by C. Lymari
“Don’t let loneliness take you into the arms of people who aren’t worthy of you. Don’t let pride keep you from people who will make you happy. You don’t need anyone, Finnie, and once you realize that, you’ll know your worth. Sadly, that’s not something I can teach you.”
My father had a point. He could teach me to be fearless, how to run an empire, but he couldn’t teach me my worth. I had to learn that on my own. I learned it while I was alone, while I was surviving with a broken heart. I learned to love myself when there was no one around to love me.
I stepped into the elevator, feeling better about today’s meeting because I belonged here; everything that was going to get handed down to me, I had earned.
The elevator was about to close when I felt him stepping in with me.
My belly fluttered, and I had hoped those butterflies I felt would turn into claws and tear me from the inside out. Because when it came to Nashton, I was like an addict. Our encounters, no matter how brief or cruel, got me high, but as soon as it was over, I felt sick. I needed more of him, but deep down, I knew I didn’t need to want him at all.
“What do you want?” I barked.
He ran a hand through his hair. I waited to see what he would do. Let him make the first move. Since things got complicated with us, it felt like the world was a chessboard, and we were waiting to see who would say checkmate.
I looked at the numbers in the elevator moving, taking us to the boardroom floor.
“Fuck it,” Nash murmured before he stalked to me.
My heart started to pound against my chest, begging me to move and get out of his path because we had barely survived the aftermath he’d left in his wake, and we couldn’t do it a second time.
I didn’t move out of the way. I didn’t cower. A long time ago, I knew I would take anything and everything Nash would give me, and I would still ask for seconds.
That’s the thing about love; it’s never enough.
He came at me with such force that I steeled myself against the elevator rail. One of his hands went to the back of my neck. He gripped my hair and forced me to look up at him. His other hand came to my cheek—soft and sweet, a torturous combination.
His mouth descended on mine with a vengeance. It was a cruel kiss. It was full of hopes and dreams that came to die at my lips. My hands wrapped around his neck, pulling him closer, knowing that it was never going to be close enough. He was always too untouchable; even when he had been mine, I knew it was just on borrowed time.
“I…” I bit his lip. “Hate…” I said between another kiss. “You!” I screamed when he bit me back harder than I had bitten him.
He pulled back, and God, was he handsome in all his angry glory.
“You think I liked seeing you holding hands with him?” he seethed.
I was about to open my mouth to taunt him, but he made it impossible when he put his hand on my throat and lightly choked me.
“I hate it when he looks at you. Hate that he gets to touch you.” His chest was rising and falling. Nashton pressed his forehead to mine. We gazed into each other’s eyes, neither one of us unable to look away. He removed his hand from my throat, and I took a proper breath, causing me to shiver. His gaze lowered to the deep V of my blazer. His finger dipped from the hollow of my throat down to my cleavage. “I hate that I was your first, and he’s going to be your last.”
He was about to pull away, but I gripped his shirt. I was angry at him for kicking me out of his bed after taking my virginity, but I still fucking missed him.
“You’re a coward!” I spat at him. “Instead of fighting for me, you resigned to the idea that I’ll marry him.”
He took hold of my wrist. He pulled up my arms and kissed the inside of my wrist gently.
“To have you, it would mean to break my little brother’s heart, and I’d rather break my own.”
He let go of my hands just as the elevator stopped.
“What about my heart? Don’t you care about all the times you’ve broken it?”
Nashton’s face stayed stoic, and he walked away, having the upper hand, knowing that he had chipped pieces of my soul.
Chapter Nine
Fuck. My. Life.
I lost control. I swore that I would never choose Finley over my blood. And the moment I saw her holding hands with my brother, I saw red. He didn’t deserve her—fuck, she didn’t deserve what I did to her. I fucked her, then tossed her aside.
Running a hand over my hair I put on my game face and walked into the boardroom.
It was already packed with all the stiff suits trying to line their pockets even more by trying to cut a deal with another company.
“You good?” Duncan looked me over as if he could see Finley’s scent wrapped around me.
“Yeah,” I replied.
“Boys.” Leon came and patted our heads. We all glared at him.
“Don’t fucking touch me,” Huxley growled at him.
Leon looked surprised that out of all of us, Huxley was the one to lash out. Especially since Huxley was under his wing. I didn’t say anything to him because us earning more than he did stung. He didn’t have the capital to invest in DD when Dad, Micah, and Gunner first started out, but out of loyalty and respect, they gave him room on the board.
The click of heels could be heard, and everyone turned. I steeled myself to look straight at my father because I couldn’t look at Finley—not when my mouth had been on her, and all I could think of was the last time I sunk myself inside her wet, tight pussy.
When my father looked annoyed, I turned around because I knew that wasn’t Finley who just walked in, and judging by my brother’s shit-eating grin, it had to be Riley, Finley’s aunt.
Riley was hot, but that’s as far as it went. I always found her basic and shallow. Her hair was chocolate brown and fell down in waves, and she wore a tight red minidress. I could see Duncan salivating in his seat.
