41. Forty-one
Forty-one
Payton
I straighten the cuffs of my hand-cut suit as I enter Ambrosia and Nectar in Manhattan. My purposeful strides take me past the host, who nods at me in greeting, and toward a private room I’ve reserved for the evening. A special guest is waiting for me, thanks to a few calls to connected associates here in New York. I pull the door closed behind me and know we won’t be interrupted. There’s no beverage service needed at this high-class cocktail lounge tonight.
“About time you arrived,” Octavius Rex, Hayes’s former best friend and our begrudging business partner, greets me from his spot leaning against the arm of a cognac-colored club chair.
“I had to make a few arrangements. Forgive my tardiness, Rex.” I look over his shoulder at the man gagged and tied to the chair. “Seems you managed to secure our guest without issue.”
Rex is just as huge as Hayes and equally scary. They went to college together before Olympus bought out Rex’s family business and drove a wedge between them. Now Rex is our inside man to a group of businessmen who’ve had it out for Olympus, thanks to a fortuitous partnership in which he helped save our company from ruin and asked for our help getting away from the group of shitty humans in return.
“This idiot narcissist actually believed he was invited here to celebrate his technological accomplishments . He strutted in preening like a fucking peacock and wasn’t prepared for an uppercut to the stomach and to be choked out in record time. I’m actually kind of mad he didn’t put up a better fight. I was itching for something physically demanding to take my mind off a few things. Now I’ll have to hit the ring when I leave.”
I walk over to Archer Donovan while he tracks me with narrowed eyes. He’s scared out of his mind but pissed all the same. I squat in front of his chair and he squirms like a worm under the brutal sun. I pull the gag down from his mouth, chuckling as strings of drool drop down his chin and he takes a ragged breath.
“Hello, you piece of human garbage. Miss me?”
“Your fucking life is over, Olsen. You can’t get away with kidnapping and holding me like this. My lawyer—”
I forcefully stuff the gag back in his mouth and punch him for good measure. Try talking shit around a gag with a swollen lip, motherfucker. I promised to punch him in the mouth the next time I saw him for what he wrote about Ainsley, anyway. I’m not normally the one doling out beatdowns—that falls within Hayes’s realm of expertise—but this called for a personal touch, given the trouble Archer has caused both my company and my woman.
“Shut the fuck up, you Brooks-Brothers-looking microdick motherfucker. I’m not here to listen to you run your mouth. You’ve had plenty of time to do that. You’re here to listen to me now. Nod if you understand.”
Archer glares at me, blood dripping from his nose and soaking into the gag. He refuses to comply. I sigh as I stand, pull my leg up, and kick one of his hands hard enough I feel a sickening crunch under my leather brogues. Finger bones are quite fragile. I probably broke a few. He won’t be writing code or hacking into websites anytime soon. He screams behind his gag and makes a pathetic whimpering as his eyes fill with tears. This is quite cathartic, actually. Maybe if I’d fought some of my bullies in high school, I wouldn’t have needed to hack into their digital lives to fuck with them that way.
Nah, who am I kidding? I’m a lover, not a fighter, but I’m willing to defend my love when necessary, and he’s put his hands on Ainsley more than once while fucking with her life.
“I told you not to come near Ainsley again,” I say, my voice low and threatening. “Coming for her virtually was included, you delinquent coward. Remember what I said I’d do to you if you targeted her again?”
Archer blubbers, bloody snot bubbling from his nose as he breathes heavily, fear in his eyes.
“Looks like you do, but apparently, you didn’t think I was serious. Let’s refresh your memory.” I take one of the fingers of his non-broken hand that is tied to the chair and pull it up as he fights against my grip. “I told you if you harassed my girl, I’d make your life a living nightmare.” I crank his finger back quickly, dislocating it, and he wails. I take another finger. “If you came for her, I’d end it.” I yank this finger in a different direction until it pops. “You’re not so smart. Not only have you harassed her, you’ve come for her livelihood, her integrity, and her dignity.” Archer screams behind his gag as I bring my fist down on the dislocated fingers. I’m not worried about anyone hearing him. The music in the cocktail lounge outside is loud enough to cover anything in here.
