Series: Werewolves of Wall Street Series by Renee Rose
Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 66669 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 333(@200wpm)___ 267(@250wpm)___ 222(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66669 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 333(@200wpm)___ 267(@250wpm)___ 222(@300wpm)
Getting off the elevator to a silent top floor is too much, though. I stop and stare at Madi’s empty desk with bitterness. The office still smells faintly of her orange and Frankincense scent. I swear I almost detect the scent of her tears from the day she left, but that’s just my brain producing a memory.
The memory makes my chest tight.
I don’t mean to, but I walk over to her desk and stand above it. Not to catch her scent. Just to make sure she’s cleaned all her belongings out.
She hasn’t. Her tube of hand lotion still sits beside the phone. A lip gloss is next to the computer. There’s a greeting card standing behind her monitor that reads, You’re killing it. I snatch it up and open it.
It’s from her brother. Inside he wrote, “I didn’t get you a graduation present, but I saw this and thought of you. Congratulations on the Moon Co job. You’re killing it!”
My chest hurts even worse. The memory of Madi drunkenly poking my chest that night her band played, telling me she knew I’d paid for her brother’s tuition surfaces.
I want to villainize her. Demonize her. But just like my mother, she’s someone I loved first, before she ripped my heart out.
It’s not black or white. Good versus evil.
She’s a real person with emotions and insecurities and people she cares about–like her younger brother. Her friend Aubrey.
I’d stupidly thought she cared about me, but it turns out it was all a lie.
Still, it’s hard to untangle the love from the hate.
I pick up her desk and hurl it at the wall, then stalk into my office and call Vance. “I want all the execs working on the top floor until this gets resolved,” I bark.
I can’t stand being alone up here. It will hurtle me to madness even faster than I’m already going.
My team streams in and updates me.
The programmers have figured out how to patch the system and Moon Co is up and running again, but our stock price dropped a hundred million overnight. Nickel is working his ass off doing interviews and sending new press releases to try to get it to bounce back.
I sit and listen and then fold my hands. “Okay. What do we know about the mechanics of the breach?”
“We still only know that it came from Madi’s computer. It looks like she loaded it the night of the holiday party, and then it was set to activate at a later date or was remotely activated.”
I blink, hit with a torpedo in the center of my chest.
The night of the holiday party.
The one where I drove her home and spent the night at her apartment. And she broke things off with me.
“Find out which it was. I need to know everything about how this happened.”
“What about the Adalwulfs?” Jake asks.
“What are you asking?”
“They need to pay for this.” His gaze burns with vengeance.
“Yes.” This goes far beyond me scooping up the land they wished to purchase. They tried to take down my entire company, same as they took down my father’s. “They certainly do. But we have more pressing concerns right now. We need contingency plans in place for leadership of the pack and the company.”
“What for?” Nickel asked.
“You know what for.”
Billy goes pale. “Are you saying…”
I nodded gravely. “Madi is my mate. My wolf will drive me to madness for refusing her. I’m already losing control.”
“I told you,” Vance mutters to Billy.
“What about Thaddeus?” Eagle suggests, standing from his chair and pacing around the conference room.
Thaddeus is Manhattan’s vampire king.
I hesitate. Wiping Madi’s mind of the existence of wolves is probably necessary, but the idea turns my stomach. She’s so young and bright. It could ruin that genius mind of hers.
“I don’t just mean wiping her mind. I mean…” –he looks grim– “control it. You need her to surv–”
My hands close into fists, and a growl rockets from my throat.
Billy watches me like I’m a lunatic with a loaded gun. “Table that for later,” he says in a low voice to Eagle without taking his gaze off me.
“No.” I put an alpha command into my voice, and everyone in the room falls back a few inches. I know exactly what Billy’s thinking. They’re going to talk about Madi in private and bring her to Thaddeus without my consent since my wolf will never allow it.
“Nobody touches her. You will not go around me on this. Understood?”
It isn’t just my wolf making the demand, not that it’s always clear where my thoughts originate. No, I’m sure I would rather die than have Madi trotting around here as a mind-controlled zombie just so I don’t go mad.
No one answers at first. They all like the idea. I probably would, too, if it came down to losing one of them to human treachery.