Page 43 of To Catch A Rook

I ground my erection into her hand to further my point, then promptly released her and stepped away from the wall to allow us both a moment to cool down.

Her words from our previous encounter had stayed with me, despite my drunken haze. With Veronica and Vicente throwing me to my death, I would choose who to spend the remainder of my days with. It wasn’t a choice at all–it was a compulsion, a reckoning.

The dazed clouds of her expression dissipated quickly, leaving a neutral mask behind.

“That’s not what I meant, Aaron.” She pushed off the wall and straightened her skirt, pulling the collar of her blouse up to hide the red patch of flesh I’d left in my wake. “I also never agreed to an exclusivity clause.”

I quirked an amused brow. “Oh? I was under the impression Kellan was no longer a contender.”

“Who said anything about Kellan?”

“You forget,Mi Reina—I have known you most of your life. You have a particularly fiery disposition when Kellan pisses you off. He has pissed you off, yes?”

Her glare was telling enough. “There is no exclusivity clause, Aaron.”

I shrugged with indifference, unafraid of another man’s position. I was not so filled with hubris to thinkI had any guarantee of living past my conversation with Antonio. I would take what I was offered in the time I had left.

“Attend the gala with me. We can discuss our reparations then.” My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I took it out to skim the message. I frowned in irritation at the simple words on the screen.

“I have a prior commitment,” she blurted, but didn’t elaborate. “I’ll meet you there—and then we can discuss … reparations.”

“That is all I ask.” I forced a smile and brushed a kiss against her cheekbone before heading down the hallway to prepare for my next meeting. The heaviness in my stomach for what I was about to do rose to the confines of my throat.

“I will see you soon,” I promised, knowing full well that promise might not be kept.

“What is this about, Rodriguez?”

Kellan’s gruff, booming voice was an irritant to my soul, grating my eardrums with the pompous command in his tone.

He exuded the arrogance of a man used to getting his own way, without the time or willingness to bend to the whims of others. My temperament was the same.

His presence held a power within it, quiet and controlled like a lion knowing nothing in the savanna could harm him save for another lion.

I was the other lion.

We were cut from the same cloth; whereas mine had been sewn into a fine suit, Kellan wore his like a caveman’s cloak. Refined versus rugged. My smooth grace versus his rough saunter.

We stood in my newly acquired warehouse, now well into the construction stages. The powdery dust of freshly screwed drywall settled onto my skin in a fine mist and the fading scent of sawdust lingered in the cooling air of the evening. My teams were on track to meet my impossible timelines to get the building operational.

I had originally purchased the building as a way to secure the Rodriguez assets in this part of town; a stronghold for our legions of men to house our most valuable illegal assets in a secure facility on neutral ground.

All that had changed course with my parents’ decision to join with the enemy they used to plot against. It was no longer a fortress against Alvarez as the Rodriguez heir, and I was going to have to decide what to do with a fortified climate-controlled, sound-proofed building with three bank vaults, a private fight ring with theater seating, and a dungeon-style fetish sex club. I had an idea, but it would only be useful if Antonio agreed.

Dead men couldn’t run businesses—legal or otherwise.

“I have a proposition for you.” I leaned against an abandoned ladder in the center of the room and folded my arms across my chest, grimacing at the layer of white chalk that had wiped off on my shirtsleeve.

“So?” Kellan mimicked my stance and tossed me a pointed glare. “Out with it.”

“My parents are pulling out of the agreement. They’ve partnered with Alejandro Alvarez and have sent me to deliver the message. They are hoping you will kill me as penance, so they will be set free to carry out their whims as they see fit.”

Kellan's bushy eyebrows raised a fraction. He brought his hand to his face and stroked down his short beard as his icy blue eyes stared through me. A jarring laugh burst from between his teeth, all but shattering my composure.

“You have big balls for a robot, Rodriguez. I’ll give you that.”

Mylip curled into a sneer. “Mycajonesare not the topic of conversation. This is the position I have been put in. So, I have a counteroffer for you.”

“Oh?”

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