11. Jareth
Istrode to the penthouse door, ready to barge inside. My hand tightened on the knob and froze. The last thing I wanted to do was scare Hazel. Instead, I punched in the security code and opened the door like a normal human being. Not the psychopath that beat within my chest demanding I claim my sweet assistant. I needed to calm the rage that settled under the surface of my skin.
Silence greeted me.
What the hell?
Thirty minutes ago, at least four people were within these walls. I stalked through the living room. Wine glasses were haphazardly placed on the coffee table along with a stack of books. The cover looked similar to the one Hazel had read each night before bed. The lights were on, and the throws were splayed across the couches as though they had gotten up in the middle of a conversation and left.
Stirrings of unease rippled through me at seeing the room like this, knowing how Hazel and I often tidied up before bed. She’d informed me my maid didn’t need to always clean up after me. I held back from reminding her that I paid her very well to do just that.
I swiftly moved into the kitchen. The lights were on in here too. At least four empty wine bottles lined up on the island, and a variety of snacks still sitting out. Perhaps the multiple glasses of wine helped to loosen Hazel’s inhibitions. Particularly the one where she accepted to be set up with someone that was not me.
Anger flared to life again, coursing through my veins. It was irrational. I didn’t react with such strong emotions. Ever. What was Hazel doing to me?
My body tensed with each empty room. Even though I knew by the oppressive quiet of the house Hazel wasn’t there, I couldn’t stop the need to check every single room. With each step I took, my obsessive thoughts grew more wild than the last.
Where was she?
Had she agreed to go on the date tonight? Was she so tired of waiting for me to make a move that she jumped at the chance of someone else? Would she move out now that she was through with me? My stomach clenched into a sickening knot of envy. I did not like feeling this way.
My orderly, emotionless life was far easier to handle. It helped that I could leave behind such useless emotions once I’d amassed my power and my fortune. Now, people envied me and what I had, not the other way around.
Tonight, though, against my wishes, the poisonous ball of envy grew in my gut until it couldn’t be contained any longer. It spread across my trunk and out to my limbs. My body trembled with the strength it took to keep it from exploding.
I shoved the door to my office so hard it slammed into the wall behind it. Plaster cracked, and when the door didn’t swing back at me, I knew it was stuck. Not a single part of me cared. In fact, the destruction eased some of the jealousy pulsing through my veins.
Hopped up on a feeling I didn’t want to acknowledge, I beelined it to the bar against the left side of the room. I had no need to contemplate which liquor I desired. They were all top shelf and would do what I needed, dull my raging mind. I slammed back three full tumblers of whiskey. Barely taking a breath between each one.
I grabbed my cell phone and pulled up Hazel’s number. The picture on the screen, one I’d taken while she was relaxing on the couch reading, gutted me. I’d snapped the picture and she’d looked up and smiled. The sweet, caring smile I had convinced myself was for me alone.
What if now she was giving that same smile to some other fucker. One that had no idea how to cherish her. My traitorous thoughts jumped in the other direction. What if, unlike me, he recognized the true treasure of my Hazel and wanted her for his own. What if he charmed his way into her life and convinced her to move out of the penthouse and in with him.
This sick game of ‘what if’ played in an unending loop inside my head. Only getting worse with each new scenario.
I yelled and chucked my nearly six hundred dollars, black Edo Kiriko Meteor Whisky glass into the fireplace. The sound of the crystal breaking fed the anger deep inside me.
I stopped at my desk and swept my arm along the top, sending files, books, and desk supplies crashing to the floor. Next, I turned to my neatly stacked and coordinated books on the five bookcases behind my desk. Hazel had organized them by genre and author. The colorful bindings only reminded me of her. I grabbed the nearest book and threw it to the ground.
I checked my phone. No response.
I sent another text to Hazel and then another before grabbing an armful of books and sending them flying. The satisfying thud of when they connected to the floor felt good. Irrationally, I needed to erase her presence in my home. And that started with ruining something she had created. If she didn’t care about how her going on a date might affect me, then I didn’t care about this ridiculous setup she had created. My designer had set them all together by color, which had been fine.
Unbidden, the memory of her standing in the middle of my office, laughing, telling me that a rainbow aesthetic wasn’t me scraped at my consciousness. Well, neither was this.
“Fuck!” I screamed into the void of the room.
I grabbed my phone from the nearby bookshelf and texted Jess.
JARETH
Where is she?
When Jess didn’t immediately respond I shoved my phone into my pocket. Now, my gaze fixated on the rest of the books in front of me. Their spines only pissed me off further. I tossed more to the ground and then pounded a couple glasses of whiskey down my throat before chucking that tumbler at the fireplace. This time, my aim was off, and instead of shattering inside the hollowed-out brick opening, it hit the outer edge and broke all over the rug nearby.
Who the fuck cared.
I checked my phone. This time the messages looked like they had been delivered. Yet two minutes later I still had no response. Not even the floating bubbles indicating she was responding. And maybe I didn’t care anymore if she was on a date or going on one or that Hazel and the mystery guy might get married.
