Page 25 of King of Cruelty

“I’m not afraid of you!” he shouted, shaking like a leaf in the breeze. “If you try anything, I’ll—”

“You’ll shoot me, the gunshot will be heard on three floors, the police will be here in seconds, you’ll be arrested, my family will have you shanked before the prison van leaves the courthouse, and Caddell House will go down in history as that psycho brand that employed not one, but two gun-toting maniacs.”

“The other one was one of you!”

Sunny shrugged—calm as ever. “Details don’t matter once a story goes viral. You’ll be just another disgruntled dick who decided to solve his problems with a little domestic terrorism.”

“T-terrorism?” he croaked, paling. “But I’m not— I’m defending myself!”

“Defending yourself from who? An unarmed man and a beautiful, sexy, equally unarmed woman with candied nipples?”

I sighed.This guy...

“How do you see that going for you, Hollywell? Think a single juror is going to vote not guilty with her face and the face of the adorable little baby girl you orphaned plastered on the newsevery night? Think there’s anything close to a happy ending for you if you pull that trigger?”

Vance’s face crumpled. Spittle flying, he sobbed—reddening worse than Laurel when she’s constipated. “I don’t—I don’t want to hurt anybody! I— Ahhhh,” he wailed.

I cringed at the sight of him. No wonder the Brotherhood put an army of hitmen and bangers between them and the real members. It wasn’t a pretty sight on the other side of the battlefield.

“Then, put the gun down, Hollywell. We can talk. Just talk, I promise. I won’t even move from this spot as long as youput the gun down.” Sunny’s voice brokered no argument. Authority oozed from his pores. Vance was at least fifteen years older than him and armed, but the true power in this room was Sunny.

Sobbing, Vance dropped his hand, letting the gun clatter to the floor. Only then did Sunny let me come out from behind him.

Leaning in, I pressed a kiss to Sunny’s cheek as I put my arms around him—holding him close. I knew my love well enough to know he came in here to stomp Vance’s ass into the carpet... until he saw the gun. He changed tactics to eliminate the danger to me, and that would always blow my mind.

No guy I’d ever been with had put me, my safety, or even my feelings first. The universe was really so impatient with me for constantly choosing assholes, she finally just dropped the love of my life on my head so that he could wake me up and introduce me to the rest of my soulmates.

I hid a smile in his chest thinking of River.Even the soulmate I was denying and pushing away.

“Help me out here, Vance,” Sunny said over Hollywell’s noise. “Help me understand how it came to this.”

“I didn’t want this!” he roared. “I didn’t wantyou! I had no idea when I took the job who the truesilent partnersin Caddell House were! Could that cold, arrogant bitch have warned me?Sure! But she was too fucking busy getting out of here as quickly as possible!”

The cold arrogant bitch was Talia, or I’d eat my shirt.

“Why didn’t you just buy us out, you miserable fucker?” Sunny was done smoothing his ego. “I’ve seen the contract my dad drew up and your founder signed. There is a buyout clause written in language clear enough for even you to understand. If you didn’t want us in your fucking business, why didn’t you invoke it instead of trying to kill us!”

“Because—”

“Because what!”

“Because we can’t afford it!” Vance’s eyes bugged out of his head, spittle showering his glass desk. “It’d have cost twenty million dollars to buy you the fuck out! Where the fuck am I going to get twenty fucking fuck million fucking dollars!” he bellowed, blowing my brows up. “FUCK!”

“Vance, what are you talking about?” I asked in a tone much gentler than he deserved. “It’s not like you’d be fronting the bill. The company would’ve paid.”

“The company can’t pay.” He threw up his hands, pacing like a caged animal. “Caddell House is broke.”

“Wait, what?” I cried.

“Broke! B.R.O.K.E. Broke,” he blared. “We’re two fucking seconds away from bankruptcy!”

“How is that possible?”

“How we stayed in business for this long is the real question.” Vance tore at his hair. “The whole damn world locked themselves in their homes for a year, and you know what someone doesn’t need to go from their couch to the kitchen? A fucking evening gown!”

I could only blink at the rapidly deteriorating mess in front of me.

“Sales plummeted during the pandemic, and the company was forced to borrow heavily to stay afloat. The big bosses thought all they’d have to do is hold out. Soon, our customers and high-profile clients would come back, and we’d crawl out of the red again. But then the head of Caddell House Paris was hit with a sexual harassment suit that was cosigned by everyone in the fucking building! That pig even hit on the part-time cleaner’s daughter. Hertwelve-year-old daughter!”

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