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“‘Felix Malone is a criminal whose only redeeming quality is delusion,’” he reads out loud. Then he peers over the top of the paper and laughs. “That’s not even tucked deep in the article, Darling. That’s the fuckin headline.”
“You announced our ‘relationship’ via a trash magazine.” I lift my chin higher, a little too stubborn for my own safety. “Youforcedme to use a newspaper typically filled with journalistic proficiency, as a platform for a tit-for-tat back and forth. With a delusional man!”
“’Felix Malone is simply a man who accosted me earlier this week,’” he continues to read. “‘His attitude, uncivilized. His actions, sexual and criminal.He is not a man that I, Christabelle Cannon, the writer of this article, socialize with, nor do I consider him a friend, a lover, or anything other than a mobster who trades in victimizing the innocent.’A mobster?” He lowers the paper and looks into my eyes. “Call me delusional, Ms. Cannon, but how on Earth did this get approved by the family lawyers?”
I stare back at him. Proud. Haughty. Challenging.
“Calling me a mobster is fodder for a defamation suit, no?”
“It’s only defamation if it’s not true.”
But he merely wags his finger. “No, it’s defamation if you can’tproveit’s true. And I assure you, if proof existed, I’d already be in prison.”
He picks up the paper again. “‘Malone assaulted me inside the Erikson’s penthouse, tearing my dress, and whispering threats of violence in my ear while partygoers unknowingly danced around us. The image of us published on the cover of Beguile Magazine this week was neither representative of actual circumstances, nor untouched by a talented graphic artist adept in Photoshop. The legal team here at Cannon Daily have already filed lawsuits against Beguile Magazine itself, Ms. Towers, the article’s writer, and Felix Malone himself. Though, the latter is a matter for criminal court, unlike its civil counterparts. I do not stand by Beguile’s outlandish article, nor will I confirm Felix Malone’s statement of fact as… fact. He may be in a relationship—”I grit my teeth, knowing what’s coming next, “‘—but it is not with me. Nor, for that matter, with any living, breathing, intelligent, human being.’”
Finally, he lowers the paper. Then he throws his head back and laughs. “Wow! You wound me, Darling.”
“Perhaps this is why you have so many scars on your body,” I snipe back, my temper warming in the face of his amusement. “You walk into a wall of razors,beggingto be hurt. Your intellect is lacking if you think your statement would be received by me any other way.”
The humor in his eyes dissolves, giving way to something much darker. Something exceedingly more dangerous.
He sets the paper down with cold, calculated movements, before slowly pushing up to stand and brushing the wrinkles from his pants like he cares that they’re creased. He circles the table, sending adrenaline spiking in my blood and worsening the headache already thudding at the back of my skull. Then he swipes out with a fast hand and wrapshis palm across the front of my throat, cutting off my air and yanking me up so my neck snaps back and a whimper of panic escapes my chest.
“I might act silly, Ms. Cannon. My personality might fool you into thinking my intelligence is lacking.” He squeezes tighter, tighter, until I’m not sure he’ll let go before my brain explodes. “It’s a handy tool, to lull my enemies into underestimating my acumen. But I warn you not to be one of them.”
He releases me with a shove so the feet of my chair scrape on the ground and tears burst from my eyes. Unaffected, he twists to grab a croissant, turns back, and shoves the end between my lips. “Eat, Darling. You’ll need your strength. Micah,” he snaps his fingers in the same moment his phone trills, like he somehow predicted it would. “Stay with her.”
Felix dips his hand into his trousers pocket and takes out the ringing device, then he casts one last glance my way, winking before walking away. “Ramone?”
8
FELIX
STILL GOTTA WORK, EVEN WHEN MY HOUSEGUEST MAKES MY COCK HARD AND MY HEART SOFT
Ispend the rest of the day out of the house, dealing with men who, like Christabelle, consider my easy smile permission to do whatever the fuck they want. They don’t pay their debts. They sell product they haven’t been approved to sell. Hell, they discuss business with certain other families they know they shouldn’t, and they do it all thinking I’m not my father, and therefore, they have nothing to fear.
Timothy Malone was always fast to strike. Ruthless. He would shoot his own son for the last slice of bacon at the breakfast table, and kill a man’s entire family if that man missed settling his debt by a day.
That was how he worked. It was how he turned a business into an empire.
I, on the other hand, think giving a man some warning is only fair.
“If you miss payment next week, I will remove your cock and yeet it into the Hudson.”
“If you disrespect me again, I will cut out your fucking tongue and send it to your mother.”
I consider myself a just and fair man. I like to give others a chance to right their wrongs and choose a better path for themselves. Perhaps it’s the wiring inside my mind that makes me more lenient than Tim.Maybe it’s my simple determination to be better than the man who came before me.
Fuck knows. But it’s how I run a business.
The issue, though, is that men accustomed to my father’s swift action consider my warnings a weakness. They take advantage of my kindness, and then they act surprised when I come down on themexactly how I said I would.
My father died only a few short months ago, so I’m conscious of the fact that New York will need time to adjust to its new management. But fuck, the time I spendmanagingpeople is excessive and wasteful. Because of Ramone’s ineptitude, I lost an entire day I could have spent with the furiously challenging Ms. Cannon.
“What did she do today?” I pull up a seat at the kitchen counter across from Micah and pick up the beer he already knew to take from the fridge for me. Bringing the icy bottle to my lips, I chug a third of its contents in one go, my thirst out of control after a day in the heat. “Give you trouble?”
He only shrugs, propping his elbows on the stone counter and looking down at the bottle he spins between his hands. “She sat on the patio for a while and studied the yard.”