Right. I had enough sense left to know I cared far too much. Then I remembered the tracker I’d activated on Hazel’s phone. I found the app needing to blink a few times as my line of sight wavered and the room shifted slightly beneath my feet. Eventually, I could make out the dot representing Hazel’s location.
She was at Jess’s penthouse. I threw my phone across the room.
I hated that she’d rather be there instead of here—with me. I grabbed a small table and threw it at the wall, reveling in the sound of splintered wood. I lurched forward when the ding of an incoming text went off. With a slightly unsteady gait, I followed the sound of my phone, which lay on the floor next to the bar.
Without any hesitation, I grabbed it and swiped to my messages.
I growled deep in my throat. They weren’t from Hazel.
JESS
Stop texting.
JESS
Me and Hazel.
JARETH
I know she’s with you.
JESS
Good. Then you can stop bothering us. You’ve already sent her fifty messages.
It hadn’t been fifty. At least, I didn’t think so.
JESS
Message me in the morning. Go to sleep, Jareth.
I blamed her right now for my trouble with Hazel. With my phone in my hand, I leaned against a nearby wall when the room started to spin. Sitting down right now seemed the best way to handle it. The smooth wallpaper helped the downward motion of my back as I fell quickly to the ground. There was no finesse when my ass hit the carpeted floor. Yet I barely felt the sting.
I rubbed my forehead, trying to stop the double vision. Maybe if I closed my eyes briefly, I’d feel better. When the room spun faster, I opened my eyes and squinted, focusing on the gray bricks of the fireplace across the room.
My eyes fluttered shut. I forced them open. What the hell was wrong with me?
When it happened again, I realized a little too late that I was about to pass out. Well, fuck. I never let myself go like this. Not since I was an idiot kid who didn’t know how to keep his senses sharp. It was too dangerous to be unaware on the streets.
Within seconds, my vision went black.
I awoke with a start from the involuntary jerk that ran through me. My senses were alert before I even opened my eyes. The soft carpet beneath me, the rigid wall against my back, and the barest of light filtering behind my closed eyelids. Mostly, it was the silence that reminded me I was in my home. My eyes blinked open, and I wanted to shut them again at the destruction before me.
“Fuck,” I groaned and rubbed at my stiff neck.
Last night had been an aberration. It was good no one else was here to see my lack of control. My muscles had locked up in the uncomfortable position I’d slept. It was no less than I deserved.
My phone pinged with an incoming message.
I grabbed the phone, now on the floor by my side.
JESS
I hope you panicked like the motherfucker you are when you got home and she wasn’t there.
JARETH
You’re messed up.
I was not about to admit that I trashed my office. I’d deal with it when I got home.
JESS
Are you finally ready to get your head out of your ass and just admit you want her.
JARETH
Wanting her isn’t the problem.
Why could I admit to everyone else that I wanted her? It was like a Catholic confession. It was easier to admit what I’d done to a virtual stranger than to the person I hurt and who actually mattered.
JESS
You’re making this out to be so much fucking harder than it has to be.
JARETH
She deserves better than I can give her.
JESS
Tell her that.
JARETH
I have.
JESS
Then let her choose what she wants to do with that information.
In all her innocence, Hazel lacked the self-preservation to stay away from me. I doubted she’d make the appropriate choice. And if last night told me anything, I was done pushing her away.
JESS
But don’t take too long. She’s got a hot date tonight. Don’t let someone else sweep her off her feet.
Hell no!
The anger I thought I’d banked the night before roared back. I shoved myself upright, forgetting the aches and pains from sleeping on the damn floor. Another round of texts came through. I growled, ready to tell Jess to cancel the damn date.
TERRI
I’d apologize for the early morning text, but knowing you, you’re already awake.
I grunted. My godfather knew me well.
JARETH
I’m awake.
TERRI
My source at the prison slipped me some information yesterday.
My heart stuttered, and my jaw clenched. Was this the lead we’d been waiting for? His informants must have gotten something from the Sultons.
TERRI
There was a guy, Bill, that worked at the factory when your dad and I did. They hung out sometimes. The Sultons mentioned him in passing, making it sound like he might know something. He’s living in Bali now.
JARETH
I’ll book a flight today.
TERRI
It might be nothing, Jareth. I don’t want you to get your hopes up.
JARETH
It’s the first lead in a while. I need to take it.
TERRI
I know. Message me when you get there, and I’m here to help if you need it.
JARETH
Thanks. I appreciate it.
With renewed purpose I strode to my bedroom. My aches and pains were forgotten as I made a mental list of everything that needed to be done before I left this morning. An idea formed. I could kill two birds with one stone by taking Hazel with me. She’d have to cancel her date and I’d have her all to myself for a week or two while I figured out what to do next.
I tapped the number I knew by heart, planning to reach out to Amelia. Before I left, in addition to the travel plans, I had one more call to make and a date to break.