Chapter Fourteen

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Lucian

Monday was usually one of my favorite days of the week. I was in my usual role, in my usual empire, lording it over every lowly person at my feet.

I loved the ruthlessness of corporate business, takeovers and pursuit of official worldwide presence, laying so powerfully over our underworld presence below. But I didn’t love it today. The thrill was lost to me, underneath that same damn itch for some other pleasure.

Jesus Christ, that damn itch could get the fuck away from me.

Trenton Alto had been pushing for a meeting, eager to catch up with me. I’d satisfied him with nothing more than a grunt of approval over the phone when he’d called.

I was in meetings all through the afternoon, playing the role of good little almost-CEO. Putting on a good face for the board as if any of this mattered. I was the one making our numbers skyrocket. And I would have my goddamn promotion, soon enough.

It was late into the evening when I finally gave in to the inevitable temptation and called up Elaine’s calendar for the week ahead. She’d refreshed it, with a listing of Harriet in front of almost every activity that week. There was another ridiculously glossy charity gig on Wednesday for some low paid workers education fundraiser, and some Roosevelt social dinner on Thursday. Friday had a stylist’s appointment with some overpriced Hemmings designer shop.

Then Saturday was simple. Simple but vague.

Tristan.

I had plenty of social events of my own to be attending. We had a Morellis casino night scheduled for Thursday. Me, Carter, Elliot, and Kit. I had a bullshit meal arranged with Elliot and his university friends, showing my face with fake handshakes as though I gave two shits for his social circle, and I had an evening with my parents on Saturday.

I didn’t want to do any of them.

Elliot sent me a text as I finally left the office that night. A simple text, news? Nothing more.

I knew exactly what he was referring to.

My response was a one-worder. None.

His reply was instant. Thank fuck for that.

I opted for some sensibility at least, and went straight from Morelli Holdings to another of my business places. One I should’ve been attending more often, in an attempt to quell some of my spiking base level urges.

Clark wasn’t around when I stepped into the bar at Violent Delights, but I didn’t head through to the back office to track him down. I went straight to a table overlooking the main stage and clicked my fingers for service.

The woman on serving duties didn’t need to ask what I was drinking. She presented my mineral water on a tray, bending down low enough that I caught sight of her cleavage in her lacy little bra. I could bend her over the table and fuck her right now. She wouldn’t fight me. No, she’d enjoy herself.

First I would make her cry.

Then I would make her orgasm so hard she passed out.

And then I’d stuff a handful of hundred dollar bills into her bra.

Elaine.

I wanted Elaine. I imagined my little blonde Constantine toy, trussed up in chains as she took my fury. I imagined her poor scarred thighs being nothing compared to the unleashing of my torment as I drew pretty lace patterns on her flesh with my whip and crop.

My pretty toy Elaine would like it, too—masochistic little fuck doll with beautiful, scared eyes.

The server batted her eyes. Brown.

The eyes staring up at me didn’t belong to Elaine Constantine.

The tremble of her lip wasn’t Constantine fear.

My cock was straining but didn’t want the woman at my feet. My mouth was watering, but it wasn’t for the girl ready to give me hers.

“More mineral water,” I barked, and she squirmed for a few seconds, gathering her breath.

“Yes, sir. Of course, sir. Sorry for dropping your drink, Mr. Morelli, sir.”

Fuck, it was her, her, her. Always her, her, her, slamming through my filthy skull.

I downed the mineral water, struggling to focus on the bodies in the room around me. Surely I wanted one of them. I tried to concentrate on the cracks of whips and the wails of pain around them. I tried to stare at the submissives bound up in chains and feel even a shiver of desire to see them writhing in agony in my hands.

But no. No, no, fucking no.

There was only one blonde sub I wanted in chains in front of me. There was only one woman’s wails I wanted to hear.

I was a man who always took what I wanted from life, whenever I wanted it. I knew nothing but my own success, no matter what the cost. I climbed any mountain, no matter how steep or how tough, no matter how fucked up the mountain climb could be.

I wanted to climb Elaine Constantine and tear her apart on the descent.

I wanted to own her. Hurt her. Destroy her.

That precious woman belonged to me. I needed to see her again. Soon.

I didn’t even wait to see Clark before I left Violent Delights for the night. I was on the phone to Trenton before I was even out through the door and onto the sidewalk.

“What, boss?” he asked, and I told him.

“I need two keys, and I need them right now.”

“What kind of locks?”

“An outer apartment door and an inner apartment door.”

“No problem. Where?”

“Meet me downtown, at the backstreet apartment block at the rear of Gaol Street, under the shitty overhead light.”

“Are you serious?”

“Just fucking get there,” I said.

“On my way, boss.”