“Hello, boys,” she said as she kissed our cheeks. Duncan moved his head at the last second, causing her lips to graze the corner of his. I rolled my eyes. Riley looked amused.
She took a seat and then gave her sole attention to my father. “Axton.” She smiled sadly at him. No one dared breathe a word about my mother because had my father wanted it, he would have broadcasted her death to the high seas.
My father ignored her.
“Where the hell is Fin—
“Here,” Finley said as she stepped into the room.
As much as I didn’t want to look, I couldn’t help it. Where Riley commanded attention looking like a hooker, Finley did it solely with her presence. I wanted to rip the buttons of her blazer with my teeth. I was so close to ripping it off earlier.
She didn’t care that most people in here looked down at her. To them, she was just a spoiled brat who got a seat because of her dad. They thought the same about my brothers and me. Most of them didn’t know the demons that lurked within.
Finley assessed the room as she slowly walked in; she looked every single suit in the eye, ignoring the side of the room where Riley and my brothers sat.
“I assume you all know who I am,” she said with her head held high.
Finley kept walking around the table, ignoring the empty seat next to Huxley. Instead, she stopped where Leon sat. A seat that used to be her father’s, but upon his death, he took it upon himself to fill.
“You’re in my seat,” she said in an even cold tone.
Leon glared at her, and I found myself holding on to the armrest, gripping it because if he said one wrong word, I was afraid I would jump up and throw the chair at him.
He chuckled, trying to sound light, but I knew Leon, and he was one prideful motherfucker, which wouldn’t go over well.
“Finley, sweetie, there’s a lot of empty seats. No big deal.”
My dick was even harder than when it was in the elevator when Finley smiled at Leon. “Right, but I want to sit in the chair my father sat in for many years. After all, I’m a Primrose, and my last na
me is on everyone’s checks.”
Pure rage burned through Leon’s eyes. He turned to look at my father to calm Finley down, but my father had a small smirk on his face. He was proud of her, and so was I.
“Fin, darling, why don’t you come sit with me?” My brother smiled at her, and I felt sick again.
Finley was making a play for dominance over the board, and my fucking brother was making a play for her in front of all our colleagues.
He was one cunning son of a bitch.
Finley couldn’t be a bitch in front of the board because if these sharks sensed that there was bad blood between the Crulls and Primroses, they would be out for blood. What made us a formidable empire was that we’d always stood together.
One girl had the power to bring all of that crumbling down, and the fucked-up part was I was right there helping her tear the bricks.
Finley smiled at my brother, all sharp teeth and fake innocence. “I like it here. You can look at me from across the room.”
She winked at my brother, and the smile fell from his face.
She was not meant to sit at his side, but he was meant to look up to her.
“Very well,” my father cut in. “I’d say we get this over with.”
The voting started with my father, and it would end with Finley. I watched as, one by one, they cast their votes. Most of the table had said yay, and when it got to my brothers’ and my side, it was with nay’s, also from Riley and Leon.
There were three votes left, but so far, things weren’t looking so good even with Finley’s vote. We had decided to play dumb on Joel’s disappearance and instead say he had proxied his vote with Leon. If anyone dared question it, we knew they were the ones behind the attack.
Before the next person could vote, she cut them off.
“I can’t do this,” she said as she rose from her seat, holding onto the table for support.
My father didn’t bother to give her his attention. Leon looked pissed, and there was a small smile on Riley’s lips.
“Look, I get it, the last years have been a little rough. Your income came down what…5 percent?” she asked the room. Some of them nodded, too stupid to see she was disgusted with them.
“My father, along with Axton, started this company from the ground up. They didn’t do it by stepping on the backs of innocent people.”
Yeah, just the corrupt ones. I smiled to myself at her choice of words.
“I don’t have any blood family left other than my aunt.” She motioned to Riley. “What I do have is a legacy, and I want to honor it, but I can’t do it alone.”
It was the sexiest thing I had seen in a while, and she wasn’t even naked.
“My father cut the shipment deal himself. He did it because we would earn a steady profit, and in return, he got to help a struggling family. I don’t want to have deaths on my hands for cutting off a steady income of a family that doesn’t even have a warning that this is going to happen.”
“What are you saying, Finnie?” Leon asked in an aggravated tone. “To just ignore the voting because of your dead daddy?”
Leon had always played the devil’s advocate so people would think he was on their side, but he wanted the best for the Disciples like the rest of us. Right now, he was taking it too far.
“What I’m saying,” Finley mocked, “is that we keep things how they are for one year. We try to renegotiate the terms, and we let them know that if we can’t cut a deal that’s beneficial to both of us, they have one year to find another employer. Riley, show them the papers,” she said before she sat down, giving Leon a dirty look.
Riley got up, grabbed the papers she had brought in her briefcase, and started to hand them out.
“Those are the reports for the Malaysian company. Although getting them means we would see more revenue, it also comes with a higher risk in damages and stolen cargo.”
“It’s something we have never had to worry about with our current company,” I found myself saying.
