Page 5

Yilian, Arkady, and Luka are staring at me with narrowed eyes and questioning expressions.

We’re standing in the middle of the main warehouse, waiting.

My brothers glance at each other and then back towards me.

Luka gestures with his chin, lifting his face in my direction. “What’s gotten into you today?” he asks, smirking.

“What do you mean?” I snap, getting annoyed that this is taking so long, not enjoying them dragging it out further with pointless questions. I don’t like being away from the office like this.

Well. Not lately.

“You’re never impatient. In fact, you’re the most patient person I’ve ever met. Why are you fidgeting and annoyed? Do you have somewhere you need to be?” Yilian asks. “I’m sure we can deal with this—"

“I’m not being impatient,” I argue, but I am. I just wasn’t aware that they’d picked up on it. I want to get back to the office— to Serafina .

I can’t stop thinking about her, wondering what she’s doing.

Not a fucking chance in hell I’ll be telling any of them that, though.

“You’ve looked at your watch fifty times in the last five minutes,” Arkady muses.

“Bullshit,” I snap at Ark. “Why are we so focused on me, anyway? Focus on the problem that needs solving.”

He laughs, shrugs, and lifts his hands in a defensive gesture.

“Don’t shoot the messenger, man,” he teases.

Rolling my eyes, I turn my back on them and pull my phone out of my pocket to see if she’s messaged me.

She hasn’t. I told her I had a meeting, one of the meetings she isn’t involved in. It sucks that I have to keep things from her, but I wouldn’t want to put her at risk by exposing her to this side of things, anyway.

We’ve been at the warehouse for almost two hours, and it’s taking a lot longer than I thought it would to sort out this issue.

One of our armored vehicles was supposed to collect the cash from our safe this morning, and it’s gone missing. How did we manage to lose a whole truck?

We can’t pick it up on the tracking systems, and the teams we’ve sent to drive the route have reported nothing.

The vehicle was empty, though, so it makes no sense for someone to hijack it on the way to the collection point, not after. Unless some fucking idiot got bad intel and just made a fool of himself.

“Anything?” Ark asks, noticing me checking my phone. He thinks I’m following up with the tracking team.

“Uh. Nothing yet. You guys got anything?”

Yilian’s phone starts ringing. His eyes go wide.

“It’s Maddy,” he shouts. Maddy's our driver.

He answers the phone, immediately switching it to speaker.

“Maddy?” he asks tensely, and we all step closer, anxiously waiting for a response.

“Yil, fuck, I’m so sorry. Man, my alarm didn’t go off—“

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Arkady shouts angrily. “Your fucking alarm didn’t go off? We’ve had the entire fucking team out looking for you and you were at fucking home sleeping ?”

“Ah—am I on speaker?” Maddy stammers.

Yilian rolls his eyes and huffs loudly. He switches the speaker off and presses the phone to his ear. There is no need for all of us to be involved in this conversation anymore.

There is no emergency.

Just a stupid mistake.

Yilian walks away from us, lecturing Maddy intensely.

Maddy is an excellent employee, a hard worker and a reliable person. This is very out of character for him. But hey, everyone is human, and we all make mistakes sometimes. At least he’s safe, the truck is safe, and the problem has been solved.

“Okay, well, that was a waste of time,” Ark complains. He looks at his watch. I look at mine. That was a huge waste of time.

“I’m heading out,” I comment, shaking my head in disbelief.

Luka glances towards Yilian, who is still pacing and lecturing. “I’ll wait for him. I think he needs a lift back anyway.”

“I’ll catch up with you guys later. Shout if you need anything.” I turn towards the exit.

“Have fun,” Ark smirks.

“What?”

“With whatever you are so keen to get back to—or whom ever,” he teases.

“Fuck off,” I say, shooting him a smile.

He’s still laughing when I walk away.

The gravel outside the warehouse makes a loud crunching sound beneath my feet as I walk towards the car.

For a moment, I contemplate phoning her. I can just check in, ask if everything at the office is alright.

