Page 23 of Dangerous Deviance
“Excellent,” Muro reached forward and shook his hand. “I knew you had a good head on your shoulders.”
In the corner of the room, a woman was waiting. A white dress lay flat against her body, but her head was turned down, staring at the floor. Not as if she were bored, but as if she were being ordered to never make eye contact. Did Muro control her down to her eyes?
And was I any better, if I controlled exactly where Ellie went, what she wore, and who she spoke to?
Did I care?
Perhaps I did. Perhaps I didn’t. I wasn’t sure.
“You like what you see?” Muro asked.
I turned to him. “Excuse me?”
“You like women, don’t you, Wilhelm? Wait, it was Wil, right?Wil.” Muro smirked, then rubbed his chin between his fingers. “Do you like them weak or feisty?”
“Why?”
“Curious,” Muro said. “You seem rather interested in mine. Let me guess.” His eyes washed over me. “You like taking the feisty ones and ruining their spirit, knocking them down until they’ve got no choice but to take what you give them.”
I thought of the woman that had crawled out from under his desk, how he had hit the back of her head to tell her to stop sucking him off. And there was the woman in the corner, waiting for his command. She was no better off.
Was that how I was treating Ellie?
No. It couldn’t be. Ellie might have been restricted with who she could talk to, but she was able to roam my property freely.
But she wasn’t allowed to leave.
That was the way things had to be. With my family, I didn’t have much choice.
“I keep them at a distance,” I said. “Locked up. Ready to use.”
Muro smiled, a genuine one at that. “Good. That’s how it should be.”
My skin crawled at those words. I wanted to punch that smile off of his face, though I couldn’t explain why. We all shook hands, standing to signal the end of the meeting.
“I’ll have my men deliver the first shipment soon,” Muro said.
“Looking forward to it,” Derek said.
In the car, I stretched out, angling the seat backward, trying to relax before we discussed the meeting, but I couldn’t get comfortable. I clicked a button, and the seat adjusted to a sitting position. I stared out of the window at the hills rolling beside us. The whole ordeal put me on edge. There was something off about Muro, and I knew that Derek could sense it too.
“Muro is bad news,” I finally said. I angled my elbow onto the door. “Might as well start a war. That bastard isn’t out for an alliance.”
Derek kept his eyes focused on the road. The mossy green hills grew, shadowing us.
“Gerard wants us to form a bond,” he said. Not our father again. He was phoning it in, leaving all the hard parts for us to figure out. Dreaming of retirement. Derek had to know that.
“Gerard hasn’t met Muro yet,” I said.
“Gerard has been doing this for a lot longer than either of us have,” Derek said, his face turning towards me for a few seconds. “We need to respect his wishes.”
“He never had to deal with infiltrations,” I said. “Sage City has been sitting quiet for years. It’s been too easy on us, and you know it.”
“It’s been easy because of the foundation our family has laid.”
“You know Muro isn’t going to play fair.”
“Then we let him make the first move,” Derek said. His hands gripped the steering wheel, the leather crunching in his hands. “In the meantime, we protect our family.” I scowled and looked out the window, watching the green landscape turn to a dull brown as we passed through more terrain. Might as well open our gates. Invite the enemy in, and say, Take what we’ve got! We don’t care!”
