Chapter 22
Christian
“I have some business to take care of out of town.” Dropping her off at her house felt almost normal. Although I doubted anyone who knew me would ever concur.
Penelope pressed her hands against my chest. “Another woman?”
“You didn’t know I have one in every city where Tempest owns a hotel?”
“Ah, so that’s what I have to look forward to. A suite in a fancy hotel and a long leash with your name etched in my collar.”
“If you’re a good girl.” I brushed hair from her face, adoring her purposeful shudder. She knew how to play me too well. Perhaps I should consider her the manipulative one in the relationship.
Interesting.
I’d used the word for the first time in my life.
“Well, since that’ll never happen.” She giggled. “I had fun yesterday, even if I was forced to be with a very dangerous man.”
Why was it I almost felt guilty with part of the reason I was leaving town? Should I tell her I was soon to eliminate the man who’d caused her heartache and fear? I’d searched for and read as many of the troll’s posts to her as I’d been able to find.
What she didn’t understand was that there was a pattern. I knew it well. He was escalating and soon, he’d find a way to make physical contact. I had no intention of allowing that to happen. HotAlphaMan had crossed a line that couldn’t be undone.
“You have no idea just how evil I can be.” I slipped my hand under her hair. “Dinner when I return.”
“I’ll check my calendar.”
“You will have dinner with me and do you know why?”
“Why?” She fiddled with the button on my shirt.
“I’ll let you in on a little secret. You’re going to be my dessert.”
“Don’t tease me or I’ll invite you in,” she murmured.
The desire for her was only continued to increase. I rolled my knuckles down her neck, enjoying the way goosebumps formed from my touch. “Haven’t you figured out already that I’ll simply make my way into your home and take what I want when I want?”
“That’s right. My big, bad stalker. You almost remind me of a wolf in sheep’s clothing, except your attire is decidedly too expensive. Don’t try and deny it. I know someone has been in my house.”
Yes, I had, but I had no intention of admitting it.
“Touching my things,” she continued.
Only a few. I’d been respectful.
“Including in my lingerie drawer.”
Her words caused me to stiffen. While there was a chance she was doing nothing more than teasing me, which it seemed by the gleam in her eyes, I wasn’t that much of a creeper. Now I’d need to install another set of eyes inside her home. Perhaps the troll had taken a trip. I’d find out.
And if the asshole had, he would learn what the term suffering meant.
“There’s no need to stalk you any longer, now is there?
You’re all mine.” I kissed her lips, my gesture softer than any I’d offered before, backing away and finding it difficult not to look at her, study her, watch her just one more time.
The feeling was as strange as anything else I’d felt and a part of me didn’t like it.
Because it felt as if I was losing all sense of control.
My catch word, the one I’d held onto as a child during every lesson forced on me by my brutal father. During every punishment to make me a stronger man. During his angry tirades about how I’d disappointed him over whatever subject of the day.
During all those, including the physical pain he’d inflicted, I’d maintained full control of my emotions, something he’d never managed to take from me.
He’d tried. God knows my father, who also didn’t like to lose, had done everything in his power to witness his firstborn son losing his shit. Crying. Screaming. Begging. Pleading. Promising.
I’d done none of them, not once. Not under the worst of circumstances.
Even when he’d made me kill the first traitor at seventeen, a man I’d known my entire life.
Not even when he’d forced me to… end the life of a dog I’d adored, but who’d made the mistake of peeing on the carpet.
And most definitely not when he’d been the cause of my mother’s murder.
As I walked toward my car, a sickening epiphany hit me hard in the gut. On all three occasions in what little privacy I’d found, I’d cried for hours.
After that, I’d stopped feeling almost anything.
Why? Because begging to a God that didn’t exist to change the fact I’d killed a friend had done nothing.
In promising to be a good person if only my puppy would live again, I’d fallen ill from staying out in the cold.
And when I’d promised to sell my soul to the devil if my mother would walk into my bedroom once again, I’d realized there was no one, including any deity who would help ease the pain.
So I simply stopped feeling anything at all.
Until now.
Penelope lingered in the doorway, her arms crossed and the same sly smile on her face.
The woman was far too astute, which was why I found it fascinating she was enjoying the time spent together.
As soon as I slipped onto the driver’s seat, I contacted Jessica.
“Yes, sir.”
“I need you to have the jet readied.”
“Where are you off to?”
