||Vicious||

Chapter 5

"I'LL FUCKING RUIN HER." I rolled a pen between my fingers—Help's pen—the one I'd snagged from her at McCoy's.

She hadn't noticed the pen was missing—she was too flustered to realize what was happening—and that was exactly how I liked her. The pen was chewed on at the top, and it was so fucking typical of Emilia. She used to leave chewed pencils on her desk every single day in calculus class.

I may have picked them up.

I may have saved them.

They may still be in a drawer somewhere in my old room.

Shit happens when you're a horny teenage boy.

I rolled my executive chair back, pushing from my desk and swiveling toward the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Manhattan.

People said New York made them feel small.

But I thought New York made me feel pretty fucking big.

From my point of view, I sat on the twenty-third floor of a skyscraper, and I motherfucking owned the whole floor. Thirty-two people worked here, soon to be thirty-three when Miss LeBlanc joined us, and they all answered to me. Depended on me. Smiled at me in the hallway, even though I was an ill-mannered bastard. I mean, how could New York make me feel small when I grabbed it by the balls and made a last-minute reservation at Fourteen Madison Park for tonight?

Some folks were owned by New York, and some folks owned it. I was among the latter. And I didn't even live in the fucking city usually.

"You will not ruin your stepmom," Dean dismissed with a laugh. I was still facing the Manhattan view. He was on speaker. "You've been watching too much Pinky and The Brain. Only you don't want to take over the world, you just want to shit on people's lives."

"She texted me last night that she's landing in New York this afternoon and expects me to clear my schedule for her," I fumed. "Who does she think she is?"

"Your stepmother?" Dean's voice was light and amused.

It was four fifteen a.m. on the West Coast, the ass-crack between night and morning. Not that I gave a fuck. He wasn't used to the time difference yet. Lived in New York for the last ten years of his life. And he was chill by nature, the little fuckwit.

"And to be fair, you were supposed to be back in California by now. What's taking you so long?" he asked. "When the fuck are we switching back?"

I heard the woman who was in bed with him—in my Los Angeles bed, fucking gross—moaning in protest at his loud voice. I licked my lips and twisted Help's pen in my hand. I still needed to tell him that I'd hired her, but decided to wait till next week. He had no idea she was living in New York all these years, and I wanted to keep it that way.

One disaster at a time. I had my stepmom to deal with today.

"Not anytime soon. Your staff's been slacking off. I'm picking up the work you've left here."

"Vicious," he grated out through what sounded like clenched teeth.

Our six-year-old enterprise, Fiscal Heights Holdings, was so successful, we had four branches: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and London. Normally, Dean was in New York and I was in Los Angeles. Sergio and his stupid lawsuit had brought me here. I was the one who used my mouth for more than sweet-talking and licking ass. If we needed someone to soften a client, we sent Trent. But if shit got nasty and the situation called for intimidation or legal ruthlessness, I was the one on call.

Meanwhile, Dean was taking the opportunity to check on our Los Angeles branch. We did it from time to time, all four of us. Switched scenery, shook things up. As a token of our friendship, we stayed at each other's places. The four of us co-owned all of our residences. We were a family, and in the upper class, nothing said family like mingled estates and funds.