“He’s a dumb motherfucker,” Rex says from where he’s leaning against the wall, observing my lethal calm and the punishment I’m dishing out. “But I have to know just how far you’re taking this, so if we need a cleaner, I can get them on the phone and here when we need them.” This is why I brought Rex in. He’s connected to all the right people and wouldn’t bat an eye at what I had planned.
I nod and look back at Archer, his eyes bloodshot and wide as he takes me in, his chest pumping as he hyperventilates. I’ve seen adrenaline spikes brought on by pain and fear plenty of times in my play with subs, and this pathetic little boy is experiencing the rougher side instead of the fun of it. He won’t be getting any pleasure from this torment. While I’m not a sadist, I’m enjoying this a bit too much after the hell he’s put Ainsley through.
“I think one more finger will do it. He won’t be able to code or break into websites for a very long time after this. He should learn his lesson about not messing with my woman, my family, my business, or me. Right, asswipe?” I ask, turning back to him and taking his thumb. It trembles in my grip.
He nods violently and whines, the sound so unbecoming and sad, I almost stop. But then I remember his hand around Ainsley’s neck, shaking her outside the Gazette office, and red masks my vision. I don’t even remember breaking that finger, but his cries tell me it was successful.
“See how good you feel about yourself when you need someone else to wipe your ass for the next few months,” I tell him, ruffling his sweaty, limp blond hair. I pull the gag out of his mouth and he breathes in gulping breaths while I fish my phone out of my pocket. “Now I’ve fucked with your livelihood by breaking your hands and fingers, so we’re even when it comes to you messing with Ainsley’s work. You’re not going to say shit about how it happened or this little chat we’re having because I have you cornered.”
I turn my phone around so he can see the video of him shaking Ainsley that I pulled from a stoplight camera. I swipe through to another video that has his eyes widening even more. The Trident security program I installed on The Atlanta Haute List site allows me to access the computer of anyone who tries to break into the site. Archer made several attempts to get the site back, failing at each. It allowed me a chance to look around his computer, take screen recordings, and use his own camera to find out what he’s been up to. He’s been busy. Blackmail photos and videos, financial extortion, emails from the who’s who of the criminal underworld securing his hacking services and brokering deals for the work he’d do to get them what they wanted. Even an accounting of his monetary exchanges made through the dark web. Nothing’s too difficult for me to find when I set my mind to it, and damn if Archer didn’t give me plenty of motivation.
“How’d you get that?” Archer asks, his voice thick with pain and the swelling in his nose. “There’s no way you should have any of that.”
“There’s no way?” I scoff. “You dumb fuck. I’m better than you in every way possible. A better businessman, better with technology, a better hacker, and better at pleasing my girl than you ever were. She comes for me every time I touch her and sometimes just from my words alone. But you wouldn’t know about that, being a selfish prick who only cared about yourself. Nice guys finish last is a saying you should really take to heart in the bedroom.”
Rex chuckles, and I look over.
“Save some for me. He can stand in for his father in some of the aggression I need to take out.” He cracks his knuckles slowly, his eyes focused on Archer.
I look back down at Archer, who’s crying again.
I grab the sniveling man’s chin roughly. “It’s not so fun when the shit you do online behind a keyboard that fucks with others is brought into the real world and you have to pay for your actions. Now do we have an understanding? You’re going to keep your stupid mouth shut about this or I’ll release the information I have on you and let your business associates know you’ve revealed their activities.” I pause and run a hand over my cheek in mock contemplation. “You know, maybe I should just release it and let trash take itself out.”
“This isn’t fair. I’m sorry about Ainsley. Don’t release that. They’ll kill me!” Archer is wide-eyed and pleading now, but I don’t think he fully understands just how serious I am.
“You don’t get fair anymore. I’ll fucking kill you myself if you so much as think about Ainsley or fuck with us again. Remember that.”
