“I know, my dear. I know. But, you see, this presents an interesting… opportunity. You, working for them. The Fitzgeralds.” He smiled at me. “I could give you the money, tell you to give it them, but I don’t want that. No, I like you where you are. Working for the other family. I have a proposition for you.”
I was working for the Fitzgeralds, sure, but I hadn’t been into work for them in almost a week. I hadn’t seen Greyson in days. Five to be exact. I was waiting for tomorrow to see him. At the dinner. I tried not to think about that night.
“Oh?” A proposition. I shouldn’t have been surprised. It was exactly like him to take advantage of any situation that presented itself; he’d just never done it to me before. A stupid, small, infinitesimal part of me thought that he wouldn’t. It was stupid; it was naïve.
I was a pawn first and foremost. Something to be used.
“What do you need, Uncle?”
“I need you to stay, to work for them. To learn everything that you can. They don’t know that I know, do they?”
I shook my head, “I don’t even know how many of them know who I am.”
“Oh, they all do. I am sure they all know who you are. But you, you are just a girl. A niece. They’ll underestimate you. Let them. Let them think you know nothing and report it all to me.”
“I only have so many hours that I have to work-” I started.
“You do, but you need a new car and a better apartment. Offer to stay on. It can’t be hard work, can it?”
I thought about it for a moment. So far all the job had been was just easy serving. Well, kind of easy. I had to deal with Greyson’s stares. And his mannerisms. He was so damn intimidating.
“I can manage it. But with school-” Graduate school really was a full-time job in and of itself. I was already slipping behind. Today was a victory, but a small one.
“You’ll manage.” He waved his hand and dismissed me. Like I was just another one of his lackeys. Because I was. I was nothing more than his pawn.
I always would be.
Greyson
Blood ran red under the streaming water, washing away all the terrible things I’d done. Another day of acting as my father’s enforcer. He was making me do it more often, lately. Making me remember all the horrible things I’d seen. It was like this every time I had to clean up after. With me washing the blood off of my hands, my body shaking. With anger. With rage.
And even fear.
Jo. I wanted to see her. I wanted her. Not yet. Not until the dinner. I thought a few days would get her the fuck out of my mind, but it didn’t. The touch of her, the feel of her, it was all still there tormenting me and my cock. I’d never had so much fucking blue balls in all my life. I’d never turned down a woman to take care of them, either.
But I did this time.
I would never let her see me like this. I didn’t care about other women. Sometimes I went to them right after, anger and lust overwhelming me. I could fuck the hate. The pain, out of me. But not with her.
Yeah, I wanted to fuck her, make myself forget all of this, but I knew if I did I would hate myself in the morning. She would hate me. Before I wouldn’t give a shit, but after looking into her eyes, after seeing her smile. I did. It was a weakness I wasn’t expecting.
“Boss?” I heard Janson call me as he closed the door to my penthouse.
“In here,” I said as I turned off the tap and dried my hands. I’d changed and washed my hands. That would have to do. “What do you need, Janson?”
He looked at me, and then the scene in the sink and just nodded. He’d been there before.
Our old men were cut from the same cloth.
“I have the information you wanted, on Joanna.” He held up a manila envelope, “My dad had it all. Sent a PI out before we hired her. You’ll never guess who she is.”
“Who?”
“Dennis O’Brien’s niece. Turns out, dad owed money to us, didn’t want to go to his brother. She agreed to work it off.”
“I thought you said she was just some girl from Brooklyn Park?” I asked.
“I guess I was wrong.”
I swallowed. “So, you’re telling me that we have our rival’s niece working tables and serving drinks?” I asked, processing this information.
“He doesn’t seem to care too much about her. She’s not involved in the family at all. They don’t use her for anything. Dad made the deal to humiliate him, more than anything. If he found out. Didn’t want to put the squeeze on the brother that would be taking it too far.”
I could see the conundrum he must’ve been in.
Still, to think he would allow this to happen. To get this far. He didn’t want to protect her. But I did. I wanted her more than she knew.
