Page 46 of The Boss' Pet

“I am,” I say, sitting up and hugging my knees to my chest. I’m wearing a camisole and panties, not enough to feel protected by my clothing—though no amount of clothing could ever really protect me from him.

“I think you and I and your ex-boyfriend should have a little talk,” he says.

“Oh?” I’m surprised to hear that. I wouldn’t have thought he’d let Trent anywhere near me. There’s a small part of me that wondered if Trent was even still alive.

“Get dressed,” he says.

There’s something short and clipped about the way he is speaking. I do as I am told quickly and follow him out to the elevator. I don’t ask questions, even though I want to ask a thousand of them. At this point, I know the less I say, the better.

Some of my questions are answered when he takes me to what I can only call a murder room in the basement of his building. Trent, bloodied and looking like shit, is tied to a chair.

I should be horrified to find him like this, but there’s a part of me that is glad this is happening to him. If I can be captured and turned into the pet slave of a billionaire, why should a piece of shit like Trent walk free?

“Char!” He looks at me almost as if he expects me to help him. “Who the fuck is this old guy?”

“His name is Marcus.”

“Not defending me on the old charge, pet?” Marcus raises a smirking brow at me.

I let out a nervous giggle. None of this is funny, really, but my nervous system has to pick some kind of reaction, and that’s the one it goes with.

“My name is Marcus Waterstone,” Marcus says, thinking Trent will make some sense of that.

Trent looks blank. “So? You a detective or a gangster or something?”

“He’s one of the richest men in New York.”

“So he’s one of your marks,” Trent says.

I feel my stomach drop. I never, for a single second, thought Trent paid enough attention to me and my work, even when I tried to talk to him about it, to be able to say something like that all these months later.

“He’s not one of my marks,” I laugh, a little too nervously. “He’s a… he’s my…”

Marcus saves me again, conversationally this time.

“This woman is mine,” he explains to Trent. “Now I understand that when you accosted her on the street and refused to let her go, even though she told you she needed to do so several times, you didn’t know she belonged to me. But you see, you need to treat every woman you encounter as though she belongs to someone more powerful than you. Because she probably does.”

Trent is pulling against his bindings. I don’t think he’s scared of Marcus. I don’t know if Trent actually has the ability to be scared of anyone. He’s the sort of guy who gets into bar fights for fun.

“You should untie me,” he says. “Then we’d see who the tough guy is, tough guy.”

Marcus hesitates for a second. I see his face change, just a little. There’s a darkness in his eyes, and a certain tension around his jaw. He’s smiling, but not in a way anybody should ever smile.

“I don’t think you want me to untie you,” he says.

“Yes, I do. I’m going to kick the shit out of you, old man.”

“Charlie, go upstairs,” Marcus says.

I have a horrible feeling deep inside, as if this might be the very last time I see Trent. He is such a stupid man, and he has no understanding of the situation he is in.

“I don’t think I should.”

I’m worried Marcus is going to do something terrible, and as much as Trent deserves only the worst of things to happen to him, it doesn’t feel right leaving him to the tender criminal mercy of an annoyed billionaire.

“Go. Upstairs. Charlie.” Marcus enunciates every single one of his words very carefully. He is not looking at me at all. He is looking dead at Trent with a locked-on stare that concerns me.

“He’s not worth killing,” I say. “He’s nobody. He’s nothing.”

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