Page 15 of Duchess (Royal Harlots MC: National New York Chapter #1)

Caleb

I was up in the company offices speaking with some of the finance executives when Laura, my secretary, walked into the conference room.

"I'm sorry, Sir, but you're needed."

"Just tell them I'm busy." I waved her away and after a beat I realized she was still standing there.

"I'm afraid they were adamant on seeing you."

I watched as she raised her eyebrow and tilted her head, letting me know whoever was paying me this visit wasn't someone I should keep waiting.

"Excuse me gentlemen, this shouldn't take too long."

As I closed the door, I turned to her. "Who in the world…"

"It's President Killic."

My heart dropped.

I had been avoiding my grandfather for weeks. Not only was he not an easy man to get along with, but every time he was around, some shit went down. I wasn’t in the mood for one of his tantrums, let alone, one of his tirades.

I knew that my circles weren't clean, and I had killed to defend my family, but I had also been kept in the dark about a lot of things. Business that I still saw traces of and questioned.

When Stephanie and Elizabeth disappeared, we knew something had gone wrong.

They were either in on it, or they found the product and ran with it.

Stephanie couldn't have built the empire she currently had when she had nothing to begin with.

Not unless Alan left her something she couldn't deny taking for herself.

Her funeral was a famously orchestrated shitshow.

One that my grandfather and his allies ate up.

I, on the other hand, didn’t believe for a second that she’d died on me.

It just didn’t make any sense. Weeks later, I was getting word that shipments were catching on fire, clients were being stolen, and my docks were being infiltrated by those seedy bikers.

I knew she was getting back at me for what I did to her, and I wouldn’t have expected any less.

I figured she might slip at some point and reveal her location, but as the years passed by, I realized that would be a long reach.

With my grandfather in charge, she’d never come out of hiding.

It was a freedom she couldn’t have. If he ever found out she was alive, he’d make sure she paid for everything she had taken, as insignificant as it now was.

It took me seconds to realize she was alive, years to realize that she had entered in this game with me, and when I’d find her, which I would, I was going to keep her for myself.

Opening the door, I walked into my office, careful not to make any sudden movements. He was still formidable and intimidating in his old age.

"What took you so long?"

I bowed my head and stood near the door as he berated me. "I don't like to be kept waiting."

I kept my gaze down, careful not to look him in the eye as it was considered a great disrespect.

"I apologize, Grandfather."

There was a long pause and I briefly shut my eyes as I heard him approach.

"Look at me," he ordered sternly.

I raised my eyes and focused on his nose. His eyes were black like his heart, and I couldn't bear to look at them. Besides, I didn’t want him to see the hatred I had for him reflected in my own.

"Have you been hiding secrets from me?"

"No, Sir."

He took another step towards me, bringing him toe to toe with me.

He slammed his fingers on my temple angrily. "Think, Caleb. Why would I come all this way to ask you that question?”

My eyes finally slipped down to his and the hatred burning in them startled me. "I have not been keeping secrets,...Sir."

He narrowed his eyes on me, and the sudden slap across my cheek caused me to stumble. I shook it off and stood up straight right where I'd been standing.

"No secrets, Sir."

He slapped me again, the sting burning along the expanse of the side of my face. I was prepared for that blow. And I barely flinched. I knew that angered him, and with his anger came another blow. This one made me taste copper.

"I know that you've been playing games with that traitor."

“I don’t know what you are talking about, Grandfather.”

"Do not lie to me! The whore! The one you helped escape!"

“She is not a whore! ANd I helped no one escape!” Anger and shock at finding out that he’d discovered Stephanie, rang out in that shout.

"She is what I say she is!" His shout reverberated against the walls as he raised his hand to smack me, only this time I raised my arm, stopping the impact.

He pressed against my arm with all his strength but as I towered over him, we both knew who would win. Afterall I was not only younger but also stronger. And that only proved to anger him further.

“You’re useless, Caleb. You always were,” he pressed down harder, turning red in the face from his rage.

