Chapter Thirty-Nine
Killian
Note to self; put out a hit on any paparazzi members that try to swarm me ever again.
I could probably ask Carter to do it—he hates reporters even more than I do, which raises questions regarding his interest in a certain blonde slip of a thing who caught his attention. What was her name—Annabeth? Annalia?
It certainly doesn’t matter. I don’t care what Carter does with What’s-Her-Face, but I will soon be putting out the word that Lyra is officially and permanently off-limits.
Anyone who touches her or even looks at her for too long is inviting my wrath…
and my wrath destroys lives at best, ends them after months of agony at worst.
After watching my Little Bird fly away again, courtesy of the swarm of reporters, I promise myself it’s the last time I’ll let her do such a thing.
I’ve caught her. Soon, I’ll trap her. I’m certain she’ll come to love the comfort of her cage, and the many freedoms found within, but it’ll be quite the steep mountain to climb to get her compliance.
Ironically, I can’t wait for it. Her defiance has always turned me on—imagining the lip she’ll give me once I move her in with me makes my cock stand at attention.
As soon as I manage to shake off the paparazzi and get into my car, Locke glances at me through the rearview mirror. “Sorry about that, boss.”
“Don’t let it happen again,” I warn. Lyra’s tricky and she’s too smart for her own good—she’ll take careful managing and a watchful eye to tame. If Locke proves he’s not up to the task, I have few issues replacing him.
“I didn’t even see her disappear.”
“I don’t even give a fuck,” I snap.
Locke bows his head in acquiescence, accepting his mistake and my reprimand.
“Do you want me to grab her?” he asks mildly.
I think on it for a moment before shaking my head.
“No. Give her a final night of freedom.” I can’t imagine she’ll be capable of getting herself into horrible trouble during a single night unsupervised…
then again, I’ve underestimated Lyra to my own peril more than once.
It’s a mistake I ought to stop repeating.
“Wait outside her apartment building to make sure she doesn’t do anything crazy—” her MO, apparently, “—and report back any suspicious activity.”
“You got it. She’s excused from the gala tonight?”
“For the first and last time,” I confirm.
I call Lyra six times before I manage to finally get a hold of her at 8 P.M., when my chauffeur is pulling up in front of the gala.
“You will pick up the first time I call you,” I say in lieu of greeting, irritated. I’m about to enter a room with dozens—hundreds—of women would give their vital organs to be on my arm, yet the one I want won’t even answer the fucking phone for me. There’s much work to be done between us.
“Yes, oh benevolent Lord Commander,” Lyra snarks. A smile tugs on the corner of my lips. She is… profoundly refreshing. Being surrounded by Yes-Men has somewhat spoiled me, and it’s a treat to have someone who talks back. Agreeable people are also some of the most boring.
“Are you home safely?” I know the answer, of course, I’d just like to see what she’ll tell me.
“Safe and sound,” she confirms. “And I won’t be leaving my home to move into yours.”
“Is that so?” I can’t hide the amusement in my tone. Surely, at this point, she knows that there isn’t a chance in fucking hell I’ll let her go. She’s carrying my heir inside her. In short, she is now unequivocally mine.
“We should talk tomorrow,” she says. Her tone has turned business-like, mimicking the way she used to speak to me before I licked, bit, and came on every part of her—not to mention in her.
“I intend to do a lot more than talk,” I assure her. “Movers will be coming to your apartment at noon, and Locke will pick you up to bring you to me—”
“No,” she cuts me off.
My eyebrows rise. “No?” I repeat, confused. A chuckle escapes me. “Lyra, was I unclear earlier—”
“You were perfectly clear, but I’m telling you that we need to talk, and for once, you will respect my wishes. I know that listening to others has turned into a foreign notion to you, but you will listen to me.”
“Or what?” I taunt, even though I admire her grit.
“Or I will destroy you,” she says simply, with a certainty that unnerves me. She sounds so sure of herself, it makes discomfort flutter about my chest. What’s my woman playing at? “Come before the movers. 10a.m., preferably, and come prepared, Killian.” She hangs up without further ado.
I frown at the phone, contemplating calling her back, when I get another call—this one from Locke.
Irritation courses through me as I pick up. “What?” I snap.
“I found out who sent the guys after Lyra a couple weeks ago,” Locke says.