Thomas Atwood, aka HotAlphaMan, lived too close for comfort, only four hours away by car in St. Louis. “St. Louis.”
At least I could check on one of my hotels while I was there.
Not that I needed an excuse.
“Yes, sir. When do you want to leave?”
I checked my watch. “I need to grab a few things. One hour.”
“You are a slave driver, but the timing is perfect.”
“For what?”
“You have a general manager in the Tempest Maddox in Atlanta threatening to quit unless he has a face to face with you. I wasn’t certain how to tell you.”
“You just did.” The last thing I wanted to do was waste time on a prima donna, but Bill was a damn good GM, just saddled with more issues than most. “Fine. I’ll take a swing to Atlanta after I finish my business in St. Louis.”
“Excellent. Now he’ll stop calling me. Let me see if I can catch the pilot.”
Somehow, I knew she could handle him with one hand tied behind her back.
Grinning, I checked the rearview mirror before driving off and when I did, I noticed Penelope was peering out the window.
What had the lovely girl endured in her younger life that kept her joy as a hostage?
I had a perfect bird in a cage and right where I wanted her, especially since we were becoming so close. And her trust in me was building.
Yet all I wanted to do was to put a smile on her face. I rubbed my jaw, still finding my reactions highly curious.
“Let me know if there are any issues.”
There wouldn’t be.
As soon as I ended the call, I made another.
I’d wanted her to come work for me, to spill all the Covington secrets. Now I just wanted her to succeed.
“Well, you must be calling to gloat,” Xander stated.
“Does that mean you’ve failed at the contest?”
“I never fail. You should already know that about me, but you are the overachiever.”
I laughed and pressed down on the accelerator. “It’s possible this is my last contest.”
“Wow. Now that is an admission I never expected.”
“It’s something I’m still debating.”
“Well, answer me this, Christian. Is there even a contest any longer?”
“Honestly? Maybe not.”
“You like this girl.”
In thinking about his question, I wasn’t surprised the answer was easy. “Yeah, I do. She’s very much like me.”
“Dark and demanding? Or a pain in the ass in being successful at everything she touches.”
“Yes.”
He snickered more than he usually did. “Well, at least you can admit your feelings. Kill anyone lately?”
A question we’d also asked each other after every family break during college. The three of us came from similar families, all taught the value of human life. Just not in the same way as many others. “Perhaps. I am handling a situation later today.”
Xander half laughed, acting as if he was interested. “Keeping up with the Joneses?”
“Eliminating a potential threat to my beautiful prey.”
“What kind of prey?”
I took a deep breath, half laughing at the idiocy of what I was about to say. “Another stalker. This guy hides behind a keyboard.”
“Well, imagine that. Our methods are now considered passé.”
“Which brings me to another question. How about you? Have you gotten your rocks off yet?”
“The game is just heating up on my end, but I have no intention of allowing my time spent with the lovely author to end with anything permanent.” Xander’s answer was followed by a heavy sigh of his own.
Maybe we’d grown out of finding joy in the game and needed to step up our standards.
“Well, this is probably where I should remind you that we aren’t getting any younger.” An admittance I hated.
“Ouch. Why the hell are you destroying my perfectly pleasant day?”
“Because I need a favor and you’re the only man who can provide it.”
He hummed in the background. “For a price.”
“I will not say you’ve won.”
“I might need you to step in and help me with an issue.”
As I pulled onto the interstate, the same eagerness as I’d felt years before appeared. “Anything you need, my friend.”
“I’ll keep that in mind and grant you a favor.”
“Good. I need you to make contact with your most powerful bookish friends.”
Xander groaned. “I feel a nightmare coming on.”
* * *
In practicing the art of control, one technique was to maintain patience while assessing a situation followed by ascertaining if the enemy in question was worthy of being allowed to live.
For anyone who hadn’t grown up in my household, born into violence, would likely gasp in horror that I was daring to play God.
Perhaps I was, although if there was to be any comparison to my father, the person doing so would walk away with the realization the lovely woman who’d captured both my imagination and my soul had been correct in her assessment.
I did have a conscience.
Granted, not much of one. No one could say I held my empathy for anyone, a few employees and my brother perhaps the exception. But I wasn’t the cold-blooded killer my father had been trained to be and had tried to force me into becoming.
Unless…
The person in question held a dubious past. Then the taking of human life became a no-brainer.