Page 59 of House of Cards

But he hasn’t.

Like Eddie’s silence, it’s appreciated…but ominous. As if he knows I’m in too delicate a state to be riled up. The last thingI need is everyone walking on eggshells around me, but the alternative is even less appealing.

It’s fine.

Everything’s just fucking fine.

I’m working my shift,notthinking about the red-striped body I just abandoned on that sad bed in that sad, beige room. And when I’m done, I’m heading back to my room to finish up the quarterly compliance review.

Notchecking in on Zoey.

She’ll be fine.

And maybe, by some miracle, Myles won’t call to harangue me about Howler. He might be over it by now, but guaranteed when he sees a replay of the video, it’ll be fresh in his mind.

I stop walking, my hand outstretched to open the staff entrance leading to the lower floor of the casino.

Christ.

The video.

Myles and Richmond review the footage from our playrooms in his office in the evenings over a glass of cognac and cigars while they decide which ones to upload to the website. I have a standing invitation to join them, but I rarely do.

I head back the way I came, slipping my leather gloves out of my pocket and tugging them on.

If I hadn’t instilled such paranoia in Myles, I’d have been able to access that footage remotely, deleting it from the servers. But it all goes to a hard drive on Myles’s computer, erased from the cameras the moment the upload is complete.

And I made Myles promise not to give anyone remote access to his computer.

Even me.

My only option is to go in there and delete it manually.

And I need to get there before they upload that video to the website, because I know they will. No one can see that session.

Zoey was spectacular.

She’ll have clients standing queue around the block.

My driver is having a cigarette near the entrance of the underground parking garage. He flicks it away, but I just shake my head and hold out my gloved hand.

Everyone is so blessedly silent today.

He tosses me the Bentayga’s keys as I pass, frowning like he wondered if he did something wrong. But the only thing I can fault him on right now is his speed. He drives like a fucking grandmother on her way back from church.

The Bentley roars to life under my hands, responding to my touch like a loyal beast. I wrench the wheel, tires squealing against concrete as I take the parking garage ramp at a speed that would make my driver faint.

The SUV’s weight shifts beneath me, but I control it effortlessly, feeling the precise moment to ease off and when to accelerate. As soon as I’m out of the garage, I punch the throttle, and the Bentayga surges forward.

The digital speedometer climbs rapidly as I weave through traffic, pedestrians and other cars blurring at the edges of my vision. Horns honk, but they don’t matter.

The thought of hundreds of strangers jerking off to Zoey’s pain, like they’ve earned the fuckingright, has me in a vicious rage.

Myles doesn’t look surprised when I storm into his office a few minutes later. Probably because he was watching me on the monitors as soon as I stepped out of the elevator.

I cross the office’s sitting area with its overstuffed leather couches, joining Myles and Rich by the large desk on the other side of the room. There’s a sitting area, a poker table, and a dry bar, with plenty of room to spare for other…pursuits.

If these walls could talk, we’d be serving multiple life sentences.

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