I scratch the stubble on my chin. “Will the insurance reimburse the lost value?”
“Yes, but it doesn’t change the fact that the damn thing is broken, and the delivery will be delayed. You know how pedantic the Russians are.”
“I’ll contact the guy and see what I can do.”
She purses her glossy lips. “Better you’ll take the next plane to St. Petersburg and talk to him personally. Zakhar Borisenko is exhibiting his new collection this weekend. This would be the perfect opportunity to expand our Eastern Europe network.”
Borisenko again with his engineering themes... He can stick his screw-shaped rings up his ass.
I poke a tongue into my cheek, rearranging the papers on my desk. “I can’t, sorry.”
She blinks. “What do you mean, you can’t?”
“Nick can do it,” I say to evade her question, pretending to read something on my laptop. “He’s the one who sealed the Borisenko deal. Networking is his specialty.”
Business trips have always been my escape opportunity. A chance to get out of the damn city once in a while. Now, all I want is to get behind the wheel and cover every street and alley until I’ve found her.
Brooke tapers her eyes at me, jutting out her chin. “What’s going on, Nathan? You’ve been out of sorts lately.”
You have no idea…
“Just up to my ears in work.”
She scoffs. “You might not be my flesh and blood, but you’re a workaholic like me. You thrive on work. Crawford Crescent”—she nods to the company logo hanging on the wall—“is your life. Your calling. Your obsession.”
My obsession is a Russian girl with an uncanny ability to make me hard each time she invades my mind.
A vein in my temple starts to twitch. Slapping my hands on my desk, I stand from my chair.
“I’m not flying to Russia,” I say in a stern tone. “I’ve got something important to deal with here in town.”
“And that is?”
“None of your business.”
Her jaw drops, her eyes widening for a second before they turn to steel. She points a finger at me, issuing a warning.
“Watch your tongue, son.”
“Son?” I huff a laugh. “You haven’t called me that for more than a decade.”
Her nostrils flare, her chest rising in her tight dress until the fabric almost tears at the seams.
“I took you in,” she says, peppering her words with a pinch of scorn. “I took you under my wing when your mother dumped you like trash. I raised you and—”
“Vincent raised me,” I cut into her speech. “You wrote me off the moment your pregnancy test turned green.”
Lips pouted, she matches my stare. “And yet you didn’t even visit your beloved father once in fourteen years.”
“He abandoned his family,” I snap, unable to keep my voice even any longer.
“He abandoned his family long before he landed in jail, and you know it,” she hisses.
“And still you’re counting the minutes until he comes back, hoping we’ll all be reunited again, right?”
“He made a mistake, and he paid for it,” she counters, missing the point on purpose.
I just shake my head, flipping back my jacket and placing my hands on my hips. How can she still love this man? How can she still defend him after everything he did to her?
She takes a step closer to me, waving a hand to the leather seat behind me. “You wouldn’t be sitting on that throne without him.”
“I never wanted his throne!”
A pause follows my outburst before she flips back her hair and says, “Then you’re not worthy of it.”
And with that, she pivots on her heels and struts out.
I huff, glaring at the chair as if it were the iron throne from GOT. Not worthy of it… Fourteen years ago, this company was nothing more than a heap of diamond dust. I’ve rebuilt what Vincent destroyed. If anyone is worthy of that fucking throne, it’s me.
Heat rushes up my neck, and I crack my still-sore knuckles, ready to hit something. The sound of bones snapping triggers a memory of Devon, and I drop my hands immediately. Don’t crack your knuckles. Devon can’t stand it for some reason you will never know.
Frustrated, I grab my phone and activate the screen. No reply in the app. Devon is offline.
“Dammit.”
I stuff my phone into my pocket and scrub a hand over my face. The framed picture of Aiko and me on the shelf next to me catches my gaze. I take it into my hands. For years, I’ve mourned her, tears watering my eyes whenever I reminisced in what we shared. Now, the sight of her smiling at the camera leaves me cold.
“Time to say goodbye, honey.”
Feeling nothing but pleasant indifference, I drop the picture. Glass shatters as it bursts into pieces on the floor. Stomping my shoe onto Aiko’s face, I pierce it with my heel, the glass crunching as it scrapes over the hardwood.
A knock on the door resounds before Nick steps in. Baffled, he watches me drill my heel into the frame.
“I take it you’re finally over that bitch?” he asks with a smirk, one that drops when I send him a frigid look and sweep over to the door.
Before I can pass him, he stops me with a hand on my shoulder.
“Hey, cut Mom some slack, okay?” he says in a quiet voice. “She’s been waiting for him to come home for an eternity.”
My jaw locks. The state will make Vincent Crawford a free man again in six days. Brooke has been waiting for this day for fourteen years while I have been hoping it would never come.
I shoulder past Nick, step into the elevator, and ride up to my apartment on the upper level. After getting changed into my sportswear, I drive down to Brighton Beach and take a run through the city for the second time that day.
The air is still cold enough to fog my breath, but the birds are already chirping in the trees, and the first sunrays break through the clouds. Taking my usual route, I run past the high school and the pet store on Brighton Beach boulevard.
Just as I pass the café to my right, a man in a coat taking a seat in one of the chairs outside captures my gaze. He opens the newspaper in his hands. The way he pushes his black sunglasses up his nose and peeks over the rim triggers a strange memory. I’m positive I’ve seen the guy before, and it’s only when I round the next corner that I remember him from a few months ago, sitting in the exact same spot and staring at the apartment complex at the opposite side of the street like a private detective on surveillance duty.
I shrug the matter off, focusing on taking deep, regular breaths. The two pendants bounce on my neck as I run past Susan’s shop and head for the beach.
A brunette with a German Shepherd on a leash strolls down the shore, and I can’t help but slow down as my feet hit the sand, zooming in on her dark hair swaying in the wind. My heart skips a beat as she turns her head, and then skips another one the moment I realize… it’s not her.
My fingernails bite into my palms as I shoot straight for the high bars and start a set of hanging knee raises. I’ve worked out twice as much since Devon gave me a knock-back, resulting in a six-pack that rivals Channing Tatum’s and shoulders too broad for my designer suits. The ladies crane their necks whenever I walk by, but frankly, there’s only one girl whose attraction I aim to catch, and she hasn’t shown her face since that day I let her slip through my fingers.