Page 11 of Twisted (Never After)

My chest smarts at the idea.

Doesn’t matter.

There’s still time to snip the strings and rearrange them until the marionettes move to my liking. Once Ali has passed away, I won’t have a need for a princess who thinks the blood that runs through her veins and the money she’s been fortunate enough to grow up with make her better than everyone else.

My heart jumps into my throat when coughing rings out from behind the heavy wood of the door, and at the same moment, my phone vibrates against my leg, causing me to jolt back.

Taking a deep breath, I shake my head and pull the cell from my pocket.

I spin around from where I was eavesdropping and make my way down the ornate marble hall, decorated with oversize paintings by Monet and van Gogh, and lit with dim thousand-dollar lights. It’s cliché to have them hanging here, but that’s kind of the purpose. Well- known art that even a layman would recognize. That’s all any of this is, really— the lavish furnishings and the flashes of money— a show.

But it’s one I enjoy starring in.

I dreamed about being in places like this since I was a kid, growing up with next to nothing.

It gets old fast, being powerless and penniless.

When my piece- of- shit father died, I stepped in and sold the dry cleaners, using the money to take night classes in business while I snagged a low-paying job in the mail room of Sultans as a fresh- faced eighteen- year- old.

It took five years to make my way into the executive offices after getting my degree and another five to become Ali’s righthand man. It was tedious killing all of the people who were in my way, but after the previous COO’sunfortunatedemise, I finally made it.

They didn’t all die in vain though. They’re memorialized forever as artwork on my skin.

Trophies, if you will. A reminder of all I had to sacrifice in order to get where I am.

My phone vibrates again, and I glance down,Mammaflashing across the screen.

I clench my jaw, my body warring between the duty I feel to pick up and speak with her and the absolute dread of doing so. A heavy sensation settles in the center of my stomach and drops like a lead weight as I stop in the middle of the hall, watching it light up over and over.

At the last second, I silence it, the heavy burden immediately lifting off my shoulders when I send her to voicemail.

She’s a battle for another day. And until then, I lock her up tight in the recesses of my mind, where I don’t have to think about her at all.

I don’t put the phone back in my pocket, instead pressing the number one to speed dial my assistant Ian.

“Boss.” His voice is high, brash, and rough around the edges, the type of sound that makes me want to duct- tape his mouth shut and rip out his vocal cords until he’s a mute puppy that’s not allowed to bark.

If he weren’t so damn good at his job and so unfailingly loyal to me both personally and professionally, I probably would have. But it always serves to have someone in your back pocket when you need them, and I’ve worked hard over the past five years, ever since Ian came on board, to ensure that he’smine. Nobody else in my life has ever been so faithful, and I reward loyalty regardless of the source.

“Are you at the office?” I ask him.

“Of course.”

“I’m on my way.”

“Excellent,” he squawks. “I’ll be here for anything you need.”

“I need— ”

“Hey!”

My voice cuts off at the sultry yell, and I pause, twisting around from where I’m making my way down the hall, my brows lifting as I see Yasmin speed walking, fire in her dark eyes as she catches up to me.

“I’ll be there soon,” I say, my gaze never leaving Yasmin as I hang up the phone and slip it back in my pants. My hands follow, sliding into my pockets as I rock back on my heels.

She stops in front of me, her arms crossed over her breasts, causing them to rise and fall with her heavy breathing. My gaze begins to flick down, remembering the way her nipples pebbled while she came on another man’s tongue, but I steel myself against the temporary lapse in control.

“I want to talk to you about last night,” she rushes out.