“N-no, I won’t. I swear! We’re cool. I won’t say anything,” Archer stammers.
I step back and turn to Rex as he takes my place in front of Archer. “I think I got my point across, but you should enforce it.”
Rex bends down and looks into Archer’s terrified face. Rex is a much scarier motherfucker than I can ever hope to be.
“We’re going to have a little chat of our own,” Rex says, grabbing Archer by the hair and slapping him hard across the face .
“Have fun,” I tell Rex, who smiles brightly and waves, shaking Archer’s head by the handful of hair gripped in his fist.
I wipe my hands on a handkerchief as I turn and leave the room. I have a plane to catch so I can get home to my princess and show her just how well Daddy can take care of her.
My phone vibrates in my pocket just as I board the jet, ready to be back in Atlanta. It was a quick trip to New York but it was worth it.
I pull it out and see a notification for the Atlanta Haute List that pauses my steps toward my seat. Is Ainsley really posting again, even after everything that happened? I click the link and see the post she’s written, acknowledging her faults and apologizing for the Haute List. She owned the culpability for the site and the last post that caused so much trouble. Despite it being my idea to begin a relationship that would all be for show that came back to bite me in the ass, she took responsibility for that, too. Knowing Ainsley and going on what she wrote about our business practices being blameless, she’s trying to absolve Olympus of any wrongdoing brought on us by the bad publicity.
Fuck, I love this woman. I need to get home to her and show her just how much.
My phone rings as I exit the airport in Atlanta. I answer it over the car speakers.
“I didn’t expect to hear from you today,” I say after greeting my caller.
“Turns out business needed to be conducted after hours today,” John Buckman, the editor-in-chief of the Atlanta Free Press, says. “I received an interesting email today. Did you know your”—he pauses, clearly looking for the right word—“girlfriend, wrote a story about you and Olympus? She sent over the synopsis today. I’ve already told her I’d buy any story she wrote about your company, but she says the focus is you .”
I smile. “She’s been working on this piece for a while. What she’s written is powerful, and I’m glad she sent the story proposal to the Free Press. Are you going to pick it up?” My curiosity is piqued. Ainsley could use a win today if he says yes.
“I think Ainsley’s an excellent writer, and her reporting is top-notch. But there’s the whole issue of her journalistic integrity after this Haute List scandal. You have to understand something like that follows a person. It doesn’t look great that she’s written so many inflammatory posts about public figures, you included, many of whom can make or break the paper’s subscriber base if they call for a boycott of a paper that runs her stories now that her identity is linked to the site.”
My jaw ticks as I clench my teeth. I won’t let this scandal , as John called it, ruin Ainsley’s chances of getting the job she’s been working so hard for. Everyone deserves to be judged on more than one mistake, even as far-reaching as this one.
“John, you know I can send a message to my contacts at the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, or the Washington Post tonight and get that story picked up, leaving you high and dry. It’s up to you how you want to manage your paper and the stories you publish. But if Ainsley came to you first, she’s demonstrating her integrity by honoring your previous partnership and offering the story to you before other papers.”
“As much as it pains me to say this, we may have to pass on the story, though I know she’ll have written something that’ll do it justice. Her last post on the Haute List showed she’s intent on fixing the problems she’s brought to your doorstep, and you’re right, she has plenty of integrity to come to the Free Press with the story first. I can keep her in mind for freelance stories that don’t center around her romantic partner in the future.”
“It’s your loss, John,” I say, my voice rumbling with the effort to keep my anger at bay. “Ainsley will come out on top after all this blows over, just you wait, and you’ll be kicking yourself for not picking her up while you had the chance.”
I end the call and put my foot down on the gas, more anxious than before to get home to Ainsley. I need to ensure she’s holding it together. She’s had more than her fair share of bad news and blows recently. If I know her at all, she’s suppressing her feelings and not acknowledging what she’s been through. It’s time she processes her emotions, and I know just how to get her out of her head and feeling everything.