Page 12 of To Curse A Knight

Then I would change the locks on the office and the facility. It was the petulant gesture of a spoiled child, but it would impede my father inflicting damage, even for a day.

The other brothels under our ownership would have to fend for themselves. The hourglass of my day was running out of sand—I couldn’t waste another moment.

I cleared out the desk, sent off a few messages, and quietly locked the door behind me, taking the discreet entrance into the back stairwell to avoid another run-in with Rosa with a stack of files in my arms.

Gabriella awaited me at the company office—the company office that would be entirely under Hillary’s control as of tomorrow.

Despite my accomplishments being swept off to others, all I felt was relief.

Kellan’s mercy and Hillary’s interference had gifted me a new opportunity—one I would not squander. Legacies were built and rebuilt.

I would mortar each brick of my next legacy with the blood of my enemies. Beginning with Marco Alvarez and ending with Vicente Rodriguez.

“You good?”

Kellan’s gruff tone interrupted my thoughts as I gazed onto the landscape of a bustling city below my office window, the people scurrying along sidewalks like ants in the freshly fallen snow.

Perhaps this would be the final time I looked out on this view. Would I return from the dead one day to retake my castle and my rightful place as leader of this company? Would I even desire such a thing after a true taste of freedom?

I didn’t know the answers. A familiar numbness had spread through my limbs and into the fabric of my heart, keeping my emotions at bay. A protective shield I was well used to wearing.

Kellan and I had strategized my death through the cloak of private telephone calls and text messages—never in person for risk of being seen.

My executioner could not fraternize with his victim without a mark placed on his own head.

I’d gotten to know the man in this brief window of time, in far greater capacity than any of Jediah’s showy parties. He was very calculating, a strategist—and his ideas were well deliberated.

For years, I had considered him the masculine oaf to scratch Hillary’s itches, and I was pleased to learn my judgment had been misplaced. His fierce loyalty to her and the vicious hatred he held for his family ties mirrored my own—I felt bonded to this man who had once been a stranger.

“I am good,companero.” I nodded though he did not see it. “I am ready to shed this skin and leave it to rot.”

Hillary’s Viking partner chuckled low through my headset, and the sound brought a smile to my own lips.

“Good.” He responded succinctly, in the way I was learning Kellan did. The man spoke only when he had something valuable to say, in order to command attention when he did.

I liked that about him.

“He’s already at the restaurant,” Kellan continued in my ear. “You’ll want to leave in the next five.”

“It is done,” I assured him and turned on the spot to pull my coat from its rack and the small messenger bag with my things. “Jacques will take me now.”

“Remember,” he reminded me, “no threats on your end, but make sure he gives you something we can use—goad him until you do.”

“It is done,” I repeated, exiting through the entrance doors of my empire without a backward glance. “I will call shortly.”

We hung up as Jacques rounded the corner of the parking area, having been waiting for me. I directed him to the restaurant of the evening and he drove us there with impeccable timing, as always. Of all my staff, I would especially miss this man.

Exiting the vehicle with instructions for him to wait for me, I straightened my tie and walked through the barrel door alcove, waving the hostess off as I searched for my prey.

I stalked to him, pores already clogging from his greasy aura; the coating of malicious intent slicked my skin with a noxious film.

“You are a challenging man to track down,Culicagado.”

I spat the Colombian insult as I stared down at the white-collar businessman, seated alone at his usual table in Les Augustin. A hearty spread of filet mignon and lobster filledthe plates on the table, an exorbitant amount of food for one.

Marco Alvarez grinned up at me, his arrogant shark-tooth smile alight with undisguised delight and his shiny teeth glowing in the dim light of the café.

“Aaron Rodriguez,” he boomed, dipping his fingers in the lemon water cleanse in front of him and wiping them between crisp linen napkins. “I’m surprised to see you here. Didn’t your parents kick you to the curb?”

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