I blink, giving my head a shake. So much has happened since Lyra got mugged, I almost forgot about it—especially since Locke told me he’d hit a dead end and couldn’t find out anything more than he already had.
“I thought that door was closed.”
“I found a window to open. I managed to get the name of the guy who paid Floyd, but when I chased the lead, it turned into a dead end… so I kept digging.”
“Spare me the explanation,” I say impatiently, gazing up at the hotel where the gala’s taking place. “Who was it?”
“Silas Cornell.”
My jaw clenches. My mind goes blank for one, two, three heartbeats—and then, explodes in a flurry of thoughts accompanied by images.
Me pinning Silas against an alleyway wall and having some goons threaten to rape him, so he can see what it feels like.
Me tanking every single one of Silas’s investments and tearing away his only stable piece of business, which I could do through one conversation with Carter.
Me, putting a bullet in Silas’s skull.
It’s one thing to fuck with me. It is another entirely to go after my woman. The fact that I hadn’t yet pulled my head out of my ass and claimed her when Silas sent men after her is irrelevant.
“Why?” I demand. I gave Silas what he wanted—a snippet of Lyra’s sex tape to shut him up. In hindsight, that wasn’t the best decision, but I didn’t have many options with him threatening to tell The Eyes that Lyra’s a threat. They'd already expressed wariness of her.
Why the hell would he keep chasing this bone?
“My best guess? He sent people after her to see what your reaction would be.” Locke pauses. “You played right into his manicured hands.”
Yes, I did, and I’d do it all over again if it meant keeping Lyra safe.
Now, I have a mission for this evening; something to distract me from thinking of whatever the hell Lyra’s playing at.
Ice skitters over the back of my neck. I look around the backseat, even though I know I’m alone. Somehow, it feels like I’m being watched, even though the windows of my SUV are tinted and the doors are reinforced to withstand a spray of bullets from a machine gun.
Intuition is an interesting thing, though I’ve had very little experience with it—but the icy feeling on the back of my neck has never preceded anything good.
“Boss.” Locke’s tone has turned faint. “Fuck…”
“What is it?” I bark. “Is she okay?”
Locke doesn’t respond. For the first time in the decade since I’ve met him, he’s too afraid to speak.
The driver releases a gasp, and I can see through the open partition that he’s staring at something on his phone. Something that’s making his eyes bulge.
“Give me that,” I demand, reaching through the partition. The driver glances at me through the rearview mirror, looking like a deer in headlights—or the squirrel faced with the ravenous wolf.
“Now,” I hiss.
He hands his phone through the partition with a trembling hand.
A video is playing on the screen. A video I took of Lyra, several weeks ago. A video of her bound and naked on her bed.
The tape.
My heart screeches to a stop. My lips part. The world freezes around me as I watch something that I hadn’t realized was my worst nightmare until this very moment play out across my driver’s old iPhone screen.
The leverage I had over Lyra has been leaked to the entire fucking internet.
“Get Lyra,” I growl into the phone. “Get her right the fuck now, and take away any tech she has access to. Lock her in my apartment. I’ll be there shortly.”
“Boss…” Locke trails off, but I hear the thousand words he leaves unspoken.
With the leak of this lewd tape, Lyra’s career is over, and any thought I had of marrying her should evaporate.
I should let her have the abortion and get the hell away from her to avoid the nuclear bomb she’s turned into.
Nobody in New York City will touch her with a ten-foot pole after this, and I should keep my distance for the sake of my reputation.
I know with a burning certainty that I won’t do what I should do. I made the decision to take her and keep her, and I’m not someone who changes his mind once I’ve decided on a course of action. I’ll manage the fallout of the video, somehow, and I am going to destroy the man who leaked it.
The only other man who had access to it.
Silas fucking Cornell.
I cancel my appearance at the gala, but I don’t go home. Instead, I wait idly in the car, having my driver park in an alleyway. I turn off my phone to stop any location tracking, and put it in the dead-zone compartment of my car; a little pocket that disables any technology placed into it.
Then, I lie in wait. I wait until 10p.m., when the gala’s winding down. My tech people are all over the leaked sex tape—they’ll get it down by any means necessary within the next 24 hours, but a lot can happen in 24 hours of something existing on the internet.
I know it’ll never truly go away. I know that any affection Lyra had for me will regress to burning hatred. I know that any progress I might’ve made with her will go up in smoke.