Page 34 of Reckless
“I love you, too.” Saying the word, hearing it, reminded me of Jacob’s slip-up. I was never going to let that man live that down, I really hoped he knew that.
Out of the house the next moment, I walked with a purpose down the long driveway, feeling my heart speed up with every step I took toward the open gate and the sleek black car waiting outside. As I walked up to it, I waved to Frank, and I saw that it was the same driver who’d taken Vaughn, Dante, and I to the dance.
And then…you know, sat in the front while we got a little freaky after it.
That was a tad embarrassing, but I was at the point where I didn’t care. If someone felt shame, it wasn’t me.
Once I was in the backseat, we were off.
Vaughn wasn’t here, and I wished he would’ve been. During the drive to the Scott house, he could’ve been prepping me on what to say and what not to say to Markus. It sounded like Markus was the head of their family, an important guy, and someone you didn’t want to fuck with. I wasn’t sure why he wanted to have a meeting with me before I saw Vaughn, but maybe that was the point. Maybe Markus had forbidden him from coming along to stop him from advising me how to act or what to say.
That was kind of scary, but at this point, I’d gotten a severed finger as a gift and was a murder suspect, so really, did it matter?
During the drive, I had to puff myself up. I could do this. I could sit down in the same room as Markus Scott and act tough. Who the hell was he to me? He couldn’t intimidate me. He probably just wanted to check me out, since they never let anyone on their property.
At least, that’s what I was currently telling myself. Whether or not it was true…I guess I’d find out soon enough.
When the Scott estate came into view, my stomach hardened, and I kind of wanted to be sick. I swallowed down the feelings as their security let us in, feeling a certain uneasiness rising up in my gut. A young man wearing all black stood near the front of the house, his hands folded across his stomach as he waited for the car to pull up. He wore sunglasses, hiding his eyes, but he didn’t lookcompletely evil, like I imagined every family member or employee of the Scotts was. What he did look like was a young secret service agent or something.
You know, maybe I blew this all out of proportion. Maybe this wouldn’t be half as bad as I was expecting it to be.
When the car stopped, I was about to get out, but the guy in all black came to the vehicle and opened my door for me. I cautiously stepped out, not used to this kind of treatment, and as he closed the door behind me, I craned my neck up to view the house.
It was…well, huge wouldn’t really cut it. To call it a mansion would do it a disservice. This entire place looked like it was separate from Midpark, its property built on acres and acres of land, all surrounded by a high fence. The house itself was multiple stories, sprawling in every direction. I never thought another house could put Ollie’s to shame, but this one did. I dared to think that this was the largest one in all of Midpark, or at least the Midpark I’d seen.
The man in black led me to the front door, and he moved to hold it open for me. As I walked past him, going inside the house, I wondered if he watched me under those black glasses, if he wondered whether I was stupid to come here. I might not have known exactly what the Scotts got up to, but I knew it was bad shit.
I walked into a long vestibule, greeted by statues and paintings, things which Ollie’s house didn’t really have. I guess if you had a house that was this huge, you needed to fill it up with shit. At least when I was in Ollie’s house, I could pretend there wasn’t a ballroom and over a dozen unused rooms on the upper levels.
This…this place was on its own freaking level.
The man who’d let me in remained by the front door, and as I headed deeper into the house, I spotted someone waiting for me, someone I didn’t recognize. The vestibule gave way to a high-ceilinged hall, where two separate stairwells hugged the walls on either side. A door sat to our left, and I was too busy eyeing up the man in front of me to pay much attention to anything else.
The man was cute, around Jacob’s age, if I had to guess, maybe a few years younger. Light brown hair cut short to his head, with a pair of bright hazel eyes that seemed to stare at me a bit too hard. Unsettling, to say the least. Square jaw, a bit of muscle. No tattoos anywhere to be seen under his tight black clothes. Black seemed to be a staple around here. He looked like he belonged here, and yet he bore absolutely no resemblance to Vaughn.
“I take it you’re Jaz,” he said, sounding both interested and disinterested at the same time, quite a feat.
“Yes,” I said, feeling a bit awkward. I knew this guy wasn’t Markus; who the hell was he? Was I going to meet all of Vaughn’s brothers or something before I’d be able to see him? This guy didn’t look related to him, but I guess you never knew…
The man’s mouth pursed, and he turned away from me, saying, “Follow me.” He walked with a purpose to the door just before the left staircase, pushing inside and holding it open with his feet, allowing me to follow him in.
An office greeted me, an office filled with dark mahogany wood, bookcases that were built into the walls and a desk that looked like it’d take five people to move. If this office didn’t scream rich, I didn’t know what would. Old, sophisticated, refined. This was nothing at all like the Fitzpatrick house.
Two leather seats sat before the desk, and I slowly met the dark, soulless stare of the man sitting behind it. Wearing a black suit that hugged the muscles underneath, a red undershirt and an equally black tie, Markus sat, almost unblinking as he stared at me. His hair was black, an inch or so long, styled to the side. His wide frame was leaning back, but when he knew he had my attention, he leaned forward and gestured to one of the seats opposite him.
I gulped, taking the seat, because what the hell else was I supposed to do? God, I already wanted to run out of this room and never look back. I might like Vaughn, and I might like Dante, but there was just something about Markus that made me want to crawl inside my own skin. Like, somehow, he was the devil himself, made man, evil incarnate.
That was probably an exaggeration, because he was, in the end, just a man, but I couldn’t help it. Markus unnerved me in the worst way, and I felt myself wanting to squirm in my seat, uneasy as he stared at me with eyes that were darker than black. Absolutely colorless.
“Thank you, William,” Markus spoke, folding his hands across his desk. It was not a messy desk, no papers or pens lying haphazardly around; everything in this office was neat and orderly. “Go fetch Vaughn. By the time you come back, I assume we’ll be done here.”
The hazel-eyed man who’d brought me into the room nodded and said nothing as he left, leaving me alone with Markus, the exact thing I did not want to be. I mean, look at the guy. Who would want to be alone with him?
You’d have to be really serious about the tall, dark, and handsome thing—and add in dangerous to that equation, too.
Once the door closed, and I was officially alone with him, I felt my palms getting a little clammy. I had to calm down. This man could probably smell my fear from a mile away.
“So,” Markus spoke, slowly getting up. “You’re the one who’s caught Vaughn’s attention.”
