Page 119 of Power

“You went to the police?” He stepped closer.

“Leave.” My voice didn’t waver, but inside, alarms were blaring. “Now.”

“What did you tell them?” Another step.

“I’ll scream.” My hand inched toward my phone.

“You little …” Marcus snapped, his composure cracking.

“You’re so charming. It’s any wonder you’re able to fool anyone at all.” I forced a brittle smile. “Though I guess toxic masculinity and a nice suit can hide a multitude of sins.”

“You’ll be discredited to the board, the police, everyone.”

“Your name is in black and white on an official police report, and pretty soon, some detectives are going to come talk to you.”

Marcus’s leer sent a cascade of goose bumps over my skin. It was the type of leer that had my gut forming knots, had my alarm bells screaming to run. That I was in the room with a predator, a predator who looked like he was coming unhinged.

So terrifying that this time, when he took a step toward me, Iinstinctively held my palm up. Unfortunately, my hand was shaking. Worse, when he took yet another step, I stepped backward, slithering around my desk like yesterday’s frightened woman again. Now both of my hands shot up defensively.

He pursued me, backing me steadily toward the wall.

“You can’t touch me now,” I said. “There’s a police record of you. If anything happens to me again …” I let my thought trail off.

Marcus stopped, his eyes flicking to my hands before settling on my face with a glare so intense that it felt like he wanted to reduce it to nothing but blood and skin.

In that moment, I wondered what Marcus was truly capable of. In all the years I’d witnessed my father beat my mother, I’d never seen the kind of darkness now emanating from this man’s eyes. They seemed to turn completely black, as if a demon had been hiding behind that expensive suit and charming smile all along.

And I’d just unleashed it.

His gaze shifted to my open door, perhaps reminding himself that he couldn’t harm me physically. Not with the office full of people at least. Yet his hunger for violence was palpable in the air between us. I swore, I could freaking taste it.

“Well,” he said, his voice unnervingly calm as he straightened his cuffs, “that’s assuming you’re alive to tell them.”

I froze. He couldn’t actually be threatening tokillme over this.

Could he?

With one last silent warning, Marcus turned on his heel and left, shutting the door behind him, trapping me alone with my spiraling thoughts.

I sagged against the wall, legs trembling, breath coming in shallow gasps. Last night’s violence had shown me how dangerous Marcus was, but now, I realized he was far more lethal than I’d understood. He wasn’t just threatening to kill me; he was practically promising it with those eyes. All he needed was to get me alone, just once. Maybe he’d follow me home or find a way tobreak into my apartment. I couldn’t explain it, but every instinct screamed that I now had a deadly target on my back.

And Marcus had every reason, and more disturbingly, the intention, to eliminate me.

But that was preposterous, right? My intuition had to be wrong.

People don’t just murder each other like this.

Do they?

Suddenly, the door to my office flew open with such force that it slammed against the wall, making me gasp.

“Is it him?” Jace snapped.

61

JACE

Great. The good news was, Marcus hadn’t gone directly to Randolph to defend my honor with punches. The bad news was, he’d done the only thing worse: he’d gone to talk to Scarlett.