Page 11 of Retribution

“Fuck, I know,” I mutter, slowing down slightly. “I hate being late.”

“I know, but coming in with a bruised ass isn’t going to be any better,” he says. I don’t want yes men around me. I wantpeople who I can trust, who force me to pay attention to what’s important.

That’s why Grant Reaper works for me, and has for the last eight years. He gives things to me straight, and regardless of the fact that I easily kill people when it’s necessary, he works for me so I don’t have to while protecting me.

The world has a lot of views that it enjoys projecting on me that have nothing to do with who I am. The tabloids think I may be gay because I’m never seen with women, and while I may enjoy a buttplug when I’m bored to keep me awake during my meetings, I’m not currently sleeping with anyone.

Not since I helped an omega through her heat on threadbare sheets at a sex club. Fuck, I try not to think about that, mostly because it reminds me of how vacuous my life is.

It’s filled with work and no real family to speak of. I worked my ass off through medical school to be able to do research, built this company from the ground up, and have to fight to find time to get into a laboratory.

My entire life has been dedicated to enhancing people’s lives, but I haven’t done much for myself.

Blowing out a breath in annoyance, I continue my pace through the crowd to my office. Thankfully, people must feel the cloud of my growing bad mood, because they begin to part like a sea for Grant and I. I pretend to not see his smirk as we finally make it to the revolving door of the building.

I fucking hate revolving doors, and the bellman knows that. He quickly opens the side door for me instead.

“Welcome back, sir,” he says. “I’m sorry the street is closed.”

“It’s not your fault,” I say immediately. “I hate inconveniencing people by being late.”

“You’re the boss,” Marty says, shaking his head. “They can’t start without you. Though, we all appreciate how much you care about our time.”

“That’s what I told him,” Grant grumbles as I shrug, walking through the security screening process and then the lobby.

“Sir, you made it through,” Paula, one of my secretaries says, waiting for me once I’m past security.

She keeps me abreast of the office gossip. That may seem silly, but I’m not often at the main office without a reason.

This is how I nip any issues in the bud before it can become serious. I pay Paula well, and above all, she is incredibly loyal. Her father was one of my professors, I’ve sat at their dinner table, and it allows Paula to use the theatre minor she has.

It’s all about the silver lining, people.

“I did,” I say. “Hello, Paula. What am I looking at?”

“Everyone seems nervous,” she reports, her heels falling sharply on the marble floors as she walks beside me. “It seems more to do with the importance of these results than with your own tardiness. Which, you couldn’t help.”

My lips twitch at her words, and I wait beside her as she calls the elevator down with her badge. No one can get up to my floors without the proper security clearance. My badge is tucked into my pocket, and I pull it out and clip it to my suit jacket, ensuring that it can be seen as I part my coat over my clothes.

“Otherwise, it’s business as usual. Ready for the gossip?” she asks.

Listening to who is fucking who, cheating on their wife, or who may have lost too much money at a poker game helps to steady my mind as I nod along. Grant makes notes of names that he’s going to look into for me, because men who are broke can easily decide to begin skimming profits from a company.

It doesn’t matter how good your accounting team is, it’s possible that they think they’ll actually get away with it.

By the time we reach the twelfth floor, I’m calm, collected, and ready to hear the results of this drug’s trials. It’s meant to break mate bonds when one of the mates is on his or her deathbed. We lose too many people to death because they essentially die of a broken heart when the bond rips apart.

I know that in the wrong hands it could be misused, but this is true of anything. It’ll only be used for those in the medical field that deal with life and death. Cancer, ER, burn units, et cetera. I am also willing to open this drug up to feral alphas in institutions who have lost their omegas for one reason or another.

I have a lot of things to think about because as ground breaking as this could be, it could also be destructive. It’s a perilous place to exist.

“Hello, everyone,” I say, stepping into the boardroom. I leave Paula outside of the room, because as much as I trust her, this information is highly sensitive.

There are murmurs of greetings as I sit in my chair at the head of the table.

“No one can ever prepare you for road closures,” I explain. “I had to walk to work today. Shall we get started?”

A few people’s eyes widen slightly before everyone gets ready to show me what they have for me. I always ask for my data to be given to me by the researchers who are running the tests. I understand that they are introverts, and that public speaking is never easy, but I want the information given to me to be correct. Today, I have one researcher who will deliver the results to me.