Page 4 of Violent Little Thing
ADONIS
T he second I walk in my office, I know something is off .
“Vic,” I call out to my guard. And I don’t need to raise my voice because he’s never more than two steps behind me.
“Yes, sir?”
“Who was in my office during my last meeting?”
“Mrs. Odom came in, to clean. As you requested, sir.”
His answer alleviates the tension in my shoulders as I round the glass-top desk and scrutinize every millimeter of the surface.
The custom Challenger 605 is too far to the left. Less than an inch, but the misalignment is all I can focus on.
Precision born of obsession guides my hand along the base of the model plane’s platform until it’s back in place.
Only then do I unbutton my suit jacket to sit down, keeping my eyes trained on the Samson Air logo staring back at me until Victor clears his throat .
“What is it?” Waiting for his reply, I put away the tablet I used in my last meeting and place my thumb over the sensor to wake up my desktop.
“While you were in your meeting, we got word on Mr. Rose’s whereabouts.”
“And?”
“He’s at The Rose Manor.”
I still. Last I heard, the Rose family had been dismissed from The Society. Which was rare because once a member was initiated, death was the only exit.
But with Marcellus Rose’s untimely demise last year, that option had been circumvented, granting his children time to grieve before collecting their family’s debt in another way.
“Why?”
“The founding families agreed to grant him a probationary period as long as he provides another sacrifice.”
It shouldn’t, but my interest piques at that.
Having never sacrificed anything to The Society for my initiation, I’m always intrigued by the lengths others go to just for the protection it guarantees.
“Sacrifice?”
Vic pauses for a breath before revealing, “His sister’s virginity.”
Lips lifted in disgust, I shake my head. We’d always heard about Marcellus’ golden child, Delilah, but few had ever seen her. He kept her hidden away in that house. Even when guests visited, she was nowhere in sight. There was a running joke about her being a basement dweller.
His fuck ass son on the other hand…Weston was just like his father and somehow worse.
In less than two generations, the Rose family had managed to fall from the rank of the most respected members of The Society to outcasts. A mountain of debt and broken promises followed their name around the city.
Everybody in Wildwood knows to keep their distance if the last name Rose was involved.
It had gotten so bad in the last five years that their reputation as fucking frauds preceded them, overshadowing the beauty empire Marcellus built in the 90s and early 2000s.
“Is the girl even old enough?”
“She’s twenty-six, sir.”
“Fuck, I thought she was twelve or something.” The way Marcellus shielded her had everything to do with that. Why was she still living at home with him when he died if she was grown?
“Sir?” Vic repeats, trying to get my attention. My mouth pulls back in a subtle grimace at the honorific. Every time I remind Victor he’s ten years older than me and that he can call me Adonis, he gives me a nod, muttering, “ Right, sir .”
I gave up correcting him a year ago. So here the fuck we are.
“Have you contacted Alonzo?” I want to know, spinning my chair away from my desk before I can get settled.
“No, sir. I was waiting for your go ahe?—”
“Don’t call him, I’ll go take care of it myself.”
I’m out of my chair and back at the door of my office before he can blink. Victor scrambles to keep up with me down the hall, something I never see him do. Vic doesn’t hurry; the rest of the world simply slows down for him. “Sir, I don’t think?—”
“He owes me a million dollars. And has for over a year.” I don’t say more than that.
Tugging at the knot of his tie, he gives me an understanding nod. “I know, Mr. Samson. I just don’t think it’s a good idea for you to approach him alone. He’s clearly desperate and desperate people do fucked up things.”
“Then it’s a good thing you’re coming with me.”
I’d done a lot in my life to avoid ending up like my father and grandfather. I love them to death, but I wanted to be known as more than an enforcer. For more than the violence I could wield when somebody had me fucked up.
It worked. To a certain extent. I’ll never deny that it’s because of the foundation they’d laid decades ago that I’m able to live a normal life today. Samson Air takes up ninety percent of my time. But that other ten percent?—
“Your devices, Mr. Samson?”
The man in front of me looks at me expectantly before I ignore his request and walk past him, deeper into the mansion with my phones still tucked into my pocket.
I feel Victor beside me as we passed the painting I’ve seen too many times. A black jaguar with the stem of a single rose ensnared in its teeth. Blood weeps from the corner of its mouth while a ferocious glint darkens its gaze. As many times as I’ve seen it, it still has a hypnotizing effect on me.
“Where’s Weston?” I ask, breaking the trance.
“He was last seen upstairs. Would you like me to?—”
I don’t hear what he says next because a woman in a white dress breezes by me, her face drawn in concentration.
She passes me in the blink of an eye, but I’d recognize that earthy, fruity scent anywhere.
She smells like strawberries and there’s something about her stride that captures all my attention. There’s a surety in her steps that isn’t reflected on her face.
The same surety they possessed after she asked for a hundred dollars and left me standing in that graveyard alone last year.
She’s an easy target, standing out in her white dress in a sea of people wearing red or black.
She’s filled out since the last time we crossed paths, her once gaunt frame ample enough to stretch the snug material draped over her to its limits.
My eyes take in the shape of her, the fluidity of her movements and the slight sway of her shorter hair around her shoulders.
What is she doing here?
Victor stands beside me dutifully, following my gaze until the woman disappears around a corner.
“Should we go upstairs?”
Distracted, I blink to refocus, turning back in the direction we were headed.
Without a word, I nod and stick close to Victor’s side as he does a preliminary sweep of the first floor before we take the back staircase up to the second floor.
It doesn’t take long to spot Weston. His grimy face is slick with sweat and his beady eyes won’t focus on anything for more than a frantic beat before he’s moving on to something else.
His suit is too small. Wrinkled as fuck. And the way he keeps checking his watch has me believing he knows coming here was a mistake.
He hasn’t been seen anywhere in months. Whenever I tried to pop up on him in the last six months, he had conveniently just left the premises.
The house he’d grown up in would sit empty for weeks while my men camped out, trying to collect my debt. Which makes me even more skeptical about his sister being up for auction tonight.
A pit forms in my gut when the woman in the white dress—the only woman in white tonight—stops in front of him.
About twenty feet away from them, I can’t make out their conversation, but I can read the trepidation on her face. In the way her hands fist in front of her and the plaintive tilt of her head.
She’s scared.
No, terrified .
And he’s grinning at her, unfazed by her show of emotion.
The puzzle pieces click in place a second before he closes his hand around her wrist and pulls her to a room away from foot traffic.
“I can’t believe she’s a fucking Rose.”
It’s muttered under my breath, but Victor doesn’t miss a beat. “Something wrong, Mr. Samson?”
“I—no. Everything’s fine. I’m going to give him five minutes, then we’ll have a talk.”
That wasn’t the plan. I planned to find him and immediately shove him into a room with my Beretta jammed against his jugular, but fuck, I need a minute because there are too many things dancing around my skull to make sense of anything right now.
Probationary period.
Another sacrifice.
His sister’s virginity.
Fuck.
“My father was a pretentious man…if it wasn’t for his gambling addiction…”
Shit. She’s one of them.
And now I might have to kill her too.