The Hunter's Prey

Chapter 33- Fire with fire

ROWAN HUNTER- The Angel's Darkness

I stared into nothing but the expanse of forests and trees behind me, my thoughts waning towards the green as I took a sharp inhale, gently reminded of the reason I had the full length windows fixed in my office in the first place.
I loved the view... more than I'd cared to admit. It was stunning.

Even more so serene and eventual that I had a private balcony built directly into the room, just so I could be closer to it. Smelling the thick humid earthy aroma, feeling the breeze that swayed parallel to it and watching the leaves dance in unison to the birds habituating in its branches.
While I barely got to use the home office anymore... it still remained my favourite room in the entire building... merely for this view.

I sighed, tightening my fingers around the phone as I placed it against my ears.

"Vivian."

I uttered the callers name with frustrated solemnity, as the thought of nearly being confronted by Cassidy about the scars on my back sent chilly reverberations that rivalled the freezing spring wind hazing down my bandaged spine.

     "I never pegged you as the kind of guy who would abandon a woman at a restaurant Hunter." The familiar slurring on the other end of the line quickly revived my attention.
       Truthfully I had stormed out of the restaurant the second I realised Cassidy had made a run for the hills... and very clearly stating my anger to Vivian for pushing the preposterous narrative that we were "still" together...

especially to the last person who I wanted to hear that.

       She paused, almost as if generously offering me a few seconds to recall what I had done and issue her an explanation.

        "You shouldn't have said that to her." I gritted back, pushing out an exhale as I spoke in my defence.

"wow... I never thought I'd see the day Rowan Hunter loses his mind over a girl..." She scoffed, letting the sarcasm in her tone do all the misleading work for her. "did you know... she was the one who helped Kyle break into your warehouse?"

       I could feel the muscles around my jaw tense up tighter... and while her question was unsettling, it was the recalling her "relationship" with Kyle that threatened to send me over the edge.

I hated the thought of those two ever having been together... I hated the thought of him ever having been with her or... touched her.

She was mine

                ... mine!
I was so viciously in want of her, that somehow... I'd begun to think of her robbing my warehouse not as working with Kyle... but as the universe's absurd way of bringing her back to me.

And I'd be fucking damned if I let her go again.

       Thrown off by my obvious repressiveness to her stale revelation, Vivian scoffed again... this time, less sarcastic and more disbelieving.
"Of course you do..." she muttered, pushing forward a response to her own question, annoyance following her words "it's why you keep her around, s—"

     "I asked you to find Kyle." I cut in, bringing the device's speaker to my lips intending to drive my point even louder "not do a fucking background check on her... it's not your business Vivian."