Page 61 of Lady Killer

“Oh no,” she said, scurrying over. “What seems to be the problem, Dr. Blackwell?”

“Did I ask for your concern, or did I ask you to get Facilities?” I snapped.

Her cheeks turned crimson, and her mouth fell open.

“Why the fuck are you still standing there?”

“You . . .” she stammered, “you can’t talk to me like—‍”

“I can talk to you however I damn well please, and if Facilities isn’t here in the next ten minutes, you had better not be either.”

“You can’t . . .”

I stepped forward, pulling my shoulders back and straightening my spine to look down at her from my full height. “I can and I will, Stephanie.”

She opened her mouth to argue.

“Do you know why? Because this is my department," I said. "And it is not mine because I have tenure, or because I bring in the most funding by a landslide. It is mine because I am a Blackwell and Hollow Oak is my school.”

She turned pale, but I wasn’t finished yet.

“I’ve indulged you, plied you with kindness, and that was clearly my mistake,Stephanie. You’ve gotten too comfortable and forgotten what position you’re in. You’re nothing. Less than nothing. One word and the last five years of your career here will mean nothing. No severance, no reference—nothing.

“Now, I believe you have eight minutes and forty-five seconds to get Facilities here.”

I marched back into my office, my fingers already hitting speed dial for Lucian.

After three rings, he answered. “What?”

“He’s gone too far this time!”

Lucian let out a weary sigh. “If you didn’t let him . . .”

“He broke into my office and fucking jerked off all over my desk!”

“He . . . Wait, what?”

“He left me a message, in his fucking spunk. He drew a dick, Lucian! Like a fucking fifteen-year-old boy!” I spat.

Silence followed, then a faint rumbling.

Lucian was laughing.

“You’re acting like a fucking child, Lucian. This sort of bullshit is beneath all of us. We’re fucking Blackwells, and you let that lunatic run roughshod over the family—‍”

The laughter abruptly ceased. “Enough. If I cared for your opinions on Everest, I would have asked them. He has his role in the family, as do you. You call me a child, yet you give him the reaction he is looking for every time he provokes you.”

“It’s about respect,” I seethed.

“You want respect, but here you are, running to tattle on him, like a child.”

“Get him under control or I will.”

Lucian scoffed. “I’d like to see you try, cousin.”

“You know as well as I do that one day he will go too far, and I will be there ready to put him down,” I said, hanging up on him with a muttered curse.

There was no way I could work here, not now.

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