Page 97 of Wreck Me

It was time.

He jolted. “What the—”

I pressed a finger to his lips. “I’m going to tell you a story.”

He nodded against my finger and then I pulled it away and stroked his hand fondling my ring as I relayed all that I knew, beginning with Dante’s initial call that had gone along with the ring delivery, right down to the proof he’d obtained through the video I’d just watched.

When I was done, he didn’t speak for several moments—quite a feat for him.

“Fuck,” he said eventually. “We finally know who took them from you and Bastian.” He started shaking his head. “But, Bane, Cas? Taking him out is a tall order. That empire of his is nothing to sneeze at, and he’s so well-protected. I know you had the plan to get at him through his idiotic brother, but that was just gonna be light punishment and a way to warn him off going for your shipments again, making it clear what the price would be to come at you. To actually destroy him and bring that empire crashing down is a whole other thing.”

“I’m well aware. It will be a joint effort between me and the Mancini Syndicate. And it will be carefully strategized.”

We’d finally be taking out a mutual enemy, one who had maintained too much power for far too long. We’d bide our time, play it safe, and strategize for every eventuality.

And then we’d go for the throat.

We’d spill blood and deliver a brutal form of justice that Bane had long deserved.

Vanquishing him would be about far more than vengeance, though. That was far too short-sighted for somebody as calculating and as careful as me.

No, wiping Elijah Bane off the board would create a power vacuum that I would position and prepare myself to fill the moment he fell.

His downfall wouldn’t only be justice, it would also mean my further rise.

“Playing it safe and slow then?” Caleb said, pulling me back to the immediate moment. “Shit, you must be feeling the weight of it. In fact, like I said, I can see it all over you, all the pain and rage… how are you gonna check it to be able to go about it that way?”

“Sublimate.”

He cocked an eyebrow.

“Something we all need right now, wouldn’t you agree? Is that what you were doing with hacking into the security at Shakers?”

A sheepish expression played on his handsome features. “Uh, I didn’t realize you’d gotten wind of that.”

“I’ve known since the beginning.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because you obviously needed it. I also wasn’t naïve enough to think that you could simply go cold turkey with all of that when I pulled you from the underground workings of King. I knew it would take time.”

“Well, I—”

I brought his hand to my mouth and kissed his knuckles. “I’m not angry with you. Or disappointed. In fact, now that you’ve managed to crack it and confirm they are performing abusive acts upon their staff, it’s time to take action.”

“You mean, get back to our nightly activities? That’s how you want to sublimate?”

I nodded. “I’ll work on the OPLAN over the next few days, once I touch base with Dante about Bane.”

“Fuck, yes,” he exclaimed excitedly, his relief at being able to unleash his dark side again coming through loud and clear too. “We’re finally going to get back down to it.”

I smiled and pulled him into me, my voice a rumbling growl, as I spoke our mantra, “Long live Jackals justice.”

15

~Skylar~

My mom had closed that massive development deal and she’d been celebrating ever since, ordering in a special dinner at home three times in the last week, a massive slab cake even, having a party at her office. The culmination of that was slated to come in the next couple of weeks when all the big tycoons in the city got together for a fancy cocktail evening and gave out achievement awards amongst the city’s elite entrepreneurs. She was slated to receive one of those special awards for this deal. It was such a big hoopla that even my dad was attending with her, and he never usually set foot anywhere near those kinds of hoity-toity affairs. I was also attending, because now that I was doing the whole Architecture thing and connected to her field, and she had plans beyond that of that internship, she wanted me exposed to all of it, to meet with the big wigs.

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