But I already contact her too much. I make too many excuses to be in her company. At some point, she’s going to start thinking I’ve lost my mind.

I have, though. I’ve definitely lost my mind.

Since when am I focused on anything other than work, my duties to my family, my brothers and what they need? I’m not a selfish person by any means, but today I hardly had the energy to care that the truck had gone missing. All I wanted to do was get back to Serafina.

That’s not good.

What am I going to do about this? Because I’m realizing that it’s interfering with my day-to-day functioning.

I grin, ducking into the car and pulling the door closed behind me. Maybe I should sleep with her—get it over and done with and get rid of this obsession.

Oddly, the idea of only sleeping with her once—oh, for sure, it entices me, but I immediately know it won’t solve the problem. This isn’t just about tasting her and moving on.

She’s got a grip on me that’s much deeper than that.

The engine growls as I pull out onto the road, pressing my foot hard against the accelerator and driving faster than I should, eager to get back to the office.

Serafina shines when she’s in her element.

And it turns out that her element involves challenging situations where most people would crumble.

The more difficult it is, the better she seems to do, shining under pressure just like a diamond.

The presentation is a perfect example. She got thrown into the deep end with the Swans, but, wow, she knocked that one out of the park.

I couldn’t have done a better job myself.

There have been a number of other moments when I’ve seen her glowing and in her element.

The way she handles Penelope and Jason, and how she handles issues in the office, from minor to more complicated, she says calm and treats people with respect.

She’s really good at dealing with people.

I think that’s why she’s excelling in this position. It makes me proud to watch her.

It also turns me on like crazy.

She’s so fucking gorgeous. And when she’s taking control of a difficult task and showing off her competence, she’s even more gorgeous.

I pull into my allocated bay in the parking garage beneath the building.

A wide smile spreads across my face in anticipation of seeing her.

She’s wearing the most beautiful red dress today. We had a presentation with a company whose corporate color is red, and she purposely dressed to complement it.

And fuck—she looks great in red. She looks great in every color she’s worn so far. Especially that white dress. Every little curve was visible, and I wasn’t able to look away.

The elevator is crowded, and I stand near the back listening to my employees chatter about their day. They greet me, smiling, polite, some of them trying to start conversations on the short ride up, but I’m lost in thought.

The lunch hour rush has us stopping on every floor as someone gets on and someone gets off.

Finally, the doors slide open and I get out on the top floor.

I don’t even go to my office; I head straight into hers to see what she’s working on.

My chest tightens when I step in.

Drake Lexington is leaning over her desk, towering over her, standing way too close as he smirks down at her.

Sera has pushed her chair away from him to create space, but she’s backed up against the wall.

“A girl like you shouldn’t be working, anyway.

Your type makes pretty wives—a little arm candy.

Why don’t you quit and save yourself the trouble of all this work?

While you’re still young enough to impress a man like me,” Drake says, his tone not exactly playful.

She stands up, keeping her cool, but obviously uncomfortable.

“What a misogynistic thing to say.” She laughs lightheartedly to cover her annoyance, brushing his stupidly aside. I can hear the agitation in her voice, but she’s hiding it well. He probably wouldn’t notice anyway.

I step into the office, ready to defend her. Drake has his back to me, but she’s seen me. She shakes her head briefly, trying to tell me she can handle this.

It takes everything in me to stop myself from grabbing the back of his jacket and pulling him away from her.

“Misogynist? No, sweetheart. Those are the facts of life. Men do business. Women run the kitchen. Can you cook? I’d love for you to come and cook something for me. I’ve got a little pink apron you can wear.”

He chuckles, and my blood boils.

“Drake, firstly, you couldn’t afford me as a wife or a girlfriend.

I am convinced I’ll be earning more than you could spend on me by the time I’m as old as you are.

” She speaks playfully, but the hint of steel in her voice makes him furrow his brows.

“On top of that, I prefer a man I can have an intellectual conversation with, and I don’t see that happening with you. “

“Excuse me?” he stammers, stepping closer to her. “Girl, you better watch your mouth. How dare you speak to me like that?”