“So, I take it you haven’t spent the night with her?” Janson asked, still holding that envelope. I reached for it, but he pulled it back.
We stared at each other. “Why do you say that?” I asked.
“You never seem to want a woman for more than one night. My sister was a pretty good damn example of that.”
“That shit got me into major trouble,” I said.
“Yeah, but your dad respected you for it. He was pissed, it caused derision, but he respected your masculinity. You are a cold, calculating son of a bitch. So what is it with her?”
“Well, she was just some hot piece of ass. Now, now she’s a damn piece on the chessboard.” I grabbed that envelope and opened it, leafing through the photos. Some at the University of Maryland, some at her apartment. Some with her father. With her uncle. A whole sheet on who she was, what she did. All the way to her college transcripts. How the hell did they get those? I wasn’t sure, but I didn’t ask.
She was everything she said she was, a first-year Ph.D. student, a smart woman. So why in the hell would she agree to this? She had to know that getting mixed up with the mob wasn’t going to end well for her.
She had to know what I’d do when I find out. Or maybe she thought I already knew? Maybe she thought that’s why I paid attention to her at all. No wonder she looked at me with such cold eyes.
“Boss? Where are you, you look a million miles away,” Janson stared at me, but I just shook my head and waved him away.
“Sorry, I was thinking. Thank you for bringing me this information,” though I suspected he’d known it all along. I could always tell when he was hiding something. I’d known him since first communion . We were best friends.
“Anytime, boss.” He hesitated. “Greyson?”
“What is it?” I asked.
“We need to talk. About David.”
My half-brother. Not right now. I didn’t want to talk about him. I didn’t want to think about him. I had too much other shit on my mind. “Later.”
“Fine. You still going to see her?”
“I think I am.” It didn’t matter who she was. I couldn’t get her out of my mind. Just thinking about her made me hot and uncomfortable.
He swallowed and nodded. It was not what he wanted to hear.
Joanna
I opened the door to my apartment and blinked. Everything was perfectly in place, but I knew someone had been in there. My books sat neatly in the bookcase and on a pile in the floor. My picture frames hung on the walls. That didn’t mean anything. Someone had been in my home. I wasn’t sure how I could tell, but I could. I searched around the foyer until I saw it on a side table. A set of freshly arranged roses sat on the table with a card in it and a box next to them. They weren’t there when I left.
“Who in the hell?” I said aloud as I walked over and grabbed it. The nerve of someone coming into my home and leaving this. How did they even get in?
You’ll look beautiful in this. I have a feeling it will suit you. - Greyson
Ah, I shouldn’t have been surprised that they had a way into my apartment. Probably had the landlord open it for them. I sighed. I was never going to get away from their influence.
I opened the box to find a deep royal blue dress, fitted, but not nearly as revealing. It was elegant with a beaded top. Something timeless. Classic.
I was shocked to find another, smaller, box underneath with a sapphire necklace and a pair of diamond earrings inside of it. Another, smaller note said: These will suit you too.
I balked then I ran a finger across the stone. It was absolutely gorgeous. The dress was too. I smiled, a small, soft, little smile, and I tried not to let it go to my head. Greyson was not the kind of man I should be stepping out with, but he was a gorgeous man, and I’d never been to one of these kinds of events. My uncle kept us hidden away, the family he wished he never had.
Unless, as it turns out, it was convenient for him. Spying that was what he wanted, but it wasn’t all he was going to get. Convenience was his goal. It was easy to use me to spy.
Well, know what wasn’t convenient for him? Me fucking his rival’s heir. I had half a mind to call Greyson up and tell him to get down here, but instead I just looked at the dress.
A nice public introduction would be so much better.
Chapter Five
Joanna
I wasn’t expecting the flashing lights of paparazzi as we left the limo and walked out onto the carpet. I mean, it was just a boring state representative fundraiser. Nothing national, nothing important. Not really, anyways. I blinked into the lights then leaned into my escort.