I never understood why he put me in this position.

I wasn't the one who was supposed to take over.

My younger brother Sam had been up for the chair since birth.

He was the perfect golden child, that is until he decided he wanted to leave the family.

One day he was with us, the next he was gone without a trace.

It had made no sense to me, why Sam would just disappear like that but I received no answers.

My grandfather had been devastated. It was the first and only time I ever saw him have feelings.

After Sam left, he decided that I would be the one to take over.

But if I knew then that it meant he would never give me the title until he was dead and buried, then I wouldn’t have taken it.

There had been a couple times in these last few years that I wanted to take him down myself, but I held back out of respect, or maybe it was my goddamn submissive nature.

One I wanted to bury deep. I lived to get his approval, but I wasn’t Sam.

I wasn’t who he wanted me to be and I was tired of taking his shit.

“You dare raise your hand to stop me from issuing the punishment you deserve?” he barked, voice deep with the gravel of decades’ worth of sins.

I didn’t flinch. “You forget yourself, Grandfather. And you forget why you placed me here. I’m not your lapdog anymore. I’m the CEO of this company, and any movements within this family go through me now. I make the decisions, here. So no. I do not answer to your orders.”

His face twisted in fury, and for the first time I relished in my defiance. I watched with satisfaction at the tremor took hold of his clenched fists, the vein in his neck pulsing with the urge to strike.

I turned my back on him.

Let him seethe.

I paused at the mirror across the room, adjusting the collar of my shirt, brushing a smear of blood from my chin.

He would’ve dislocated my jaw if I hadn’t blocked the blow.

The bastard still had bone in him, I’d give him that.

But it didn’t matter. Not anymore. I wouldn’t let him taste my pain.

That’s how he won. That’s how he fed … off the pain and defeat of others.

“I’m not keeping secrets,” I said, coolly, without turning. “But you are.”

His silence pressed against the room like a loaded gun.

Then he gave out a low, guttural chuckle which irked me.

“You think you’re ready for this world, boy? You think wearing that tailored suit and pushing your cock into boardroom execs makes you powerful?” His boots scraped against the stone floor as he approached.

“It makes you weak and it makes this company weak.”

“You have no idea how to handle a business, let alone keep under the radar. This isn’t back in your day when killing gave you a reputation, or when you can buy any cop. You have to have money to have power!” I shook, as my voice thundered around us.

“And yet, I had to handle something you didn’t have the balls to.”

I turned, just enough to see the dead in his eyes.

“She was just another slut,” he said, voice like smoke and rot. “Told me the Duchess gave the orders at the shipping docks. Whispered the name Stephanie Winters. Said the bitch was still alive.”

My gut tightened.

“What did you do?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

He smiled. Not with his mouth, but with his madness.

“She had a sweet mouth, that one. Sweet cunt too. Gripped my cock like she wanted to keep it. Begged like they always do, until the truth spilled out.” He leaned in, breath rancid with power and bourbon.

“I slit her throat while she came. Made my cock explode watching her die. Took a bit to get her off me, her cunt had clenched down on me, trapping me inside her.” He laughed, a void in his eyes. “It was worth it.”

My fists clenched at my sides, the rage bleeding into my vision.

“You sick fuck.”

“She gave me everything I needed,” he interrupted, unbothered by my disgust. “I always knew about your obsession with that woman. Always knew there would come a day you would betray your family for that whore.”

“I said…Do. Not. Call her that.” My voice was low with a warning of violence.

“Ozan’s already cleaning the mess. And I’ve sent orders to erase Stephanie Winters. For good this time. No more loose ends.”

He stepped closer, until our breath mingled, his seething and predatory, mine sharp with control.

“You’re still green, boy. Still chasing shadows and trying to fuck your way through power.” He pressed a finger to my chest. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking your title protects you from me . I built this empire from blood and ruin. I’ll bury you in it if I have to.”

