Page 21 of Howl You Doin?
“I have no fucking idea what you’re talking about, mate,” I reiterate as I move to open the nearby window to cool his hot head down.
“Aww. You giving us aporkie,Connor? Tell the truth, mate. What the fuck were you doing hacking into Talbot? All you had to do was ask me and I would have given you the files,” he practically growls.
I go still. Smoke wreathes around him and a flicker of flame lights in his eyes, his fury more than obvious. I envision all the priceless books and artifacts I have collected over the years consumed by fire and turned to ash.
“Frank. I don’t know anything about whatever files you’re fucking talking about.” Fuck me. If he destroys the study, I will murder him for good. I level a finger at the floor. “I didnothack into my own fucking company. Why would I?”
“Is that so?” His voice comes out low, sounding odd combined with how orange he is turning. Frank goes still as if weighing whether I’m lying or not, but finally seems to accept I am telling the truth. With his shirt sleeves pushed up, the veins in his arms and scarring around his digits and joints glow a faint vermilion from his anger on display. “Fine, say I believe you.”
“Why the fuck do your eyeballs look like basketballs? For fuck’s sake,stop it. I swear, I will take my portion and walk, you bastard.” I threaten him the only way I can as I stalk over to him, my muscles ready to rip from my clothes at a moment’s notice. I have as many shares in Talbot as he does, and he knows it just as well as I do. “You only care about the company? I will burn the fucker to the ground if you don’t calm your shit right now. Start from the beginning and tell me what happened.”
Knock. Knock. Knock.We both freeze at the sound.
“Mr. O’Doyle? I mean, Connor?” comes Whitley’s sweet voice on the other side.
Skin ripples and tears as my fingers become claws, and I dart my hand out to grip Frank’s shoulder when his eyes swivel to the door with a dark light.
“Do. Not.” I will rip his fucking heart from his chest and eat it if he so much as looks at her.
“Who is that?” he says, sniffing at the air, and rage explodes in my chest.
A low growl rumbles up my throat as a sharp burning sensation bursts in my sternum, most likely from the thought of her in Frank’s orbit. None of the employees should ever have to encounter Frank. He is a snake in sheep’s clothing and twice as deadly.
“She is none of your concern.”
He sniffs again, and I wrap my hand around his throat, baring my teeth when he grins.
“Hello?” the bastard calls out, and I punch him in the arm with my free hand—hard. She won’t be able to tell it’s not me speaking through the thick walls.
“Stop it, dickwad.”
“Sorry to bother you again, but I was wondering if I could talk to you for a moment?” Her voice is all false sugary sweetness, and I bet she’s trying to butter me up to get something after ourlast conversation. I saw how angry she was when she left, ready to implode because I can’t stop being a jerk to her for some freaking reason.
I wish I had never dragged her into any of this. Not the Dracula cosplay farce for the gala, not the dinners, none of it, because Frank is looking at me with a gleam in his eye that I don’t particularly like.
“Of course. Could I set up an appointment with you tomorrow?” I answer as professionally as I can, hoping Frank doesn’t catch the strain in my tone. Her damn scent is wafting from beneath the door, killing my senses, infuriating me, while making my traitorous dick jerk in my trousers. “I’m a little tied up at the moment.”
Frank chuckles at that, and I squeeze to cut off his voice to a wheeze.
“Sure.” I can almosthearher glare, but her quiet curse to herself is unmistakable.
“Goodnight, Miss Whitt,” I call out to her, praying for once the brat obeys.
“Goodnight,” she says softly.
I wait until I hear her footsteps back away, maintaining my glare at the orange glowing eyes across from me. Frank swats my arm away, breaking my hold, and rubs lightly at his neck. I sigh and straighten up, letting my head fall back, closing my wolfish-yellow eyes for a moment as I rein myself in.
“Well, isn’t that interesting?” he says, and his tone has me snapping my gaze back to him as he pulls at his coat, inspecting it for tears. “Who is she?”
“No one worth mentioning—and what the hell?” I stare down at my shirt that has busted a seam. “You know how much this shirt costs. You’re a fucking asshat.”
“Pick better insults already,Doyle.You’re beginning to bore me.” He runs his hands through his short blond locks, sweepingthem back from his forehead. “Someone, and I know you know who, hacked into Talbot and somehow grabbed the encrypted files that have everything the witch did, from Egypt to Cairo, and everything on Odette is on that drive.”
“Why would I know who did it? It wasn’t me,” I tell him honestly. “This is the first I have heard of it.”
“You better be telling the truth. If any of this were to get out, I don’t think I have to tell you how bad that would be for all of us,” he says, stretching his tree-trunk legs out in front of him and crossing them at the ankles.
It would be insanity. Monsters exposed to the world. So many magical rules broken in one fell swoop we would be ostracized from society once more—or worse.
