Total pages in book: 63
Estimated words: 58412 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 292(@200wpm)___ 234(@250wpm)___ 195(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 58412 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 292(@200wpm)___ 234(@250wpm)___ 195(@300wpm)
Revenge doesn’t make me feel better, though. If anything, it makes me feel slightly nauseous. He’s going to be furious when he finds out, and I know he will find out. There’s a seventy-two hour hold on the information once it hits the servers. That’s so hackers like me can get the hell out of dodge before all hell breaks loose.
I wonder what he’d do to me if he caught me. The thought makes me shudder.
A second soft beep and buzz confirms that the information has been transmitted. I now have ninety seconds to dispose of the device before it…
“Ow!” I curse as it gets suddenly incredibly hot.
Fortunately, Marcus Waterstone has a fireplace in his office. All the best villains do. I toss the lipstick in there and watch as it self-immolates, destroying all traces and remnants of evidence.
That’s it.
It’s over.
I’ve done what I came to do.
There’s a certain anti-climactic feel to the whole thing. It’s like I expected something to happen. But nothing is happening, besides my aching ass reminding me that I need to get out of Marcus’ office before anybody sees me.
I know there’s a possibility there’s a camera somewhere in here. I know there’s a very high chance he’ll know it was me once the information gets disseminated.
I could run now. Maybe I should run now.
“Charlie!”
I scoot out of his office as quickly as I can, dipping through every other room I can get to before he finds me. I don’t care if he finds me in the lounge, the library, the kitchen, the bathroom, one of the spare bedrooms, the game room, the movie theater—I just don’t want him to know that I was in his office.
I am as nervous as I have ever been as I dart into the kitchen, throw the freezer open, and do my best to cover my ass by literally grabbing a bag of peas and pressing them against my butt as if I am trying to soothe the heat and ache from his spanking.
Marcus
I find her disheveled, tear-stained, wearing one of my shirts, and trying to soothe her butt with a bag of peas that I know Chef would refuse to use if he saw this. Hell, he’s probably never going to use them anyway. The man’s obsessed with fresh produce. But that’s not what matters right now. What matters is the adorable, sulky, sweet pet who is looking at me as if I am the biggest monster in the world.
It’s not fear.
Or perhaps it is. But it is something more than fear, too. It is a strength that I know means trouble for both of us. She’s far from broken.
“Did you kill him?”
“It doesn’t matter what I did to him. He is nothing. He is less than nothing. You, on the other hand, worry me a great deal, pet.”
“Don’t worry about me,” she says. “I’m fine. I can take more than you think.”
That’s a challenge. She’s not afraid of me, even though I know that last round of spanking got to her. It was harder than I wanted to do it, but she wasn’t listening, and I can’t have a pet that doesn’t get out of rooms when I tell her to. She was in danger, and she was willing to put herself in more just to try to stop me from killing her ex.
“Are you still in love with Trent?”
A laugh escapes her involuntarily.
“Sorry,” she says. “But that’s very funny. I never loved Trent. I just wanted to stop him from being murdered brutally. There’s a lot of gray area there.”
“Perhaps, but you don’t need to be in it. When I tell you to do something, it’s for your own safety. He was a dangerous young man, and he was more than willing to hurt you. He didn’t even care about his own well-being. He wanted violence, and he chose death.”
I see her suck in a breath, her eyes welling with emotion. Perhaps she did have some lingering fondness for him that she just doesn’t want to admit to. It is better that he is out of the picture. She does not need any more assistance in the art of behaving badly.
Charlie
“Have you stopped having your little temper tantrum yet?”
He’s talking to me like I pitched a fit just because I didn’t get my own way.
“Did you kill him?”
A muscle in Marcus’ jaw twitches. “You really think I’d do that, don’t you.”
“I think you do whatever you want,” I say, being surprisingly bold. I do believe Marcus is dangerous. He is dangerous to me, and to others. He is a pure predator, and he has made the streets of this city his territory. I think he could kill quite literally anybody and get away with it at this point.
He takes a step toward me. He has always been big and tall, but he looks even bigger and taller now. Imposing is the word. I have to work not to shrink away from him. There is something in his gaze that wasn’t there before, a certain intensity and perhaps even mistrust.