“We do this deal, and there’s more losses than wins. I am not taking it out of our employees’; that’s not what DD is about. We lose, then it’s coming out of your paychecks for the mistake of not doing your fucking homework.” Finley rose from her seat and walked out of the meeting amidst all the murmurs that broke out.
“May I see the files?” Axton asked Riley.
“More than an airhead bimbo.” She smiled sardonically at him.
“Our two proxies are also nays,” I told the room before I also walked out.
Chapter Ten
Past
The days following my awkward kiss with Nashton were dreadful since he hadn’t come home. I could assume it was because he was ignoring me. I hated that he was at the club because Nate just had his party after becoming an official brother.
That meant pussy twenty-four seven, and that would make my silly kiss seem like child’s play.
Water droplets splashed against my windowpane. I hated when it stormed, everything ricocheted against the tower. It was loud, annoying, and scary.
Yes, I was scared of storms.
Knowing that I shouldn’t, I knocked on Huxley’s door. He used to be my best friend, the one person in the whole world who understood what it meant having one foot in the world and another in the underworld. Then things changed when he started to develop feelings for me, or so he thought because I didn’t think he really saw me, and I feared what would happen the day he found out about our arranged marriage.
I feared I wouldn’t be a person to him but a legacy. Power always came at a price, and I had paid it.
The boys’ rooms were all spread out since they loved each other but needed their space, and it was easy to get lost in the manor. When I got to Huxley’s door, I knocked, but I left after five minutes of no answer.
Sighing, I went to the lowest room in the manor, knowing that I would feel safer there no matter what. Just as I was passing the kitchen, I jumped when Eleanor spoke to me.
“Fuck, you scared me,” I told her as I held my chest.
“Language,” she scolded me because a proper lady should never curse, at least in front of others.
I made my way to the kitchen island where she was sitting down with a glass of wine in one hand and a cigarette in another. Eleanor was gorgeous in an old Hollywood glamour era kind of way. She had a dark pixie cut with big doe eyes and full red lips.
“Trouble sleeping?” She cocked her head.
I nodded. “My father used to stay up whenever it thundered, said he got his best ideas in the midst of chaos. That you could find yourself in the storm.”
Eleanor smiled at me. She reached across the table and stroked my cheek. “You are wise beyond your years, my sweet Finnie. You’ll make my son very happy.”
Bile rose up my throat whenever someone mentioned my upcoming nuptials to Huxley.
“Why are you up so late?”
She smiled sadly at me.
“Nothing for you to worry about,” she told me as she got up. She went to one of the cupboards and pulled out a key. “He started to lock his door since he turned fourteen.”
She slid the key my way, and I grabbed it with no hesitation. I didn’t get to make any excuse or deny it.
“You know what I wished I had done when I was younger? Marry for love and not for power,” she said as she left the kitchen.
I watched her leave and found it very sad but not surprising. I always knew my father loved me more than he loved my mother.
We married for power, not for love, because marrying the person you loved would leave you blind.
At least that’s what I heard my father tell Gunner once upon a time. It was unfortunate, but I understood it.
With the key in hand, I continued into his room. Nashton’s chambers led to the pool, and he had his own side entrance. Perks of being the eldest.
I didn’t allow myself to think about why Eleanor gave me the key. I told myself it was because she knew that his room was at the lowest point in the hous
e and the storm wouldn’t seem as scary there.
His chambers were spacious, covered in blacks and chromes. The whole place smelled like him. If I could, I wish I could go back to the day where he tried to protect me from my father’s rabid dogs because that was the day I started to love him. I would have told myself that love wasn’t for people like us.
Removing my pants, I lay under the covers, and I hugged his pillow until sleep overtook me.
Sometime later, there was a crash during the night. I sat up, hugging the pillow to my chest.
“Da fuck,” Nashton growled.
He came to where I was sitting up. He reached for the lamp on the nightstand and turned it on. I looked up at him through sleepy, scared eyes. His eyes softened, and his shoulders dropped.
“You still scared of storms?”
I bit my lip and nodded.
He stepped more toward the light, and I could see his lip was bleeding. Fighting wasn’t unusual for the guys and the Disciples.
He reached out to stroke my cheek. He smelled like rain, weed, and leather. It was intoxicating to my senses.
“Are you mad at me?”
Nash sucked in a breath.
“I could never be mad at you,” he admitted.
“Can I stay?”
He ran a hand through his hair, causing droplets of water to fall out.
Lightning struck outside, illuminating the room.
He didn’t say anything. He just nodded, and at that moment, I felt a current of lust running from my chest to between my legs.
Before he could change his mind, I scooted over so he could get in bed with me.
“I shouldn’t,” he said with no conviction.
“When the chaos fades, we can pretend none of this was ever real.”
Nash didn’t say anything; instead, he removed his wet shirt. I lay down so he couldn’t see how much I was starting to need him. He would push me away if he saw need in my eyes. I heard the clank of his jeans and the thud his shoes made. My heart was thumping like a drum, waiting for the moment he got in bed with me. So close, yet there would always be an invisible wall.
