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“You don’t want all of this garbage, Carter. You want nice and easy, wrapped up with a bow.”
“Not anymore. Your Daddy Dom is back and trying to hold the line. It’s been hard with all of the changes and scares. I didn’t want to be insensitive, but it seems I missed the mark on that. I hope I pushed the I’m in charge concept today. You will mind me, or you will find yourself in a pile of trouble.
“There will be consequences if you break the rules, and reddening your backside will be only one method. I’m re-initiating corner time, soap for talking bad about yourself or too coarse of language, lines for reinforcing the rules you broke and so much more. How does that sound?”
“Heavenly but not, at the same time. And I don’t mind you. That’s archaic.”
“Use whatever word you want to use but you will follow the rules, and I’ll make sure you float to heaven often. Now, let’s work through this mess.”
Chapter 14
“Rebecca, I don’t care if you decide you don’t want to work with us anymore. You are still part of my family, and I have a seating arrangement that works for me. You will respect me and sit in your assigned seat.”
“Jac, I’m not your assistant anymore or a child on the school bus.”
“The fuck? What do you mean you aren’t his assistant?” asked Levi.
“I quit.”
“However, I haven’t accepted her resignation, and she is required to give me four weeks’ notice. Even if I accept it, there will be four weeks after she comes back to the office that she will need to work through before she can actually walk away.”
Garrett looked from Jac to Becky. “Yes, that’s right. It’s in her contract.”
“Since when?” asked Becky.
“It’s there,” said Jac. “I expect you to honor your contract.”
Becky’s eyes narrowed as she glared at Jac. She knew what he was doing, but it wouldn’t work. She would need extended time with her parents to keep them safe. “I want to see it.”
“Later. Right now our IT department gurus will explain how your choice to go off-grid, alone, has contributed to your incidents.”
Becky opened and closed her mouth a few times before closing it for good.
Mark, the sadist, leaned forward on the conference table. “Go ahead.”
Kaden spared a glance in Sharlee’s direction. She was strangely quiet as Kaden explained to everyone about the tracker. His voice gentled when he turned to Becky. They all knew Carter was her Daddy, but how that dynamic played out in her, and Carter’s relationship was never so evident as when Carter had refused her to sit away from him.
When she had not moved, he picked her up and placed her in her seat. He didn’t let his hand leave her thigh. It was vital that he knew where she was and what she was doing, like all the guys and their women, but Carter tried to pull her into his lap the moment they sat down.
The other men seemed to instinctively know that their women would blow a gasket if they violated their professional workplace space. Becky gave a mutinous glare and then wiggled in her seat. She was either sitting gingerly on a plug or spanking, or she was aroused, or all three. No one smiled but several looked away for a moment.
They listened as Kaden pointed out that these attacks could be crimes of opportunity, targeted, or accidents. “Take the snowbank incident. If she were being watched, it was a perfect situation to push the snow where it needed to go, but who would go there with a snowplow on their truck and use that vehicle for a deliberate crime.”
“Someone who already knew what they were going to do,” said Monroe.
“Yep. And knew where she was,” added Levi. “But how would our friend know that Becky was at your place?”
Kaden nodded. “That is the piece that makes you wonder if it was an accident. The timing and the situation takes a crime of opportunity off the table.”
Mark asked. “Who knew you were going out that night, Becky?”
“All of you. And my mom. I told her the ladies were going to let down their hair. She told me to take an Uber so I could drink.” Becky shook her head. “And it wasn’t my mom any more than it was any of you.”
“And what about the vehicle incendiary device in the driveway?” asked Garrett.
“That might be a little harder to come up with anything but targeted.”
“For someone, anyway,” said Jac. “What is the likelihood of it being the wrong car?”