I don’t do that arguing bullshit. Yeah, she fucked Marcus, brought me into his house and to his attention. She got my foot in the door. But I also paid with a dead father and a lost childhood. She doesn’t get accolades as Mother of the Fucking Year.
“Wow,” she sneers, shaking her head. “Ember must have afucking water park between her legs for you to be so quick to turn on your mother.”
I lean forward, frowning. “Did you really come here first thing in the morning to discuss my stepsister’s pussy?”
She releases a low, angry chuckle, dipping her chin and staring at the floor for a moment. When she lifts her head, the anger is gone, replaced by a calm, smooth mask. I trust the anger more. At least it’s honest. This… this hides secrets and intent.
“If you wouldn’t mind indulging me just a few minutes longer, I would appreciate it if you would come with me to the executive conference room. I have something important to show you.”
“To show me?” Suspicion creeps over me, the sense of unease billowing until it fills my stomach like a boulder. Part of me wants to tell her, no, I don’t have the time or the desire to play into whatever shit she’s on. But the bigger, more cautious side knowsnotdiscovering what she’s up to isn’t even an option. That would be like allowing a snake in your house and then staying up all night wondering when it would strike.
“Yes, please.” She gives me a tight-lipped smile.
“Yeah, Michelle. Give me a second. I’ll be right behind you.”
“Thank you, Asad.” We stare at each other, her face revealing nothing but that phony-ass curve of her lips, before she finally stands and exits my office.
The door barely closes behind her when I pick up my private cell and tap a contact in my favorites. Keeping my attention on the door my mother just left out of, I wait for the person on the other end of the line to pick up.
“Wassup?” Eli answers.
“What’s your location?” I pull open the desk drawer and remove my SIG Sauer, leaning forward to tuck it behind me at the small of my back.
With the two in my shoulder holster, that’s a total of three guns and the knife in my ankle strap. It’s a shame that I’m preparing to meet my mother strapped. But then again, my motherisMichelle.
“Me and Makeda are gonna pull up in about eight minutes. We’re headed to see you.”
“Do me a favor. Make it five minutes.” I rise from my chair and grab my suit jacket from the back of it. “I need both of y’all up on the executive floor. Michelle might be on some bullshit, and just in case something goes down, I need you two nearby. I’m supposed to be meeting her in the conference room.”
“Bet.”
We hang up, and five minutes later, I walk out of my office and pass Mars’s desk. She’s not behind the big, curved piece of furniture, but I pause in front of it and write her a note, letting her know of my destination.
As I set the memo on top of her keyboard, the elevator doors slide open, and Eli and Makeda step out. Makeda hikes her chin up at me, expression reserved, stoic, while Eli wears a fierce frown.
“Ready?” I ask them.
“Yeah, let’s get this over with.” Eli grunts and turns to walk ahead of me, and Makeda falls in place beside me.
“No clue what this is about?” she asks, her gaze steadily sweeping the empty hall.
“No. She came to my office, complaining as usual, then asked for this. It could be anything.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” she mutters.
Eli draws to a halt in front of the closed conference room entrance. Closed blinds stretch across the room’s long window as well as the top half of the door. He glances over his shoulder at me, nods, then grabs the handle and slowly pushes the door open.
His big frame blocks my immediate view. Anticipation, unease, and impatience trickle through me, and as soon as Eli steps inside and to my right, I enter.
The fuck is going on here?
Michelle waits for me in the room that’s a mirror image of the one we all just gathered in yesterday several floors down.She stands in the exact same place I did, at the head of the long glass table, and also like yesterday, she’s not alone. Not as many people are crowded around the table, but I recognize each and every one.
Kareem. Naoki Sato. Don Amato. Malcom Sutter, Marcus’s old enforcer. And several other street bosses appointed under Marcus, not me.
Rage consumes me. Fucking becomes me. It pours through me in a torrential slide, and I can barely see the room past the crimson bath.
This bitch set me up. This fucking bitch. Set. Me. Up.