Page 27 of Promise of Destruction (Destruction & Vengeance Duet #1)

twenty-seven

Soren

Other than the first hour of work, where I signed the next year of my life away, my first day as editor-in-chief goes fairly smoothly.

Declan called a staff meeting that was both briefer and less torturous than the previous day’s.

He told everyone about his expectations and hopes for the future of the paper and asked where everyone was at with their current work, then directed them to send me their progress for review.

We planned out a week’s worth of content, had a Zoom chat with the remote journalists (all of whom had been exempt from his purge), and navigated one another with a stilted sort of professionalism.

He still fucking calls me Miss Palmer at every turn, which results in everyone else calling me Miss Palmer. I’m convinced it's because he knows I hate it, even though I picked it. Because now he knows that’s not my last name, because he knows that despite being widowed, I’m still a Mrs.

It shouldn’t bother me to the extent that it does—plenty of people are too ignorant to recognize the intricacies of people’s titles. But it’s not willful ignorance that I see every time he says the name I despise—the name I wish I’d never used to post that article.

Declan Evers still hasn’t told me what it is he wants from me, and at this point, I assume it’s just to put me in my place.

I can’t try to find logic where there is none, and I don’t understand what this means for my life in the long run.

Is he just taunting me because he can? Did he just set his sights on me because I reminded him that I exist, and I won’t be quiet about what he did… what he’s capable of.

The worst part of having him in my life is that we’re constantly dancing around the things that neither of us will say.

I labeled him corrupt in the town newspaper, and he hasn’t denied it.

He told me I was right about the cops being in his pocket, he’s confessed to stalking me, admitted that he watches me in the bathroom.

He’s crossed the line, he’s hinted at the things he could do to me, the things that he wants to do to me.

He’s taunted me and made a show of proving that I’m just a pawn on his chessboard, and yet he hasn’t come right out and said anything to me about what he did.

I haven’t even heard Vin’s name on his lips, which, honestly, is a good thing.

I’d probably want to rip his tongue out if I heard him speak the name of the man he stole from me.

And as much as he taunts me with his suggestions of sexual violence, he also does strange things…

buying me a new phone, offering me benefits that I hadn’t negotiated into the contract.

He ordered Chinese delivery for lunch and fixed me a plate when I refused to join the rest of the staff in the board room.

My brain is perfectly capable of refuting every incident of his unexpected generosity, of course.

I asked him if the phone was equipped with a tracker, to which he’d said he simply needed to have a direct line to his employees.

The offer of benefits is probably standard, since he does want to keep up appearances.

And the plate he fixed me that I didn’t even touch was probably poisoned.

I’m not sure I’d put it past him yet to slip me tainted food just for the thrill of watching me writhe in agony.

Or worse, drug me so that he can chain me up in his basement and put my head in his freezer.

The fact that my heart skips beats sometimes around him, obviously, is because he’s dangerous. His presence leaves me breathless because I have to agonize that each one I take could be my last. My stomach twists because he disgusts me. My mouth goes dry because he intimidates me.

Declan Evers is a monster, and I’ll never admit it to him, but within days of me calling him out for it, he has gained absolute control over me. It’s exactly what he wants.

And yet, the first week of work with him passes easily.

He doesn’t even show up on the third day, and on the fourth he leaves the office early.

Those nights, I don’t get any strange texts, don’t feel like someone is watching me.

Those nights, I wonder if it was all in my head, if I dreamed the whole thing.

How can he go from so relentless to so… distant?

Is his desire to destroy me so easy to control that he can flip it on and off at will?

Or did he simply have something better to attend to?

I know from my research of him that he’s not married, that he’s never even seemed to have a steady girlfriend.

He’s an only child, and though he’s a bachelor, he doesn’t appear to spend his weekends out partying, so I doubt he spends his weeknights doing it either.

Perhaps he was busy with another of his victims?

After the way he came on so heavily, it’s almost… strange when he makes himself scarce.