My chauffeur was waiting outside the club, but I didn’t want to arrive at that dive in a car that didn’t belong there. I summoned a cab, getting far too accustomed to the cheap, stinking leather as we headed to the shitty side of town.

Trenton was already waiting when I got there. I slammed the cab door shut behind me, and my fixer didn’t wait for my approach, just met me on the sidewalk.

“What the hell are you doing here in this dive, Lucian? Just let me know who owes what, and I’ll chase it down for you. You don’t need to muddy your hands.”

“This isn’t about money,” I said, “I just want those two keys.”

He looked at me blankly. “Why the fuck would you want keys for this shithole?”

My stare must have been bristling with malice to mask my humiliated shame. “Why the fuck would you question my business? Just get me the fucking keys.”

He came to his senses, backing down with a sure, sorry, yeah, before stepping right up to the main door.

Trenton had many useful skills. Picking locks was something he majored in. And when you’ve been picking locks for decades, you tend to amass a neat collection of skeleton keys. Trenton had bunches of the things.

“Looks like a sixteen,” he said before pulling a ring of keys from his pocket. He selected one, slid it in the lock and the door was open. Just like that. Once inside, he worked the key free from the ring and dropped it in my palm.

“Next?” he asked, a smile of satisfaction on his face.

I led him upstairs and down the hallway to apartment seven.

“A number three, no doubt about that,” he said and twisted the key free from its ring and dropped it into my hand without even trying it.

I slipped the key into the lock and it turned with silent ease. My skin prickled and so did my balls as I pushed the door open, hoping with some twisted little part of me that Elaine was in there, curled up in bed.

Of course she wouldn’t be in there. She was probably in her own sad little part of the Constantine compound, passed out with an empty glass of champagne in her hand.

I stepped inside and sure enough, the apartment was empty. Dark. Pathetic.

Desperate.

I flicked on the light and remembered the suicide blonde standing there in the hallway amongst her friend’s tacky little trinkets, looking so damn stunning in her fear.

Trenton was still hovering when I turned back to face him, no doubt still trying to gauge what the fuck was going on.

“You can go now,” I said.

He stared at me, tipping his head. “How long have I been working with you now, boss?” he asked. “Twelve years, right? At least twelve years.”

“Long enough for me to know you need to keep your thoughts where they belong. In that thick skull of yours before I crack the fucker open.”

He knew I wouldn’t do it without severe motivation, not like I’d have done with anyone else standing in his place. We’d been acquainted for long enough to know each other’s traits and ways. I relied on Trenton Alto, even if I didn’t want to. He knew that. “Twelve years, and I still know fuck all about just how you work. You’re one hell of a mystery, Lucian Morelli. Even by Morelli standards.”

I managed to smile. “Stop trying to figure it out. You’ll be better off for it in the long run.”

“No doubt,” he said, and walked away.

The door swung closed behind him, and I stood in silence as I breathed in the space.

There was the shitty tapestry opposite me, in its garish blues and its cartoon whale by a ship. The picture of grinning hippies was on the far wall by the kitchen doorway, and I stepped closer, wondering which of them was the friend of Elaine’s.

The kitchen floor was cleared, broken mugs cleaned up nicely into the trash can. There was no sign of blood on the carpet from another self-harm attempt in the aftermath of me walking away.

I sat myself down on the couch in the living room where I’d ripped her dress from her, staring at the empty space on the floor.

I wondered how often she was in here, drowning out whatever bullshit in her life she was so determined to bail out on. Then I wondered about that, too.

What was it about Elaine Constantine that she despised so much? What had made her so fucked up in the head?

It was none of my business, not worth my time. I could use her to win over the board and send a fuck you to my father without caring about her.

It was well into the early morning hours when that twisted part of me gave up for the night. I wasn’t even aware I was waiting for her, until I realized she really wasn’t coming.

Of course she wouldn’t be coming.

Why the fuck would she be coming to that hovel of a place when she had Bishop’s Landing to float around in? Fuck knows why she was there in the first place.

I flicked off the light and headed on out of there.

I hated myself for my excuses for wanting her pussy, because that’s what I was doing. Lying to myself. Lying to myself about just how much I wanted her pretty little slit.

Fuck it. Fuck it all.

Fuck my own fucking bullshit.

I called up her calendar all over again as I waited for another stinking cab to pick me up. Wednesday night. The education fundraiser was glaring out at me from my phone screen. Fucking hell.

It was listed in a whole host of local media reports as I searched the location, Work Truths Inc. and their quarterly auction.

Fuck!

My fingers moved quickly, running ahead of me on the screen, giving a fuck about nothing but hunting down my Constantine prey. I checked in for a gala seat, at a table in the center of the venue, keying in the name I was coming to know so well.