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Rowan hadn’t realized it included being pelted with baked goods. “What the hell, Danny?”
Danny pointed to Rowan’s eyes, stretching his arm high to make up for the size difference. He truly was a miniature of a human.
“Eat something,” he said. “You’re all flashy and we literally JUST had that door fixed after Bryn clawed the keypad.”
Rowan balked, turning to look at the brand-new revolving door glimmering in the sunshine. It was a beautiful door, but completely unnecessary in terms of expenses.
“I own this company,” he said petulantly anyway.
“Not yet, you don’t.” Danny shrugged. “Just trying to save your family some money. But by all means, shift mid-revolve and ruin them again. Don’t let me stop you.”
He shook his head at Rowan and walked away, muttering under his breath about “testy dragons” as he went.
Rowan scowled but did unwrap the pretzel and bite into it. Not because he needed to calm down. Because warm pretzels.
He felt instantly better and rushed out the door—without ruining them, thank you very much—to his car.
He finished the pretzel as he drove through traffic toward the construction site. He played scenario after scenario in his head of how he would get the random guy to unchain himself from the tree and let them do their jobs in peace.
They ranged from asking nicely to ripping the tree out with his bare hands and turning it into paper to wrap the guy in and ship him somewhere where he wouldn’t be able to make Rowan’s life any harder than it already was.
Not very productive, all in all, but some of the ideas did make him happier briefly, so he counted them as a win.
He left the busy administrative and business district, the tall glass buildings gradually replaced by smaller, more modest brick ones.
The streets narrowed, the concrete gave way to patches of grass and tiny stores. He didn’t know why his company had opted to buy this piece of land so far from the opalescence of the city center, but he personally didn’t mind. It looked calmer than his usual surroundings. Like someone could come there and get some peace and quiet.
Well, if the chaos that came attached to the run-down building like a ghost would disappear, anyway.
He parked the car next to a van he knew belonged to his crew and stepped out, immediately realizing the commotion had not died down. There was a circle of people gathered around a tall oak tree, press included, and a voice carrying over all the other noise.
Despite screaming profanities and sounding hostile as hell, Rowan couldn’t help but think it sounded very nice to listen to. Kind of silky and pleasant to the ear. Other than the curse words. It sounded powerful and commanding, as if it belonged to someone larger than life. Which nixed his “shipping” plan completely, because he did not want to even think about how much that would cost.
Rowan pushed his way through the crowd, his sheer bulk making it move for him, until he got to the front of the circle and came face-to-face with the owner of the voice.
A waifish, pale verging on translucent blond twink wrapped tightly in chains and swinging madly at Rowan’s guys whenever one of them dared to step closer to him to try and get him off the tree.
He was a sentient, very loud twig, and Rowan frowned at being forced to come all the way out here to deal with him. Any of his men could have easily moved him out of their way, tree and all.
“Boss!” Jeff called out when he spotted him, rushing over to stand next to Rowan. “Good thing you’re here.”
“This is the guy who’s been giving you trouble?” he asked, pointing.
“We were at this for hours before I called you.” Jeff sounded way too tired for someone whose only job since that morning had been arguing with a blond straw.
“He hardly looks like a threat,” Rowan said in disbelief.
“Boss—”
Rowan linked his fingers and cracked his knuckles, ready to show everyone how things were done.
“I’ll get him out of your way,” he said, charging for the waif. He was almost all the way in front of him, already reaching out to catch a flailing limb when Jeff called after him.
“Hope you’ve had your tetanus shot!”
Rowan paused at the warning, a split second of inattention, before something sharp dug into his skin.
“It bites!” Jeff said, infuriatingly cheerful for having just witnessed his boss being assaulted by a silver-eyed mop.
