Every one stopped and looked at the head of the household.
“Take the boxes into my office. I want to look through them first.”
Ji-Su frowned. “But it’s only my clothes and gaming equipment.”
Raul came over and put a light hand on his shoulder.
“I know. But humor me, okay?”
Ji-Su only took a second to think about it. There was no harm in waiting a few minutes so that Raul could assure himself that everything was fine with the delivery. And it was nice that Raul cared enough to check. With a nod, he agreed to the request.
AS SOON AS RAUL SAWthe boxes, he knew not to let Ji-Su open them on his own. He had a bad feeling about the delivery and suspected that Cedric hadn’t sent Ji-Su’s belongings over out of the goodness of his heart. Cedric suddenly doing something nice didn’t make sense after his prior treatment of Ji-Su.
At his order, the servants changed direction and carried the boxes into his office. Raul followed behind, accompanied by Burke who’d come in from the direction of the kitchen. When Ji-Su tried to enter the room, Raul stepped in front of him.
“Wait in the hall. I’ll let you know if it’s okay for you to look through them.” He could see on Ji-Su’s face that he thought hewas being overly cautious. And perhaps he was. But he’d rather be safe than sorry.
He left the office door open so that Ji-Su wasn’t completely in the dark as to what was going on. While Ji-Su hovered in the doorway, the servants set the neatly taped brown cardboard boxes down on the office floor.
“I need a knife.”
One of the guards who’d helped carry in the boxes pulled a switch blade from his back pocket.
“Here you go, boss,” he said as he passed it over.
Raul accepted the knife and flipped it open, the metal blade flashing under the overhead light. He kneeled down and cut the closest box open along the top seam and opened it up. The stench of dried urine hit him first. Raul grimaced and drew back in disgust. Cursing under his breath, he leaned back in to see what was inside. The box was stuffed with Ji-Su’s clothes. Hoodies, sweaters, pants, underwear. But none of it was wearable. Every single item of clothing had been cut and ripped to shreds. Then Cedric had pissed all over everything.
Disgusted and furious on Ji-Su’s behalf, Raul moved on to the next box. This one was labeled electronics. As soon as he cut it open, he saw the electronics had received the same treatment as the clothes. Everything inside was smashed and broken. The box stank of ammonia and there were yellow stains on the white casings of the ruined gaming systems.
“Is it okay?” Ji-Su softly called from the doorway.
“No, it isn’t.” Raul hated the answer he had to give, especially when he turned and saw the devastated look on Ji-Su’s face. “You don’t need to see this.”
“It’s that bad?”
“I’m afraid so. You won’t be able to use any of these items.”
Ji-Su stood there in stunned silence, hurt shimmering in his dark eyes. Then he nodded once, turned, and walked away.
After Ji-Su left, Raul went through every box to make sure there wasn’t anything that wasn’t destroyed or something of vital importance that should be saved despite the damage. There was nothing. Everything was ruined but thankfully it all looked easily replaceable. He stood and passed the knife back to the guard.
“Take it all out to the trash,” he directed the servants.
“Yes, sir.”
Looking just as angry as Raul felt, they gathered the boxes back up and left the room with them.
“That answers the question as to whether or not he’s a vindictive asshole,” Burke said as he moved to open a window and clear the smell of urine from the room.
With Ji-Su out of sight and hearing range, Raul let his anger show. “You’d think a million dollars would have been enough to placate that piece of shit. Instead, he has to go and pull a stunt like this.”
Burke shook his head. “A stupid move. He has to know that you won’t let it slide.”
Raul started to nod in agreement. His first instinct was to find the vampire and make him hurt in retaliation for harming Ji-Su again. But one thing stayed his hand. “I’ll ask Ji-Su and see what he wants me to do. It’s his stuff that was ruined but he may not want me to engage with Cedric.”
Burke raised an eyebrow in surprise. “You’re leaving it up to Ji-Su?”
Raul wanted to take over for Ji-Su, protect him, destroy anyone who would harm him. But he had to remind himself that Ji-Su wasn’t actually his. The human was barely his blood pet. He couldn’t go all possessive vampire on a human who didn’t belong to him. For now, he would restrain that part of himself and let Ji-Su decide how he wanted to handle this latest offense from Cedric.