—and proclaiming his undying love. I glance down at my strumming fingers. In my secret, shameful moments, I daydream he’ll do just that.
Whenever I need him, he’s always there.
Grumpy, angry hellhound. Attempting to fix problems that sometimes don’t need fixing.
“Oh, wow, oh no, John Hesketh isn’t off-world. He came through a portal within an hour of your kidnapping.”
Why the hell did he do that? I let out a pained moan. The bloody stubborn man came to rescue me…he knows I can take care of myself.
“Can you send me everything you have, please, Ava?” I manage to whisper. We end the call and I place the mobile carefully down on my desk.
I bow my head, and grip the edge of the table so hard that it hurts my fingers.
He has John.