Fangs, Fate & Other Bad Decisions novel Chapter 59

Chapter 59

This day begins the same way the last one ended–badly.

My phone vibrates with an update from my security team, with another dead end, and no confirmation on who issued the threat or why the Covenant caught wind of it before I did. Every lead is a whisper or a ghost. Every name they feed me burns out before I can reach it. My enforcers are growing restless, and so am 1.

The office feels like a glass cage today–clear, vast, and suffocating. I constantly pace near the floor–to–ceiling windows, glaring down at the streets below like I can will an answer out of the cracked concrete, blissfully ignoring the reports, spreadsheets, and contracts Griffin keeps piling on my desk.

He’s standing by the mini–bar in the corner, pretending to stir his English tea, but he’s actually watching me. With that same maddeningly neutral expression be wears whenever he’s about to say something 1 won’t like.

“You’ll crack a molar if you keep grinding your teeth like that, sir,” he says casually, sipping at the porcelain teacup like he’s having high tea with the King of England. “Should I make you a calming blend with extra sugar?”

I don’t answer him, but my jaw tightens further.

He doesn’t stop, though. Of course, he doesn’t. “You could try breathing. In. Out. You know, that thing humans do when they’re not planning to snap a desk in half.”

My hands curl into fists at my sides. I move behind my desk, my fingers itching for something to crush can feel the fury simmering under my skin, like fire threatening to lick out through my veins if I don’t contain it.

The cameras Dicker on on my monitor at the press of a button.

I might have told Griffin I had my tech team kop me into the street footage outside Harley’s bookstore. I don’t, however, tell him that I have checked it more times than I care to admit, convincing myself it’s about her safety and security. Nothing more

It’s a blatant lie. But it’s a comforting one.

Until now, that is.

She steps out of the shop, the late morning sunlight catching the haphazard ponytail her hair is wrapped into as she walks some man that’s tall, clean–cut, and well–dressed towards the curb. He’s laughing, and she’s smiling in that way she does when she’s trying not to..

Then he hugs her.

And as he leans back, the guy says something, and she laughs. And it’s full–bodied and bright, the kind of laugh she never gave me.

There’s no awkward hesitation during the hug, just open arms and confident hands. And she lets him,

It’s then that something inside me snaps.

I lunge forward, slamming my hand against the desk with a crack that echoes through the room, causing the Fabergé egg on it to wobble. Griffin jerks his gaze toward the screen where my gaze is pinned, then back to me. Then slowly, he sets his teacup down as if he’s about to defuse bomb.

“She’s allowed to have a life,” he starts, carefully neutral.

“Not with him.” I sm

I sneer, and the words come out like gravel as I point at the monitor.

Griffin’s brow arches, and he tries reasoning with me, “You don’t know him.”

“don’t fucking need to.”

My chest tightens, and my lungs seize like I can’t draw in enough air. I see the man’s hand brush her arm as he steps back, but not away from her. I see her tilt her head back and smile at him. I see the curve of her lips that I’ve been craving like a dying man craves water.

Griffin takes a step closer and states, “You left her.”

The temperature in the room drops significantly, and my vision edges into red. Power thrums beneath my skin, ancient and barely leashed, as papers flutter off the desk, and the lights flicker.

Griffin holds his ground, though, as he always does, when he asks, “You think watching her from behind a screen makes it better?”

“I didn’t have a choice.”

*You always have a choice. You’re just afraid of the one that matters,” he says with a calmness that fascinates me, seeing as he’s point three seconds away from being decapitated.

The man walks away down the street, and she watches him go, while still smiling softly.

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