10. Theo Glass

Chapter 10

Theo Glass

The office was packed today. Half the people that normally worked from home were called in for a mandatory meeting, which meant the break room was buzzing with gossip and idle chatter I couldn’t really give three fucks about. I waited for my coffee to pour while trying to pointedly avoid eye contact with anyone in talking range.

“Yeah, little Sean is graduating kindergarten today!”

“Did you see the weather for this week? Beautiful, huh?”

“Bagels with cream cheese, my favorite.”

I had to use every ounce of willpower I had inside me not to grab the nearest fork and start stabbing people.

Not that I would have done that anyway. I wasn’t a bloodthirsty psychopath, regardless of what people might think if they ever (God forbid) found out about my extracurricular activities. It may not have been obvious to the casual observer, but I followed a strict code when it came to the people I killed. It wasn’t just random sex workers, nor were they good-hearted people, either. There was a reason why I felt the need to end their lives.

A perfect example would have been the janitor who discovered me in the office building the other night. The easy, albeit slightly messier option, would have been to kill him right there and then. It would have prevented any word from getting out. I could have cleaned it all up and made it look like a break-in gone wrong.

I couldn’t do that. I didn’t know this man. He had no links to my mission. He could have been one of the worst people on the planet, or he could have been one of the best. It wasn’t my position to make a judgment call on the spot like that.

Instead, I dropped down to my hands and knees, crawled around a couple of cubicles, and hid under a desk until the man left. He even cleaned up the mess I had made on the window. He must have thought it was an overly horny employee who had left it, judging by the grumbles he made about Eric and Angela, who I imagined were the office romance he thought resulted in a cumshot across the window.

I waited for the all clear, then got back up onto my feet and snuck out. My heart hammered with every step. I didn’t encounter anyone else. I left feeling another rush of adrenaline spike through me. I’d emptied my balls, watched Jace do the same, almost got caught, and made it out just fine.

Fuck. It was making me hard again. I leaned against the counter, hiding the bulge. Right in time, too. Harrison from accounting walked up to me, empty coffee mug in hand.

“Hey, Theo, how’ve ya been, bud? I feel like it’s been a bit since we’ve caught up.”

Harrison was an annoying, misogynistic fuck who was in charge of his department and thought that meant he was next in line for the presidency. He always wore the same black polo shirt and gray khakis that looked like they were tight enough to cut off circulation to his dick.

And damn , did I hate it when someone called me “bud.” Right up there with someone calling me “sweetheart.” Fucking torture.

“It has been,” I said as pleasantly as I could. My boner immediately shrunk.

“Anything new?”

“Nope, nothing major.” I grabbed my coffee and moved it over to the sugar station. I grabbed a stirrer and dumped a good amount of sugar and powdered milk into the coffee. Harrison shifted over, taking my spot at the Keurig. He leaned a hip against the counter and crossed his arms. He smelled like garlic and onions from the cream cheese spread he must have put on his bagel.

“I can’t say the same. Did you get the news? About the layoffs?”

My interest piqued. I arched a brow, shook my head. “Layoffs? Who sent that message?”

“Came from Rebecca. Sent an email to the managers. Thought you would have gotten one.”

To be fair, I hadn’t checked my emails today. Figured whatever was in there could hold off until lunch.

“Shouldn’t be too difficult a call for you. I think you only have three people to put on the chopping block.” Harrison rubbed his hands together like a greedy little fly hovering over a plate of leftovers. “I’ve got ten I have to pink slip. Should be a fun weekend. I might start with Tina first. Never liked her attitude.”

I bristled at that. I knew Tina, and I knew exactly why Harrison was going for her first. Because she had denied him a pass after he got blackout drunk and hit on her at the holiday party last year. He had it out for her ever since then.

What a fucking asshole.

I also happened to really like Tina. We had bonded one day over our mutual dislike of Harrison. She was one of the few people I enjoyed bumping into in these offices.

“Shouldn’t you be basing this off performance and not off personal vendettas?”

Rich, coming from me.

Harrison cocked his head. He couldn’t hide his surprise at me coming for him. Honestly, I’d had enough of this cocky motherfucker. Maybe it was time someone knocked him down a peg or two.

“That’s, uh, well, it’s my decision, isn’t it? I’m the boss. I get to choose who I give the axe to.”

“So it’s got nothing to do with you saying to me, ‘fuck that Tina bitch for not putting out. I just wanted to give her this dick. She’ll either take it, or she’ll regret it.’” I said it loudly enough for a few people around us to hear. The banal conversations slowed to a screeching halt .

Harrison blinked a couple of times and stuttered. “I-I never said that.”

True. He hadn’t. But he didn’t know that, and neither did the people listening in. “You did. While you were drunk at the party. I’m sure if I ask around, I’d find someone else who heard you. You weren’t exactly being subtle that night.”

Seeing the panic settle in Harrison’s dumb brown eyes was delicious.

“It sounds to me like that’s a lawsuit waiting to happen.”

He shook his head; everything from his neck up turned a firehouse red. I smiled at him. Swirled my coffee. “Rethink your decision, Harrison. For your own good.”

Him I could stab. I don’t think I’d lose much sleep from watching him bleed out on the break room floor.

Without another word, I walked around him and left.

I did have to take it slow with the killings. I was already becoming sloppy in my personal life; I couldn’t let a simple mistake end up ruining me. Besides, it seemed like the higher-ups may have been catching on to what I was doing. I was already in contact with someone else from Pressure Point—the name of the group behind the blackmail scheme—but they were acting cagier than usual. It wasn’t difficult for someone on the inside to spot the pattern. Maybe it was harder for Jace, who didn’t have all the pieces of the puzzle to play with, but for someone like, say, Gio, he likely realized who was getting picked off. Maybe not the “why” of it yet, but definitely the “who.”

So I decided to put Nevermore on ice. At least for now. There would be time to make things right. That’s all I had, really. Time and a plan.

I walked down the brightly lit hallway. The company I worked at was a relatively new one. We had non-traditional layouts, with open offices and plenty of random sculptures and paintings. There were a couple of game rooms and a room dedicated to yoga and meditation. There was a reading room that was actually quite nice. I hooked up with an intern there once. Hot as fuck. Guy sucked me off like his life had depended on it.

And still, even though I’d come buckets down that guy’s throat, it didn’t compare to the night with Jace at the bathhouse.

Fucking hell. I couldn’t shake him. He buried under my skin in a way no one else ever had. A virus with no cure. His cells replicating in mine, uncontrolled, expanding, taking over.

Maybe seeing him in person again would help shake him. Maybe that’s what I needed to get rid of the hold this man had around my throat.

I got back into my corner office and shut the door. We were on the twenty-fifth floor of our building with a beautiful view of Central Park. The green gem stretched out to meet the border of concrete and steel that surrounded it.

I opened my computer and checked my email. Sure enough, the message about layoffs waited in my inbox. I didn’t even read it. I deleted it. Fuck them. I wasn’t going to fire anyone this close to the holidays. They could take it out of my pay if they were really that concerned about their bottom line .

I answered a few more emails that were more relevant to my position before my thoughts began to circle back to a naked Jace, his fist wrapped around his big cock, feet up on the coffee table. He had no idea I had watched him blow his load all over his chest. That I was only feet away from him, doing the same.

Fuck it. I pulled out my phone and opened our most recent text chain. Before I scrolled up to the videos he’d sent me, I shot him a quick message.

“Want to get Chained tonight?”

While I waited for his reply, I opened his videos, unzipped my pants, pulled out my stiff cock, and jerked myself off for the third time today.