In a horrific flash, he has pinned her up against the window behind her desk, his hand wrapped around her arm. He leans close to her ear and snarls, “I always get what I want, little girl. And you’d better learn that now, before it costs you your job.”

Sera pushes her hand against his chest, but it’s no use. He’s twice her size.

I’m already behind him, though. I grab him and tug him away from her. He stumbles against her desk in fright, almost falling over as he turns towards me.

I want to punch his face in.

“Serafina, is everything alright in here?” I ask, forcing myself to step away from him, not even looking at him. My anger is growing by the second, and the urge to protect her is becoming overwhelming.

Her eyes are wide and anxious. She nods briefly, but it looks as though she’s fighting tears through her brave expression.

Drake turns towards me. “Your little secretary needs to learn her place,” he snaps, enraged by the situation.

“ She needs to learn her place?” I ask in disbelief.

“That bitch doesn’t get to say no to me. She works for me.”

“She works for me. And if you call her a bitch one more time, I’ll cut your fucking tongue out, Drake. Now get the fuck out of my building.”

I’m about to tear him to pieces. Murder wasn’t on my list of things to do today.

“Are you fucking serious?” he snarls, turning his embarrassment into anger and directing it at me. “You and I are about to become business partners, and you’re taking her side? A replaceable little girl over me?”

I laugh darkly. “I’m glad I saw this side of you, Drake. We won’t be signing contracts today.”

“What?”

“Get out. There is no partnership. The deal is not going to happen.”

“You can’t just—“

“I can. And I just did. Get the fuck out of my building while your life is still intact. If you know anything about me, you know I’m not a man it’s wise to push your luck with.”

His eyes flare for a second, then stare at me in complete disbelief.

Serafina is standing stiffly, her eyes locked onto me as well, her lips parted in shock.

I count in my head, forcing myself not to smash my fist into this asshole’s face. She is mine . She belongs to me, and he thinks I’m going to let him get away with treating her like that?

Drake snarls and turns to glare at Sera.

“Stupid fucking girl,” he snaps at her.

“It was a pleasure meeting you as well,” she smiles, and her ability to be so smart-mouthed with this idiot, even when she’s upset, is suddenly hilarious to me.

I start laughing.

Drake spins away from her in horror. His face is bright red.

He’s beyond furious, the veins popping out in his temple.

I laugh harder, and in a rage, he storms out of her office, shoving past me aggressively as he marches towards the door.

We watch him leave.

For a moment, we’re both staring at the door. My heart is beating heavily. My fists are clenched at my side. I’m waiting for him to come back in, but when it’s obvious that he’s hightailed it out of here, I turn towards her.

“Are you okay?” I ask, taking a deep breath and trying to push the anger down. That brief second of laughing helped ease some of it away, but I still want to wrap her in my arms and hold her, apologize to her for not being here sooner to stop him. I hold myself back. I need to stay professional.

“I’m completely fine, but you just lost a new business partner. He was going to invest a lot,” she says, horrified. “You didn’t have to do that, Nico.” There's a quiver in her voice. When I look at her hands, I see they’re shaking.

“I did. Why the hell would I want to work with someone like that?”

Sera shakes her head, confused. “But you lost that deal because of me.” She takes a deep breath, and for the first time, I see her brave facade slipping away completely. Drake got to her a lot more than she let on.

When she looks up at me, her eyes are shining, bright green and gorgeous, but glittering as though she’s fighting tears.

She fidgets with a pen on her desk and smiles tightly, trying to rein in her emotions.

“He’s such a dickhead,” she stammers.

“Fuck. He’s a complete asshole,” I agree, rushing over to her, because I can’t bear to see her so upset. “Are you okay?” I whisper, pulling her into my arms.

“He was really intense before you got here,” she sniffs.

“What did he do?” I growl, moving back a little, wrapping my hand beneath her chin, lifting her face up to mine so that I can look at her. “Did he hurt you?”

“He was—he just—“