Chapter 22 - Storm
Storm
I grin down at my phone. Con walked his ass right into the trap. I’d rather reward Phoenix solo, but getting Conrad to really see her value matters more.
Con
Always.
Unfortunately, the games have to wait. I figured Con would take longer to bite so I’m already in my office, and Maryanna’s on her way up.
Storm
I have a meeting—should be quick. What do you have in mind?
Con
We need to show our little Phoenix the desk work good secretaries do.
Storm
You have my attention.
Con
I want her on this desk. I want this room to smell like her and sex. I’ve already had her spread out here once, but I don’t want her to be able to look at this wood without blushing.
Think you can help with that?
I consider his request…Phoenix, spread out on that altar of a desk like an offering to the gods of real estate tycoons.
Storm
I have some thoughts. Did you know Phoenix likes dirty talk—the filthier the better.
She likes praise and degradation.
A knock. “Mr. Carrow? You asked to see me.”
“Come in. Sit.” I point to the chair opposite the desk and keep my thumb moving.
Storm
We take turns whispering in her ear while the other makes her come.
Con
How do we know who wins?
Storm
I’d love to find out if Phoenix can come hard enough to squirt.
Con
YES.
100%. That’s what we’re doing.
Storm
I’ll text when I’m on my way. No pre-gaming. Maybe make her drink water—won’t work if she’s dehydrated.
“I can come back if—”
“No. Stay.” I drop the phone in a drawer and shut it.
Maryanna sits straight-backed, her hands folded over a tired-looking tote.
In her late-twenties, she’s the picture of professionalism with her hair pulled back and secured in a neat knot.
I look over her impersonally, trying to get a read on her.
While she looks mildly nervous, there are no theatrics and none of the lustful, seeking looks we tend to get from a lot of the younger female staff.
She looks like someone who works doubles and sleeps with her alarm in her hand.
“What’s this about? Am I in trouble?” she asks after an extended silence.
“I’d like to start with what you’re hearing about the incidents,” I say, leaning back and steepling. “Staff chatter.”
“Staff chatter,” she echoes slowly. “Well…we’re hearing about the drugs, of course. The guests are nervous. The staff’s split—some think it’s a bad run, some think someone’s getting around the controls the hotel has in place.”
“Do they think it’s us?”
“There are some not-so-bright lightbulbs who will always go with the easy answer.” She lifts her shoulder in a small shrug. “The ones paying attention say that if it were you, the cuts on the cameras wouldn’t be the same every time.”
I keep my expression flat. “What’s your take on it?”
“My take?” She inhales. “Front-of-house won’t risk it.
The bartenders know better because they’d be caught in a hot minute.
Maintenance sticks to weed if anything at all.
Security’s tight and that guy Atticus sees every fucking thing, ‘scuse my French. The spa and housekeeping are kept pretty separate. They don’t compare notes.
And that’s probably where your problem is…
when departments don’t mix, little things might slip by. ”
“Anything specific you’ve seen?”
“Deliveries feel…off sometimes,” she says carefully.
“The paperwork and timing don’t always match.
And the crowd that came in on that student promo?
I didn’t like the way they rolled—too many bodies for the room, no one wanted to put a card down, lots of friends-of-friends.
It smelled like trouble, and I can’t believe that management let them up, anyway. ”
It certainly did, but hindsight’s always twenty-twenty. “Anything else you’re not saying?”
She meets my eyes. Steady. “People are scared. Tips are down because guests don’t linger. My rent didn’t get that memo.”
There it is—the real motive under the gossip. Pressure.
“Good,” I say. “Thank you for your honesty. Now on to the part you knew I’d ask about.” I turn the laptop around to face her and tap a key.
The first clip plays easily. An empty hallway. Maryanna steps out of a guest room, a guest following behind her and lingering in the doorway. He scratches his bare chest, then palms her a wad of cash. She smiles, stands on tiptoe to kiss his cheek.
It segues into a second clip, which is a little worse.
The casino boat’s loading dock, late at night.
The interaction here is quick, dirty, emotionless.
She rises from her knees from the black shadows of the boat, wiping a fingertip neatly at the corners of her mouth.
A man steps out after her, zipping his pants.
When she holds a hand out he bypasses her palm and slips his hand into her shirt, pressing cash, I presume, into her bra.
She tips her chin up in a laugh and adjusts her uniform.
