Chapter 24
Chapter 24
83%
Sitting at my desk after being gone for an entire week feels strange. There’s a shift and not just because of Alpha Barnes, but because, for the first time since I started working for Thorne Labs, I don’t want to be here. It no longer feels like home. I’m uneasy and it sucks because this was the only place that kept me from breaking after my father disowned me. My defenses are up, and this was the one place I never had to use them. Humans brought me a strange kind of comfort, and being the most dangerous thing in the building made me a little arrogant.
“We have to talk,” Mr. Thorne walks into my office without knocking.
I look out the glass to glare at my secretary. I didn’t even know Thorne was here yet. He lowers his head and doesn’t meet my stare. A warning would have been nice, Ed.
“Mr. Thorne, how can I help you?” I wave my hand over the front of the computer to lock it and give him my attention. To say he’s upset is an understatement. It looks like he’s lost sleep. “Are you okay?”
“No, I am not. Where the hell have you been? You just took a week off without warning.”
I don’t like his tone.
“I didn’t. I told you I was moving for the past month. Remember? The renovations to my clock tower were finished. I added two sick days to that.”
“Right, you’re moving closer. I still don’t think that’s a good idea. This is a dangerous part of the city. Blood Ridge pack is close. There aren’t a lot of human-owned places, and werewolves can be very territorial,” he doesn’t look at me as he says that. Is a wolf getting under his skin?
“I’ll be fine. I grew up here,” I remind him. “What’s happened?”
“Justin couldn’t close the deal with Nova Corp for the antidepressants,”
“How?” I sit up. “Wait, that was your deal. What the hell was Justin doing trying to close it?”
“Riley got mugged on the transit, and I had to leave,” he says as he descends onto my special guest’s living room arrangement. I watch him sit down and bury his hands in his hair.
“Right,” I want to throw my wireless keyboard at his head. The meeting could have been postponed until he was available. That was an important deal, and Justin is an idiot. “Is she okay?”
“Yeah,” he tries to shrug it off.
“Why was she on the transit if she had my car?”
“She used it that day and only for errands.”
“Why do you have your girlfriend running errands for you?” fucking mortal bitches. She had one fucking job and she chose to make her life harder all by herself.
1/3
83%
+28
Chapter 24
“You weren’t-” he stops. “I should get a personal assistant,”
“A nanny?” I smile, and he flips me off. “She can use it until you get her one. I’ve been using the G- Wagon,”
“She doesn’t want me to buy her a car.”
“Maybe don’t buy her anything above forty K,” I suggest.
“My girlfriend isn’t going to be driving something under forty k. What’s wrong with you?” he sneers. “I got you the Bentley so you could get rid of the car you had.”
“First, I didn’t get rid of my G-Wagon. That’s what I’m driving. My car is worth more than yours. It’s a custom, Dick. Second, you can’t buy her an expensive ass car. She’ll never accept it. Riley seems kind of prideful and not of this world.”
“She said you threatened her.”
“I’m glad that message came across perfectly,” I smile. Of course, she did. Mortals always love their little victim routines. “She’s also smart.”
“What are you doing? Why would you threaten her? I thought you liked her.”
“I do like her. She’s great. But she can’t be all lovey-dovely here. Just the floor whores that grovel at your feet would eat her alive.”
“We’ve talked about you calling our employees that, Violet. And you’re right. One of them upset her last night, and she hasn’t answered my calls or texts. I had to leave her breakfast at her door this morning.”
“You took her breakfast, and she didn’t open the door? Is she alive? You should have been more inclined to make sure she’s breathing.” She didn’t come off as a psycho, nor did Mr. Throne. Humans aren’t ranked like us, so it’s kind of hard to tell what we’re getting with one.
“She told me to fuck off,” he rolls his eyes. “I wasn’t exactly going to leave without her saying anything.”
“What happened?”
How fucking pathetic is it that I thought this bitch was upset about me being gone? He’s upset because he upset his girlfriend. I guess the important thing to consider now is that no matter what he’s upset about, he’s upset and that’s all that matters. We can be upset together, Mr. Thorne. You’ll probably be more upset about this for a long time, and she will make you work to improve it- silver lining.
“I don’t know. She won’t tell me.”
“Who was it?”
“I don’t know,” he links his fingers and falls back onto the sofa.
2/3
13.35 wed, Aug
Chapter 24
11
28
I’m not enjoying his discomfort. It’s cute when he pouts, and his scent becomes stronger. A couple of days ago, I would have offered to make things better immediately to get him to stop. There’s a part of me that feels bad he’s upset, the part of me that’s been in love with him since I was nineteen. The bigger part of me wants to demand if he knew what Justin did to fuck with my father’s
company.
“Maybe talk to your ’employees’ and tell them to back off,” I suggest.
“Talk to her,” he jumps up and sits in the chair in front of me, almost knocking down my Cinderella glass slipper pen holder. “Tell her nothing is going on with anyone but her.”
“I got this in Disney Japan. Chill,” I move it away from him. “And no. I will not fix this. I had nothing to do with it. I have my own shit going on right now.”
“Like what?”
“Pepper is moving in with me, but I have to talk to my father about it. My new realtor is crazy hot, and my other sister is going through a rough breakup.”
“Realtor?”
“That’s where you want to start?”
“What happened to crazy biker guy?”
“He’s a realtor. That’s Arsenial Barnes,”
“That’s Arsenial Barnes? He has tattoos, and he looks like a gang member. There’s no way,” he laughs.
“He’s part of a biker club in Central. That’s how they dress, but yeah. That’s Arsenial Barnes,”
