Page 11 of Knotting on Heaven's Door

“Ditch me without legal cause, and I’ll sue your perfect little company into the ground.”

She opened her mouth, but I wasn’t done.

“I’ll never disobey. Never give you reason to let me go,” I said, stepping closer, lowering my voice to something cruel and intimate. “And it will give megreat pleasure, Ada, to know that every time you see me—every time I speak, every time I move—you’ll remember exactly how you looked.”

I leaned in.

“On all fours,” I whispered. “Dripping. Writhing. Begging. Screaming my name like it was the only thing you knew.”

Her slap came fast, brutal, ringing out across the room. My head snapped to the side, and for a moment the only thing I heard was the echo of it against the high walls.

I turned back to her, slowly, blood buzzing, pulse pounding.

No smile now.

Just a quiet storm inside me.

I walked to the door, pulled it open, and looked her dead in the eye.

“Now get the fuck out,boss.”

She held my gaze, chest rising and falling, fury radiating off her like heat.

Then she turned and walked out—head high, back straight, like she hadn’t just broken something between us.

Fuck.

I raked a hand through my hair, still able to taste Ada on my tongue, and reached for the decanter on the dresser. A two-finger pour of eighteen-year-old Scotch met the glass with a soft clink. I swallowed half of it in one burn.

Brilliant, Seb. Seduce the boss, pick a fight with her, and then dare her to fire you before you’ve even chopped an onion.Gods be damned.

I needed this job. Needed the paycheck. Needed the proof that something in my life existed becauseIearned it—not because Étienne Laurente, patriarch and world-class puppeteer, decided to open another golden door for his disappointing second son.

The Scotch settled in my chest, and the room blurred for a heartbeat—caramel heat melting into a memory I’d tried to bury.

Two summers ago. Amalfi coast. The yacht gleamed bone-white against a sea the color of bottled sapphires. Somewhere off Positano, soft Neapolitan jazz floated from hidden speakers while servers in spotless linen passed silver trays: sweet shrimp draped in caviar, curls of burrata on crostini, icy flutes of Vermentino that smelled like green apples and salt.

I lounged on the sun deck, a blonde tucked against my side. Hair platinum, nails lacquered a violent purple. She traced idle circles over my chest, lips skating along my throat while sunlight gilded everything gold.

“Bull market’s nowhere near the top, brother,” drawled Luca Del Re—crypto bro royalty—adjusting his aviators as if the gesture alone printed money. “Six months and we’re all headed for the moon.”

Diego Ricci—old-money Tuscan, blazer draped just so—passed each of us a Cohiba and a conspiratorial smile. “We’reearly. Generational opportunity. Fifteen million euro in the seed round, you double by Christmas. So”—he tapped ash into a crystal dish—“in or out?”

The wind smelled like salt and possibility. The blonde was whispering that we could christen the below-deck suite after I signed.

I saidin.

Three months later the token crashed, the founders vanished, and my father’s lawyers discovered I’d liquidated half my trust to play venture capitalist. Étienne cut the rest of it off with one phone call—told me to“learn value the hard way.”My so-called friends ghosted. The blonde blocked me before the market even finished bleeding out.

The flashback snapped like a rubber band, hurling me back into the hotel suite. I downed the rest of the Scotch and set the glass aside more gently than I felt.

Ada’s slap still burned on my cheek. Her fury had been incandescent—almost as intoxicating as her moans. And now she wanted me peeling potatoes on probation, waiting for one slip so she could toss me out.

Fine.

Let her stack the deck. I’d spent years coasting on privilege; a little humility wouldn’t kill me. Besides, nothing sharpened a man like standing on the edge with no net.

I poured another splash of Scotch, lifted the glass to the empty doorway Ada had stormed through, and toasted the mess I’d made.

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