Maryanna rolls her lips inward and glances down at her lap, then back up. “I broke policy,” she says. “A guest asked for some…help—off the books. He tipped me. It was a bad decision.”
“It also appears to be a pattern,” I say.
“I won’t insult you by pretending otherwise,” she replies. “I’m behind on bills. My mother’s on a waitlist. I took shortcuts I shouldn’t have but I didn’t have a choice.”
We sit in the quiet a beat. The easy thing is to make her a headline in an email. The right thing is to make the mess smaller, not bigger. Maryanna is not an employee I actually have any desire to fire.
“All right. Here’s how this is going to go,” I say.
“Effective immediately, you’re suspended pending HR review for policy violations for two weeks.
I can’t have solicitation on the premises, so you’re going to meet with HR and the lawyers and whatever your story is will determine how things move forward.
You’ll be paid out for your accrued hours, and I am making sure that you are getting a cost of living raise after your suspension.
The hotel will also foot the bill for your mother’s care, when the time comes. ..”
Her jaw tightens. “I’m not fired?”
“No,” I say. “I don’t want to fire you. If you sign the suspension agreement and keep this clean, it’ll be over in a few weeks. I’m not going to make any promises, but I’m not torching you unless you make me.”
She blinks fast—relief and shame mixed together. “This is so much more than fair.”
“One more thing,” I add. “It would be hugely helpful in the interim if you happened to hear of any staff floating ‘side work’ again—tips that aren’t tips, introductions that shouldn’t happen. Call this number.” I slide a card across. “I will make it worth your while.”
She nods, stands, and pauses. “For what it’s worth, Mr. Carrow…people talk a lot of trash about all of you. But most of us just want to do the job and go home. If somebody’s stirring this, it isn’t the usual suspects.”
“Duly noted.”
She leaves, closing the door behind her with a soft snick. I flip my knife in my hand, the habit settling me, as I think back over the meeting. It had gone as expected, but I wish she’d had more of the information that I actually needed. Still the bit about the various departments was intriguing.
I text Con.
Storm
On my way.
Storm
I haven’t had breakfast yet, so I get to eat that pretty pussy first.
No response. But I didn’t honestly expect one.
I stop at the door of Con’s office, press my forehead to the wood, and breathe. So much stress, so much anger simmering just under my skin. Every part of me feels cracked.
My Angel won’t shy away from it. She sees me for what I am, and she accepts it. Embraces it, even. She recognizes the darkest part of herself in me. Con doesn’t. He thinks it’s a kink, and maybe it’s that, too.
I need to give Phoenix enough so she knows she isn’t alone in her darkness, but not so much that Con decides she isn’t safe with me. The Titans would never kick me out, but they would take her away if they thought it was in her best interest.
Con can’t ever think that. So today, I leash the monster. Promise it that soon, it can come out to play with our fallen angel.
I enter the office without knocking. Con looks up as I lock the door. He gives me a single nod, and I go straight to Phoenix.
She’s on the couch where I left her, scrolling a spreadsheet on a laptop barefoot in one of Atticus’s shirts.
I don’t speak. I step behind her, wrap my fingers around her throat, and savor the way every muscle in her body freezes, then obeys. She rises when I pull, turns when I set a hand on her shoulder.
“Storm…wha—”
Her eyes are wide. Her lips part on a shuddering breath, and I see it—just under that lightly freckled skin, reflecting back at me.
The darkness, the depravity, the sinner who wants to be named, then worshiped.
The tension thickens. A quick glance shows me that Conrad feels it too. He says nothing, does nothing to break it as I strip her shirt away and toss it aside.
I seal my mouth to hers, my fingers biting into her hips, teeth catching her bottom lip. I bite hard enough to pull a whimper but not hard enough to draw blood. Con will never taste her blood, not unless he draws it himself. That pleasure is mine alone.
I lift her onto the desk. Con already has it cleared, ready for my angel to spread those beautiful legs. My hand stays firm on her throat as I push her down on the polished wood.
Con sits, her hair spilling into his lap. He leans and whispers in her ear, words I can barely make out. “Such a good fucking girl…my perfect little secretary…sitting here ready to be used, punished, rewarded.”
I almost scoff.
This isn’t punishment or reward. It’s a challenge—a crucible—built to push her past limits she doesn’t know she has.
Her thighs fall open for me. She’s already wet, and my mouth waters at the glisten of slick on her skin. I could just drive into her, take what I want and give nothing back. She’d let me. She’d take all of it.
But that isn’t enough.