Chapter Thirteen. Asad
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Asad
“Well, I guess I should thank you for making time to see your mother today.”
I stare at Michelle as she strides across my office, the cloying perfume of her passive aggressiveness preceding her.
Glancing away from her, I nod at Mars, my executive assistant, silently ordering her to close the door behind her.
After a hard, narrowed look at my mother’s back that she probably doesn’t think I catch, the beautiful, plus-size woman with her halo of red natural curls returns the gesture and quietly exits the room.
“It’s only eight in the morning, Michelle.
A little early to be on the rampage and terrorizing the staff, isn’t it?
” I tap my pen on the desktop as she gracefully perches on the chair in front of my desk and crosses her legs.
“We’ll need to make this quick since you don’t have an appointment and I have a meeting in thirty minutes. ”
When Michelle called asking to see me, I’d been wrapped around Ember.
For the first time in, well, ever, I’d overslept and had been contemplating not coming in to work, which I’d never done.
But that’s what Ember did to me—changed me.
Made me operate different. Put someone else’s needs other than my own first. For years, my sole goal was to inherit Cross and claim Ember.
All the years of planning and scheming had finally earned out.
And while lying there, arms full of the woman who’d been my obsession for longer than I care to admit, I finally felt …
whole. And hopeful that all the fighting was coming to an end.
Now I could be the one who started living.
Nah, everything isn’t solved between us, but last night was the move in the right direction.
Then Michelle hit my line, and here I am instead of fucking my soon-to-be wife.
Whatever this is had better be important and not the same ol’ bullshit. Because Michelle can complain, she can threaten, but I’m not letting Ember go. There’s nothing she can do about it.
She stares at me, her fingernails tip-tapping on the arm of the chair the only sound in the heavy silence.
I almost smirk, but instead sink back into my leather chair.
The silent treatment is an old game, a tired one.
She must’ve forgotten who she’s dealing with though.
I like the quiet. I thrive in it. And Michelle Prince ceased to intimidate me a long time ago.
“I saw on the news that Deacon and Xavier are dead. The only details they’ve released are that the deaths were particularly brutal and appear to be targeted. You don’t think it would’ve been wiser to be less … splashy?”
Locking my fingers over top of my abdomen, I cock my head.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about since I haven’t seen the news this morning. It’s a damn shame about Deacon and Xavier though. A real damn shame.”
She mugs me, but I return it with another stare.
Fuck what she thought. I don’t know what Marcus handled shit with her, but damn if I’m discussing confidential Cross business with my mother.
And keeping it a hundred? I don’t put it past her to walk up in this bitch wired up.
Loyalty was never one of Michelle’s virtues or burdens.
Just ask my father.
“Really, Prince?” she scoffs, brushing an invisible wrinkle from the razor-sharp crease of her pants.
“Is that what we’re doing? It’s bad enough that you’re going against every principle Marcus taught you and all of his wishes about the survival of Cross by inviting Ember”—she practically growls her name, the disgust dripping from her tone—“into family business, but you cut your brother out of it. Like last night. Why wouldn’t you have him by your side?
I bet you took your new second. And that other bitch you promoted.
But not Kareem. How do you justify that? ”
“I don’t.” I shrug and fall back against my chair.
Drumming my fingers on the arm, I tilt my head.
“Because once again, I don’t know what you’re referring to.
But, hypothetically, if I had handled a contract for the fashion house and Eli or Makeda accompanied me, it would’ve made perfect sense since both are part of my security.
Also, hypothetically, brother or not, if he’s not qualified or experienced enough to handle whatever business I’m on, then it is what it is.
I’on know, Michelle. It feels like I’m having a sense of déjà vu, as if we discussed this very same thing before.
But that can’t be true because we both know how I hate repeating myself. ”
Her face hardens with fury, and that shit doesn’t move me. There was a time long ago—when my father was alive—when her approval meant everything to me. When I breathed to please her and witness that beautiful smile spread across her face.
Those days are long gone. She killed that impressionable, blindly loyal boy with the same doses of poison she administered to my father.
Michelle created the monster before her lie by lie, betrayal by betrayal, murder by murder.
“I’m your mother, Prince.” She states the obvious after another long beat of silence.
