Page 52 of Indecent Demands

I actually went to sleep with a woman in my bed with me, for the first time since I’d bought this place.

“Is this really something you haven’t done before?” Ariana asked.

She waited until I’d turned off the light, I noticed. Like she only felt safe asking that question in the dark.

“Yes,” I replied. It was funny—out of all my friends, I was the one who’d wanted a proper relationship, and now that I had the chance at one, I was terrified. “I’ve always wanted that one and done relationship. I wanted something serious. I was waiting for that woman I really clicked with. Until then I never wanted to give a woman the wrong impression. I’m all for a fun time but I didn’t want anyone to think that I was ready for more. Call me crazy but I just felt like… when I met that person I wouldknow.”

Ariana’s head was on my chest, and I swore I could feel her smile in the dark. “A secret romantic. Who would’ve thought?”

“What about you?”

“I… I gave up on it, I guess,” she admitted, her voice heavy. “I gave up on a lot in my… quest, I guess you could call it. I stopped having friends when my parents were sick. I had no time for it. I used to want a partner, a husband, but I kind of forgot about that dream.”

“And now?”

“Now I… I want a family again. And I think I could… have that husband. If the man wanted it.”

“The man does want it,” I assured her.

I felt her press a kiss to my neck.

It was nice to sleep with someone in my arms. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d done that. Early days in college, maybe? But that was more passing out with people at the end of a frat party when we’d had wild youthful sex. It wasn’t nearly the same thing as holding someone I was falling in love with in my own bed in the home I hoped to build with her.

Not that I stayed the entire night.

No, I couldn’t. I had work to do.

My phone vibrated softly under my pillow when my alarm went off. I slipped out of bed, leaving Ariana sleeping peacefully behind. Through the windows the moonlight lit up the nearly empty, undecorated room and Ariana’s beautiful face. Soon this room would actually be full of her personal tastes and mine, warm and welcoming. The whole house would be.

I was excited to host all of my friends, to have parties, to raise a family. And now that it was all in reach, I wasn’t going to let it go just because some asshole decided he wasn’t going to share his wealth with his loyal friends.

It meant that, like Ariana, I was about to break the law for the greater good.

The company headquarters were dark at night and manned by just a few security guards who were, like most, under-trained for such a job. While the best places hired security guards who were former cops or military, very, very few places provided training. They just expected their security guards to actually have the training themselves when they already arrived, whether that was from the military, the police, or a private security firm.

Unfortunately, much like bouncers, these security men were often bored and not necessarily the best bang for your buck. They were in the equivalent of an office job for their profession. The really good guys were guarding dignitaries or still in the military, working as hitmen or doing something like what I and my buddies were doing—basically, what I was saying was—it was damn easy to slip in at night when no one else was around.

And what I wanted for this, I needed to do it at night. I couldn’t risk someone else running into me and asking what I was doing, asking too many questions. I needed a few hours where I could just focus and work my magic.

This was going to be possibly the hardest thing I’d ever had to pull off, especially since cryptocurrency was involved. The blockchain was a newer technology that people were still learning about, and in theory it was impossible to falsify records with it. However, just because something worked one way in a theory didn’t mean it worked that way in application. I was going to now test that and see if I couldn’t succeed where Ariana had previously failed.

I couldn’t show that Damien had hired a hitman. Nobody could prove where his money had gone once it was cashed out of his account, and the hitman wouldn’t talk, if I could even get his or her identity. And I wanted to keep my reputation with the rest of our contacts, thanks. If I ratted out a hitman we’d all be sunk.

But, I could beat the hitman to the punch.

If I could make it look like the money Ariana had taken had been stolen byDamien, and then made two botched murder attempts that framed him, the hitman would have no reason to carry out the hits. It would put too much heat on them. Damien would be indicted for the attempted murder of two of his executives,andfor stealing from his own company. Brian and Jackson’s lives would be saved and nobody would even know that Ariana had done anything wrong.

This would all have to be done now, though. I had no idea when Damien was going to move. I assumed he was waiting until I caught the thief, and then he would give the hitman the order and make the public offering—or perhaps the other way around, I wasn’t sure on that, but either way, he wanted that thief dealt with first.

It was kind of funny, in a dark way. If Damien hadn’t found that someone was stealing from him, then we never would’ve discovered that he was planning something shady. But he never would’ve found the thief if he hadn’t been investigating his system so closely in an attempt to cover his own tracks.

I parked down the street at a meter, then walked around to the back of the building. There was a security camera, but judging by the angle…

I stayed in the blind spot, then walked up and under to use a lockpick to get into the stairway entry. Stairwells tended to be a good place to try your luck getting in. Because they were relied on for emergencies like fires, they didn’t usually have electric locks the same as other areas of a building that might otherwise require a keycard. The last thing you wanted was people unable to escape from a burning building because the electricity had gone out on the card readers and the doors were all locked.

Once I was inside, I made my way up the stairs and to Damien’s office on the top floor. I kept an eye out for cameras, but as I suspected, there weren’t any up on this top floor, only at the elevators. The executives didn’t want to be spied on.

Getting into Damien’s office would be a problem if I was just a normal employee, but I had given myself level four clearance, so it wasn’t an issue at all. Level four clearance meant that you could get into the office at any time without there being an alert—the only level to do so.

---