Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 94436 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 472(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94436 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 472(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
The memory caused physical agony, and Jay had to clench his fists on top of his desk so he didn’t throw his glass of whiskey at the wall just so he could watch something shatter. Break.
Jay’s eyes flickered upward at the movement in front of him. He’d forgotten the naked woman was even there. She was walking toward him. Sauntering with a practiced sway of her hips.
“Did I tell you to move?”
She stopped immediately, a sly grin teasing the corners of her artificially plumped mouth.
No fear.
Jay ached to create it. To use this woman and her body to sate the hunger that had been burning inside of him for months.
He wanted to break something.
He wanted to break her.
Just because he could. Because if he did that, then there would be no way back.
No way back to her.
“Leave,” Jay bit out, barely able to move his mouth.
She blinked, the smile still frozen on her face. What she didn’t do was move.
Jay remained still. “Get out. Now.”
She flinched at his tone, and he was glad.
He didn’t watch her redress, didn’t watch her give him one last look, didn’t revel in the shame on her face. No, he pretended to work. Pretended he wasn’t longing for the one thing he couldn’t have.
Then, once the lights had been turned on, the club emptied, he stalked in to the night to sate the one need he could sate: the need to create pain.
“You’ve been skimming, Jacob,” Jay said, voice flat. He was staring at his accountant in his bespoke suit with his Rolex and diamond cufflinks, all bought with Jay’s money.
Jacob blinked rapidly. He was already afraid. The man knew a meeting at three in the morning in a warehouse in a desolate part of the city did not mean good things. Especially when you were guilty.
Which Jacob was.
Jay had his accounts audited by a totally separate accountant once every six months. He usually did it himself every three as well. But he’d been ... distracted, so Jacob had managed to embezzle from under his nose. Three million fucking dollars.
Jay fingered the knife on the tray in front of him.
“It’s impressive,” Jay continued, already bored of this. “That you’re brave enough to steal.” He looked up at the man who was sweating through his shirt even though it was a cold night. “From me.”
“Mr. Helmick—”
Jay held up his hand. “I did not tell you to speak. And right now, Jacob, you really want to listen to me.”
Jacob’s eyes squeezed shut, and he began crying. It disgusted Jay, this show of weakness, the lack of spine. This man knew he had broken the rules. Jacob knew what kind of man Jay was when he started this job two years ago. Jay had made sure of that. He had also made sure that he hired the best. Men without wives, children, without anyone who would miss them, could possibly become complications. If his accountants did fall in love, got married, Jay dismissed them with severance pay and assurances that their mouths would stay shut about the nature of their work for him.
Each and every one of them knew that they would die if they crossed him. So Jay felt no sympathy or remorse for what he was about to do to this man. He’d had a choice. Jay paid him a fuck of a lot of money, and he could’ve quit at any time if he’d so wished.
He hadn’t.
Instead, he’d gambled with his life for a fucking watch and a nice car.
“You’re greedy, Jacob,” Jay announced, assessing the scalpel he held up.
It was at that point when Jacob tried to flee. They all did at some point. A survival instinct that didn’t know logic kicking in. Karson, who was standing behind him, grabbed him by the shoulders and put him back down on the chair. Not gently.
“Please—”
“I told you not to speak,” Jay clipped, feeling frustrated. He put down the scalpel, suddenly feeling tired, exhausted. He took the gun from his shoulder holster and shot Jacob point blank. The body slumped and slipped down from the seat. Jay wiped the blood from his face before sliding the gun back into his jacket.
He barely glanced at the corpse. “We need a new accountant,” he said to Karson.
Karson nodded. “I’ve already vetted three.”
“Make sure they’re not cowards,” Jay instructed. “I can deal with criminals, but I cannot deal with men pathetic enough not to accept the fate they choose.”
Jay walked away, wondering if he was talking about himself.
Stella
“It’s knock off time, so I’m gonna ask you the same thing I ask you every night ... come to the pub for a drink?”
I smiled at Brent, grasping the keys to my rental from my purse.
The creases around his ocean blue eyes deepened with his cheeky grin, one that was entirely white and straight except for one crooked tooth which made the grin and his rugged face all the more handsome.