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Andre
I STARE AT the tiny green dot on the screen of my phone, struggling to believe what I’m seeing.
Paisley told me she wouldn’t be back at Platinum until tomorrow night, but there she is, marked on the map, caught in her lie.
“How do you want to handle this?” Victor sits in the chair Paisley sat in not so long ago, staring at me as he waits for my answer.
“You know what I want to do. I want to make him disappear.” He’s worried about Frederick. About the meetings he’s continued to have, each one more blatant than the last.
“You can’t just make someone disappear, Andre.”
My eyes dip back to my phone screen, and I almost expect the dot to move, but it’s just as still as it has been for the past hour. “I can.”
I have, but that’s nothing I’m going to share with him.
“If Frederick disappears everyone will know it was you and I can promise you that they will do whatever they can to make sure you go down for it.”
I hate that he has a point. The key to making someone disappear is not being the first person they will look at with suspicion.
Doing it successfully requires being the last person they would ever expect, and that’s definitely not where I would fall in this situation.
“What is your suggestion then? Continue to wait and see how many more people he can persuade to side with him?” I know Victor doesn’t love the idea of taking Frederick out of this game we all play, but sometimes that’s the only solution.
The only way to truly win in any way that counts.
“My suggestion is to stop fucking with this girl and focus on Frederick before he manages to gain enough support to unseat you.”
I slowly drag my eyes to where Victor sits across from me. I stare at him, waiting for the second he realizes he’s gone too far.
And he has.
But Victor holds his ground, meeting my gaze without flinching.
I chose him to replace Sebastian because of the connections he has to a world I wasn’t born into, but maybe I should have considered his temperament more than I did.
He’s nothing like Sebastian. Not in tone. Not in technique. Not in personality.
But he’s what I’m stuck with. I can’t bring Sebastian back. No matter how much easier it would make my life if I could.
“First of all,” I try to hold onto my calm. That’s what Sebastian would tell me to do. “I’m not fucking with her.” I won’t allow Victor to misinterpret my reasons for pursuing Paisley the way I am. “She’s a tool. One that will gain me an edge Frederick won’t see coming.”
No one expects me to fall under the spell of a woman, and the only way to make it seem real is if that woman is different from the ones that usually fill my needs.
And Paisley is as different as it gets.
“You’re going to get that girl hurt.” I don’t miss the edge in Victor’s words. Like the threat to Paisley’s well-being is the part of this that upsets him most.
I hold Victor’s cool gaze a second longer before looking down at the unmoving green light marking Paisley’s location. “Then it’s a good thing I don’t care what happens to her.”
Victor snorts as he stands. “You’re such a fucking asshole, Andre.” He comes to rest his hands on my desk, leaning down until I glare in his direction. “You’ve made this mistake once. I wouldn’t think you’d be in a rush to make it again.”
I don’t blink. Don’t breathe. Don’t give Victor a second to prepare.
Before his next heartbeat I have his shirt in my fist and my pistol pressed under his chin. “If you have something to say to me then say it.”
I know what he thinks. What the rest of the men who serve me think.
They blame me for what happened to Sebastian, but so far none of them has had the balls to put it to words.