It’s not until Friday, when he brings bagels to the conference room, when I begin to doubt whether this is worth it again.

Everyone gathered around the spread immediately, helping themselves to breakfast. In the months I worked under Eric, we never had breakfast provided, and they've enjoyed everything Declan’s brought in.

I, on the other hand, have made it a point not to take anything from him.

It's a stupid thing to do, really, when you consider I'm happily taking his money. But his food ? I'd rather starve than let him see me take something he's offering 'out of the kindness of his heart'. Unfortunately, he seems to have noticed as much.

I'm scrolling uselessly through the phone I broke since the one he gave me is probably loaded with spyware, my sore fingers be damned, when I hear him. "Miss Palmer?"

I set my jaw and let a slow breath out before glancing up to see him standing before the table, holding a bagel out on a plate, sliced right down the middle.

"I hadn't planned to add delivery to my resume." He chuckles, prompting a few of the fellow staff members to follow. "Butter or cream cheese?"

"Neither, thank you." I turn my attention back to the phone I really wasn't looking at to begin with.

"No spread? If this is how you prefer it..."

"No, thank you." I snap. "Not hungry."

"Coffee, then?"

"Already had some today."

And I'm sure he knows it. His absence from my life the past few days made me keenly aware of the car parked across the street this morning, in the house that's been abandoned for months.

I did a fabulous job of not looking his way, pretending that I wasn't on to him, but when I backed out of my drive and eased onto the road, I saw from the rearview mirror as his car eased out after me.

I stopped for my coffee at the local shop, where the same woman has been working all week and has begun to remember my name, and lo and behold, the Mercedes turned into the parking lot behind me.

I felt his eyes on me as I walked in, and like magic, he was there when I turned to go with my coffee in hand.

He made it out to be some cosmic coincidence, but the smirk on his infuriating lips told me otherwise.

"But I ordered this flat white just for you."

His eyes glitter as if he's learned some big secret about me and not just how I take my coffee. "Luc will drink it." I offer, glancing at my one remaining friend in this place.

I haven't leveled with him about Declan stalking me... we aren't that kind of friends. And besides, I don't feel like it's information I can share with anyone, NDA aside.

What would Marissa and Khan say if I told them?

Tell me to quit, to get a restraining order, that I brought this upon myself with that hit piece?

Besides all of the above, this doesn't feel like the sort of thing I should share with anyone.

Granted, it may be worthwhile to let someone know or maybe keep a diary in the event that I go missing.

But at the same time, this feels... personal. He's paying me for my compliance.

I'm not dumb. The contract didn't say anything about him having a right to stalk and terrorize me, sure, but if I go running to the police now before anything has happened, what will they do?

Laugh? Tell me I brought this upon myself?

Assume I'm a gold-digging whore who's just changed her mind about the attention she pretty much agreed to receive?

Luc's eyes flit from me to Declan, sensing that something strange is afoot. He doesn't say anything, and Declan doesn't so much as turn his way. "You haven't been sleeping well. The extra caffeine will help perk you up."

If anyone other than Luc finds that statement odd, they don't show it, content to munch on their bagels and sip their coffee and assume their new boss is just so gracious . I want to stab him in his beautiful face with the fancy fountain pen he made me sign my contract with.

Instead, I force a smile and hold my hand out to take the coffee. And that's all I do, refusing to drink it as he launches into a summary of all the developments that took place this past week, explaining how he basically saved our company from demise.

Such a fucking hero.

When he dismisses us, I'm first out of my seat, eager to get out of this room, to get out from under his gaze. Unfortunately, we share an office, so I don't really get any freedom from him.

Half a million, Soren. This is what you agreed to. Just grin and bare it.

I don't realize I'm crushing the paper cup in my hand until tepid liquid splashes across my fingers, and subsequently, my desk.

It pools across the top of my laptop, and I sigh my frustration because I really don't need to scream and draw everyone's attention.

I look around for napkins and spot the plant on Declan's desk instead.