Total pages in book: 160
Estimated words: 149137 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 746(@200wpm)___ 597(@250wpm)___ 497(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 149137 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 746(@200wpm)___ 597(@250wpm)___ 497(@300wpm)
“Who the hell are you?” He didn’t like the way his heart was pounding, his vision not as acute as it should be. A mist seemed to come over his eyes, the world tilting and turning.
Out of control. His control was nothing but an illusion. He fought so hard for it and it could be blown away with the slightest of winds.
“Isn’t that the question? The problem is if you find out, I’ll have to kill you, and that wouldn’t do either one of us any good,” she replied. “Make the drop. And I’m magnanimous. I get it. There are crazies out there. You need bodyguards, but not tomorrow night. Keep them out of our business and everything can go on the way it always has. But the second I find out someone’s sniffing around me or mine, I’ll do what I have to. You and yours should watch out. You know what I can do.”
The line went dead.
He stood there for a moment, utterly unable to move. Somehow he’d convinced himself that the blackmail was nothing more than the price of doing business. Everyone had secrets. God, in his business it really was everyone. No one wanted it to get out that they had a coke problem or weird sex fetish. Producers hid the fact that they fucked every starlet who wanted to be in their films, and actors pretended they hadn’t spent a little time on the casting couch, too.
Somehow it had become normal. Anything could be normal if you let it.
She watched him all the time. She knew his every move and she could take it all away.
His wealth, his success, it was all built on sand, and that woman was the tide who could wash it all away.
He hated her. Hated her with a violent rage he’d never felt before, and that was saying something since he’d killed a man when he was seventeen—his escape. He could still feel the man’s throat in his hands, see the way his eyes nearly popped out of his head. He’d known in that moment that if he didn’t get out, he would do this again and again and again. He would trade one horrible cage for a prison eventually.
He would love to kill that woman. To make it slow and painful.
“Josh, come on, man, give me a good shot.”
He barely heard the words through the haze of red floating in front of his eyes. He glanced over and there was a man walking into the alley from his left, his expensive camera pointed Josh’s way.
Fuck. Two minutes. He’d needed two fucking minutes alone. He needed to get back inside and then he could calm down. He would see if they had something stronger than champagne and he could get back into his role.
Indulgent Dom. That’s who he was right now.
Even though he was thinking about taking on the role of psychotic killer who needs to get his freak on.
“Please go away, man,” he said, his voice as bland as he could make it. “I need a little time.”
He tried the door, but it was locked. Damn it. He’d told the sales staff he would walk back around to the front of the store because he hadn’t wanted anyone to be able to listen in. He glanced to his right. There was a throng of people walking down the street, following someone who was speaking. They stopped at the edge of the alley, though they hadn’t looked down it yet. Some kind of tour. He didn’t need that.
“Give us a smile, Josh,” the man insisted. “Come on. One little smile. You always look sad. What do you have to be sad about? One smile and we can be done.”
Sure they would. No one would stop until they had their fill, got their strip of his hide. Everyone wanted something from him and they never, ever left until they were fucking satisfied. He might as well smile and get it over with. Grin and bear it. It’ll all be over with soon.
Except it never fucking ended.
Somehow he ended up turning and reaching for the man’s camera. It was in his hand before he actually understood what he was doing.
“What the fuck?” The man behind the camera was probably in his mid-fifties, his body showing signs of too much junk food and not a lot of exercise. His face went a florid red. “That’s mine.”
Josh tossed it against the side of the building. The camera came apart with a satisfying bang, its parts shattering and landing on the ground in pieces that would never fit back together again. That felt so fucking good. How much better would it feel to take the guy apart? He could see it plainly. He’d trained for this now that he thought about it. He’d trained in everything from Krav Maga to jujutsu to going through actual BUD/S training with a group of Navy SEALs. He could take a man apart without breathing heavy.