I nod. “Yes.”
“You wouldn’t be sitting behind that desk if not for me. You wouldn’t have this life if not for me. This position, the power, the influence—all me.”
“Okay.”
I don’t do that arguing bullshit. Yeah, she fucked Marcus, brought me into his house and to his attention. She got my foot in the door. But I also paid with a dead father and a lost childhood. She doesn’t get accolades as Mother of the Fucking Year.
“Wow,” she sneers, shaking her head. “Ember must have a fucking water park between her legs for you to be so quick to turn on your mother.”
I lean forward, frowning. “Did you really come here first thing in the morning to discuss my stepsister’s pussy?”
She releases a low, angry chuckle, dipping her chin and staring at the floor for a moment. When she lifts her head, the anger is gone, replaced by a calm, smooth mask. I trust the anger more. At least it’s honest. This … this hides secrets and intent.
“If you wouldn’t mind indulging me just a few minutes longer, I would appreciate it if you would come with me to the executive conference room. I have something important to show you.”
“To show me?” Suspicion creeps over me, the sense of unease billowing until it fills my stomach like a boulder.
Part of me wants to tell her, no, I don’t have the time or the desire to play into whatever shit she’s on.
But the bigger, more cautious side knows not discovering what she’s up to isn’t even an option.
That would be like allowing a snake in your house and then staying up all night wondering when it would strike.
“Yes, please.” She gives me a tight-lipped smile.
“Yeah, Michelle. Give me a second. I’ll be right behind you.”
“Thank you, Asad.” We stare at each other, her face revealing nothing but that phony-ass curve of her lips, before she finally stands and exits my office.
The door barely closes behind her when I pick up my private cell and tap a contact in my favorites. Keeping my attention on the door my mother just left out of, I wait for the person on the other end of the line to pick up.
“Wassup?” Eli answers.
“What’s your location?” I pull open the desk drawer and remove my SIG Sauer, leaning forward to tuck it behind me at the small of my back.
With the two in my shoulder holster, that’s a total of three guns and the knife in my ankle strap. It’s a shame that I’m preparing to meet my mother strapped. But then again, my mother is Michelle.
“Me and Makeda are gonna pull up in about eight minutes. We’re headed to see you.”
“Do me a favor. Make it five minutes.” I rise from my chair and grab my suit jacket from the back of it.
“I need both of y’all up on the executive floor.
Michelle might be on some bullshit, and just in case something goes down, I need you two nearby.
I’m supposed to be meeting her in the conference room. ”
“Bet.”
We hang up, and five minutes later, I walk out of my office and pass Mars’s desk. She’s not behind the big, curved piece of furniture, but I pause in front of it and write her a note, letting her know of my destination.
As I set the memo on top of her keyboard, the elevator doors slide open, and Eli and Makeda step out. Makeda hikes her chin up at me, expression reserved, stoic, while Eli wears a fierce frown.
“Ready?” I ask them.
“Yeah, let’s get this over with.” Eli grunts and turns to walk ahead of me, and Makeda falls in place beside me.
“No clue what this is about?” she asks, her gaze steadily sweeping the empty hall.
“No. She came to my office, complaining as usual, then asked for this. It could be anything.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” she mutters.
Eli draws to a halt in front of the closed conference room entrance. Closed blinds stretch across the room’s long window as well as the top half of the door. He glances over his shoulder at me, nods, then grabs the handle and slowly pushes the door open.
His big frame blocks my immediate view. Anticipation, unease, and impatience trickle through me, and as soon as Eli steps inside and to my right, I enter.
The fuck is going on here?
Michelle waits for me in the room that’s a mirror image of the one we all just gathered in yesterday several floors down.
She stands in the exact same place I did, at the head of the long glass table, and also like yesterday, she’s not alone.
Not as many people are crowded around the table, but I recognize each and every one.
Kareem. Naoki Sato. Don Amato. Malcom Sutter, Marcus’s old enforcer. And several other street bosses appointed under Marcus, not me.
Rage consumes me. Fucking becomes me. It pours through me in a torrential slide, and I can barely see the room past the crimson bath.
This bitch set me up. This fucking bitch. Set. Me. Up.