Page 25 of Big Bad Bully
“Seriously. What are you doing here?”
Billy’s expression is inscrutable. He stares back at me for a beat, then looks pointedly down at my fingers, still covering his window to keep it from closing.
I persist.
“Did you actually follow me to make sure I made it home safely?” It sounds crazy when I say it out loud.
Billy’s gaze deadens. “You are my worst punishment.”
A slow smile spreads across my face.
Wow. I’m his punishment. I love this.
Torturing Billy White is going to be even easier and more satisfying than I imagined.
Chapter Eight
Billy
“Get the financials on these three newcomers in superconductor and battery tech I identified for possible acquisition.” I give Noah, one of our top analysts, a handwritten list. “Prepare a full analysis for the next executive meeting.”
“Yes, sir,” Noah answers.
He’s a wolf, but he’s not part of our pack. He secured a job at Moon Co the conventional way–through an Ivy League degree and excellent references. Once he was in, we recognized him as one of our kind by his scent. Sully, our head of security, ran a thorough background check to make sure he wasn’t one of the Adalwulf’s spies, but we found no connection to our enemy pack. After that, he rose quickly through the ranks. There’s nothing this company appreciates more than a bright, competent young employee who is also a wolf.
That’s why I would never fuck Annabeth, my assistant, even though she’s gorgeous. She’s too valuable to the company.
Noah won extra favor this past winter with Brick for lipreading a video of Aiden and Madi that proved me wrong about their meeting, a mistake I’m still paying for.
Still, Noah isn’t part of our inner circle. Brick hasn’t even asked him to join the pack–something about him being pissed that Noah didn’t present himself to join immediately when he came to New York. Brick takes it as either a sign of disrespect or that he was playing both sides and was going to join the Adalwulfs if they offered him a job.
I was suspicious at first, but now that I know the guy, I think it was out of integrity. He didn’t want to use wolf connections to get a job on Wall Street. He might be someone determined to prove himself after facing discrimination at some point in his life for being deaf.
Now that I’m sure he’s trustworthy, I’ve come to rely on him because he’s smarter than most of the people who work here and observant as fuck. I ordered my team to learn American Sign Language and took lessons with a private tutor until I was fluent myself.
I’m tempted to open the topic of him joining our pack, but it’s a rocky time right now. The pack is still settling after all the challenges to our Alpha.
“That’s all, thank you,” I sign to Noah and follow him out of my office to stand in front of Annabeth’s desk.
“I need you to arrange Mr. Blackthroat’s bachelor party in Monte Carlo,” I tell Annabeth.
She looks up at me, startled. There’s a trace of fear in her scent. She’s competitive like me, so she doesn’t like surprises she doesn’t know how to handle.
“I know you know nothing about these human rituals.”
She’s already recovered, picking up a pen and angling her notepad to face me. “I can research it. Of course,” she assures me. She writes “Bachelor Party” at the top of the yellow notepad.
“It’s a joint party with Ms. Evans. Her maid of honor will want final say on everything.”
Annabeth nods. “Would you like me to reach out to her now to start the process?”
I hesitate. I should say yes and wash my hands of this. But I know Aubrey wouldn’t let me off the hook so easily. She didn’t want me to offload this project or make it go away with money alone.
I was a fool to disclose the fact that this is punishment for me. She loved the notion way too much.
But then, I like seeing her turned on by something, even if it is torturing me.
Of course, I intend to torture her right back.
