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“I’m aware I’m stacking up enemies. I do what’s necessary to ensure my safety and the safety of those who work for me. But this is my side gig, and it’s none of your business. And who are you, of all people, to preach to me about what I do under the radar?”
“I gave that information to you in confidence,” he snaps.
“Dear Daddy’s old business partner needed to be put down, Tobias. So, I used the information for good. You can’t honestly tell me you weren’t aware of what I’ve been doing all this time.”
“Those were little fish.”
“Only the minnows you were aware of,” I counter. “The ones I purposefully fed you. When it comes to me these days, you don’t know everything. Not anymore.”
“Jerry’s not just the fucking head, Cecelia. He’s the neck too. You can’t snap the neck and not expect—”
Scowling, I shake my head. “I expect opposition. I expect someone to best me. And at some point, someone will,” I repeat his words from years ago. “I’m also aware that what I don’t know will hurt me. But I’m playing the game, I’m on the board, Tobias and have been for years. I don’t need or want your permission to do it. And I damn sure don’t want your advice. It’s my decision which heads to hunt.”
“You’re asking for war.”
“I declared it long ago, and I’m already in battle. I came out guns blazing because it’s the only way to do it. I’m playing my part.”
Seconds pass as we stare off, and I swear I see a swell of pride in his eyes before it disappears.
“This is what you saw in your father’s boardroom all those years ago.”
I nod. “I dreamed a thousand dreams, but this was the first one.”
“You didn’t tell me.” He has the audacity to sound hurt.
I step around my desk and cross my arms, leaning on the edge of the desk next to him.
“Sorry if it’s not the part you decided for me to play when you sent me away to live out some other fictional reality.” I huff with contempt. “What exactly did you see for me after I left here? A two-car garage, a picket fence, a tire swing out front? I’ll have all that when I’m ready, but for now, I’ve taken my position. And that head was mine to take. I have it on good authority Jerry’s the one who sent Miami.”
“Jesus Christ,” he fists his hands at his forehead.
“Take it up with anyone you want, but don’t preach to me about what’s dangerous.” I push off my desk. “I made friends with dangerous. We’re intimate now. We’re in bed together. The Beretta in my purse has real bullets. I paid for it with real money. In my club, we know the worth of a woman’s intellect. And fuck a fort, I want them to see who’s taking them down.”
Tobias grips me by the neck, his eyes roaming my face. “You want a pat on the back? You want my approval for making stupid moves?”
“It wasn’t a stupid move. It just wasn’t yours.” We’re so close now, anyone who came in would feel the whirring. Reaching back, I release his fingers one by one, and he allows it before I step away. “Rest assured, Mr. King, that was my last move for some time. I’ve been thinking a lot about my other dreams.”
He eyes the ring on my finger and turns before throwing open the door and marching over to his office. Confused, I watch him rip a box open before he flips his office light off. A second later, he comes back into my office and slams a bottle of Louis Latour onto my desk. “I guess congratulations are in order.”
I don’t bother to correct him. “Don’t suppose you have a corkscrew?”
He leans in, his tone lethal. “If you keep fucking with me, Cecelia, I’m going to make this hurt.”
I shrug. “Of course, you will.”
He turns and strides out of my office and out of sight. Sitting by my desk twisting the ring on my finger, I stare into his dark empty office. And the next day, it stays empty.
“Horner,” the jailor calls just as I finish out my fourth hour behind bars.
Ryan eyes me through a small window as I sign for my possessions and account for them in a plastic bag before I’m buzzed through another door. It’s only when we’re outside that his lecture begins.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“What do you m
ean?” I ask, tugging my coat tightly around me.
“Don’t play stupid. You got arrested for going a hundred and three in a fifty and caught with nearly an ounce of weed. What do you call that?”
