Page 24 of Edge of Ruin
Not possible. Brian stared, transfixed. The man began to smile. He stepped closer, words coming fast like a concentrated venom. “You like those little lost waifs, hmm? Poor vulnerable creatures, no big strong daddy to protect them. What do you do to them, Wilder? Do you like to make them cry?” He studied Brian’s face and let out a muffled crack of laughter. “Hah! You do! I nailed it. You sick, twisted fuck.”
“G-g-get out of here,” Brian quavered. “Are you threatening me?”
Wilcox laughed. “Threatening? Oh, God, no. My client has so much money, he has no need to threaten.”
“Then why are you?—”
“Let me reiterate. D’Onofrio is the one my client wants. If you want someone else to sell her pieces to my client, and let that person enjoy my client’s good opinion and all that it entails, that would be a big shame … for you. Think about that, Mr. Wilder. And think fast.”
“I don’t know where she is,” he repeated. Fear was loosening his bowels. He struggled to control his sphincter
The guy’s grin looked discolored. “Oh, I bet you could run her down if you really tried. The art world is small. It’s worth getting over your differences.”
Brian needed to sprint for the bathroom, but he didn’t have the nerve to just walk away from Wilcox. “I, um ...”
“Take this.” The guy handed him a card, with a cell phone number scribbled on it. “I’ll be back to see you, if I don’t hear from you first. I know some people are shy about calling. Don’t be shy, Wilder.” Wilcox walked out.
Brian made his way up the stairs, clenching the banister and his asshole with the same desperation.
Damiana came out of his office, eyes big with curiosity. “What did he want?” she asked. “I am so sorry, but he creeped me out, so I?—”
“Go get my electronic organizer. Get on the Internet,” he snapped. “I want you to find Vivien D’Onofrio for me. Now.”
“Her? But I thought you ... I thought she?—”
“Do it!” he bellowed, and she darted away, heels clicking.
He lurched into his office, dismayed to see Coco taking her own sweet time putting away all her oils and colored crystals. “Get out!” he yelled.
She shoved her stuff into her case and scurried.
He got to the bathroom just in time to avoid the unthinkable, and then sat there so long, his ass went numb on the cold ring of porcelain.
How had that man known? No one in his life knew. He kept his dirty little private thing so fucking hidden, it was practically hidden from himself.
He had many lovers. This had nothing to do with his love life. This was a special, secret, private thing. Deep in the night, he sometimes got that secret, nasty itch. To play with a fantasy that had begun with his affair with Vivi D’Onofrio.
She’d been so small, so slender, so young. A lost kitten. She’d been twenty-one when he met her, but she could’ve easily passed for fifteen. And so talented.
He had secretly hated her for that. All that talent, coming out her fucking pores, and she didn’t even know it. So goddamn fucking innocent. The talent was wasted on her.
It had driven him mad with envy.
The next best thing to having talent was controlling talent. And he had tried. God knows, he had tried. But she was like a wild, unbroken horse. Ungrateful, whining, entitled bitch, biting the hand that fed her. They would have made money hand over fist, if she’d just done as he told her. But no.
He’d wanted to play her like an instrument. Wanted it so bad, he lay awake in the dark of the night, grinding his teeth, milking his dick.
After she left, he’d held his nose and done a little digging into the seamy underworld of the New York sex industry and commenced a brand-new secret indulgence. Re-creating a scenario calculated to make himself feel exactly the way he needed to feel. To get off. Explosively.
He didn’t do it often. Every couple of months or so. A slender big-eyed girl in a hotel room, lost and scared. Him, controlling her. Using her. Punishing her for what Vivi had done to him. Making her cry.
His heart rate kicked up, hot and jagged, just thinking of it.
This situation with the thug who had come calling was probably Vivi’s own fault. She’d behaved badly, got on the wrong side of some criminal badass. The badass was out for payback, and Brian was an innocent bystander. Caught in the crossfire.
Fuck that. He was rolling over on her, the minute he got the chance. He owed Vivi D’Onofrio nothing. She’d stiffed him in every way.
Let her pay the price for her own fuckups.
