29
M
ikky had a strange look on his face as I walked into his office. he was holding his phone in his hand. “She’s collaborating with an Ivanov.”
“Who?” I questioned him, noticing the stress wearing him down, so what I was about to tell him would only make that worse.
He pointed his finger toward the club floor, “ Her . The girl. Gunner just messaged me. The friend. Her friend is the granddaughter of Akim, Akim Ivanov.”
“Fuck,” I groaned, combing my fingers through mt hair, feeling like a dick for believing her. So, did she lie to me? “Well, I just had her in my office and she told me a few things that are quite concerning, but now I’m wondering if she was…”
“Stringing you along.” He looked disappointed in me. “It doesn’t take much for you to be fooled. A Plain Jane wiggles her arse and you become mush, like a fucking dog on a leash.”
“Hear me out, Mikky,” I argued, because she still dropped some interesting info. I sat down opposite him at eye level to assert a rational conversation. “She overheard two staff talking about the rats…”
Mikky rolled his eyes.
“C’mon, where else would she have heard about it. I hadn’t mentioned it to her, nor had Gunner. And I could tell she knew very little about the rat situation.”
“So…Betty told me rumors are doing the rounds,” he tensed his jaw. “Maybe the rumors started with her.”
“Wait. I got more,” I tried to convince him, but he had already decided that Riley was the enemy. “She said the two people who were talking mentioned Vladimir.”
Thunder burned behind his eyes. “And you believe her?”
“Yeah, I mean…” It dawned on me that he believed the story she told me was fabricated to make it look like two people were talking secretly, betraying us, when she was the one betraying us. It was a diversion. No one was speaking quietly about rats and calling the press.
It was all fiction.
She screwed me over.
I felt like a fucking fool. “I’m sorry, Mikky,” I leaned forward and laced my hands together, unable to look him in the eye.
“You let your cock do the thinking,” he pointed out. “Broke the number one rule. Never let women get in the way of business. Number two rule. Never let a woman destroy your senses.”
I felt so ashamed. “So what are we going to do now?” I asked him.
He shrugged his shoulders, then reached for his therapy stick, his expensive cigar, placed it between his teeth, and lit it. “I need to think it over.”
Shame and regret crawled over me as I lowered my head further and rubbed my hair with my fingers. As I glanced up with my head swirling with every conversation I had with Riley, I noticed something silver under the desk. I ran my fingers under the wood to feel the item, then dropped to my knees to take a better look.
I bolted to my feet, eyes wide, and pointed to the space under the desk as soon as I discovered what it was. Mikky pushed his chair out abruptly, crawled under, peeled it off, and held it between his fingers.
He tossed it down on the desk, then placed his hands on his hips and began to pace back and forth, his anger growing with every step. There was a short list of people who it could’ve been because Mikky doesn’t allow just anyone to enter his office. The accountant, the lawyer, Danny Lam, Betty, Freddie, the cleaner and her , Riley. Fuck.
In suppressed rage, Mikky stepped to the door, swung it open, and strode down the hall to the stairs.
“What are you going to do, Mikky?” I called after him, but he was too angry to reply.
I ran after him, hoping like fuck he wasn’t going to do something stupid as every cherished emotions I had for Riley Laws, the selkie in the water dissipated with every breath replaced with something more sinister.
She fucked me over and I was too stupid to see it.