“I already knew this is what you would do. Always rash, always shedding blood.. Putting us on the radar of every fucking police station in the Los Angeles area. You have no idea what you are doing old man. You’re a senile son of a bitch.”

His gaze faltered as he realized I wasn’t affected. At least not in the way he wanted me to be.

“You dare disrespect me?” He seethed.

“I've heard that Stephanie Winters was alive for a while now. All rumors because she’s never been spotted. So I went hunting for her until I found facts.”

“Facts?” he asked, like the word offended him.

“Yes, I suppose you got proof of her existence from this slut you fucked. Or did you just take her word for it?”

He looked unnerved as I continued. I sat at the edge of my desk and pulled out the envelope Leon, my right-hand man, had given me.

“Ohhh, Grandfather. You can’t go through life fucking sluts for information.

Don’t you know they lie as soon as you promise them their life back.

” I threw the insult back in his face and watched him clench his jaw.

Maybe his teeth would shatter, I thought.

“I on the other hand, did do my due diligence. See you work smarter in these situations, Grandfather. Keep yourself hidden until you're ready to strike.”

“Ozan said…”

“Ozan, Ozan, Ozan…” I cut him off. “Ozan isn’t the only trusting man around here. I have a few waiting and willing to bleed for me.”

I grabbed my lighter and pulled out the slim vanilla-tasting cigar from my pocket. Lighting it, I sucked in the smoke and then let it linger in the air as I slowly puffed it out.

“The slut had no reason to lie,” he murmured as he opened the envelope, I handed him.

“Did you at least ask her where she was. A location, a home address, a phone number? Anything?”

Slowly, he pulled out the photographs Leon had taken for me. One showed a woman stepping out of a black SUV in the rain, her profile obscured by a hood, but the curve of her jaw and the tilt of her chin were unmistakable to me. To another, they would not have known who she was.

Another showed her at the docks, shadowed by crates and container stacks, her back turned, blurred but familiar.

A couple more were distant shots of a figure speeding off on a motorcycle.

No plates, no face, just the shape of her legs gripping the bike like second nature.

And the last, too close for comfort, was her walking into a a builidng we thought had been buried years ago.

“Does that look like Stephanie Winters to you?” I gave him nothing concrete. Nothing definitive. Just enough to make him doubt it all.

“The woman knew her name.”

“Well, you were given misinformation because nothing is set in stone yet. We’ve been lied to before, or don’t you recall?”

I took another puff and watched my grandfather throw the photos on the couch. Furious, he pointed a finger at me. He had that deep-seated hatred pouring out of his words.

“If you are lying to me, I will kill her, and then I will cut off your balls and bury them with her, where you left them.”

I puffed on the cigar once again. Giving him the impression that I didn’t give a fuck, but deep inside I knew he’d do it. He’d keep his word.

“I’ll be back soon, Caleb. Don’t think that because you have this office, you run things. You’re just a pretty face for the cameras. In the end, I’m still the Boss.” He turned to leave, but my words held him back.

“Sending Ozan won’t help; she’ll just go deeper into hiding.”

He turned his head slightly, speaking over his shoulder.

“The order has been given, and I know he will find her. Something you couldn’t do. But don’t worry. When he does, I’ll make sure you hear her screams before I slit her throat.”

The room turned to ice. And still… I didn’t move. Because reacting meant he’d won.

I flung the item closest to me against the wall as the door slammed shut behind him.

I hated him more than he knew. Ever since he forced me to execute the one person who was closest to me.

I held no remorse for that kill, he should have known better, but my anger was with me.

I was angry at myself for allowing myself to be manipulated by my family.

Emir did what he did as a lesson to not trust anyone who wasn’t blood.

But although I still didn’t fully trust my Duchess, he would not touch one hair on her head. I’d give my life before he took hers.

That was a promise I silently made to her. As much as she thought I was the enemy, I was only here to protect her. The only way she’d survive was to stand by my side and be my Queen. All she had to do was give in.