The security guy looked at her and grinned. Maybe he didn’t hate her after all. “Don’t you worry. That pissant can’t do a damn thing. This place is all legit. The Boss has some seriously fancy lawyers, and I never met so many politicians since I’ve been working here.”
Rae shook her head. “He’s my cousin. I don’t want him to be beaten any more.” Family was family, even if it was Jim Bob.
The security guy snorted. “The Boss will decide how we’re going to handle him. He seems like a garden-variety jackass to me. The Boss will get through to him, given time.” He reclined in his oversized office chair. “You just watch the Boss do his work.”
Rae watched Wulf whip her cousin, and her hands clenched around the office chair’s arms. Every time Jim Bob said something obnoxious, belligerent, or threatening, Wulf flicked the whip and let him have it again.
Why didn’t Jim Bob just shut up?
“I’m going to go ask him to stop,” she said to the security guy.
The security guy’s jubilant grin crushed her hopes. “I wouldn’t bother The Boss while he’s working. He takes his job seriously.”
On the screen, Jim Bob squealed, “I’ll call my uncles! They’ll find your dead body out in the desert! We have connections with the—Ow! Stop that you asshole!”
“That’s it.” Rae stood and rushed out of the room.
She sprinted the hallways, looking for Play Room One. The Devilhouse’s twisted passages conspired against her. What kind of drunken architect designed this office space?
She slipped around a corner, skating on those high-heeled boots, and found the back hallway for the Play Rooms. The doors were labeled Five, then Four, and she turned on a burst of speed to reach the far end of the hallway.
The gothic door for Play Room One loomed just ahead. She slammed it open and dug her heels in to stop in the dungeonesque chamber. Her eyes widened, trying to see Wulf and Jim Bob in the darkness.
Wulf glanced up, his arm cocked to deliver another vicious blow to Jim Bob’s striped back. The cold expression in his blue eyes unnerved her.
Decorum, she had to observe decorum and say this right. Her eyes were so wide that the corners hurt. “Um, Sir? May I beg a favor, Sir?”
“Of course.” Wulf unfurled his arm and lashed Jim Bob one more time. Her cousin howled like a redheaded werewolf.
Wulf strode over to her, and she held the door open for him to exit into the lobby area. After she dragged the heavy door shut behind them, Wulf stretched his whipping arm as if he had been exercising and asked, “Yes?”
“Please stop,” she pled. “Please don’t beat him any more.”
“Whyever not?”
“He really does know police and politicians, and he’s my cousin. Even if we don’t get along, I don’t want you to hurt him.”
“He was planning to rape you.”
“Oh, he would have stopped. It was just the shock, or something. And he didn’t actually rape me.”
“I do not like rapists.” His measured tone made that pronouncement all the more menacing.
“This’ll blow back on my family. Just don’t whip him any more.”
One of Wulf’s golden eyebrows rose.
Sure, he was skeptical, but Rae meant it. “Please.”
“All right. I’ll only speak to him.”
“Okay.”
“Please continue to watch from the security booth. I will defend any of my girls, but you,” he ran a finger under her jawline, sending shivers down the skin on her back, “you, I will never allow anything to happen to.”
Wulf walked back into the dungeon.
Rae trotted through the hallways back to the security booth. She trusted Wulf to keep his word, but she worried about what else he would say to Jim Bob.
Back in the swivel chair next to the Jeff the Security Guy, she watched the monitor for Play Room One, clutching her hands together.
Jim Bob was screaming at Wulf, “I’ll get you for this! My uncle is the mayor of Pirtleville, and you may not understand what that means because you’re some damned foreigner, but you’ll find out! You’ll find out!”
Wulf coiled the whip and placed it in the cleaning bin near the door. “James, I’ll be frank with you. You attempted to sexually assault one of my women.”
“She’s a bitch! She led me on! She said she wanted it! And she’s not just one of your women. She’s my cousin!”
Wulf raised his hand and continued in his nonchalant monotone. “We have video footage of that session. It was quite obvious that you were trying to rape her. Beyond that, the warehouses that your father left you, the ones at 593 D Street and 32 Bueno Gato Drive, are mortgaged for three times in excess of what they are worth, and you report only a small fraction of the exorbitant rents to your government for taxes. It seems to us that those extortionate rents from Mexican corporations conceal the true nature of the business that is conducted in those warehouses.”
“You don’t know anything! My uncle will shut you guys down!”
Rae’s fingers cramped on the chair’s arms. She asked Jeff, “How did The Dom know about Jim Bob’s warehouses?”
The security guy shrugged his massive shoulders. “Once The Boss reads something, he never forgets it.”
On the television screen, Wulf said to Rae’s cousin, “Again, you must stop making these uncivilized threats, or I shall be forced to return to our previous method of instruction.”
Jim Bob fell silent, and Rae exhaled.
“You will leave here,” Wulf told Jim Bob. “Your membership is terminated. Reagan Stone is under my protection. If you disclose these events to anyone, whether within your family or not, I will have the mortgage company call all three of your mortgages due at once and your questionable taxation practices will be examined, in depth, by your government. Do you understand?”
“Fuck you!” Jim Bob screamed.
“I’ll take that as an affirmative.” Wulf strolled over to where Jim Bob was bound spread-eagle to the X-cross. Wulf grasped Jim Bob’s jaw in his hand and forced him to look directly into his eyes.
Watching in the security booth, Rae leaned in to hear what Wulf said.
“Listen to me. Listen to me,” Wulf whispered, and his Germanic accent became guttural. “If you try to hurt her, I will utterly destroy you. I will take away everything that you own, and then I will come for you. Do you understand that?”
Jim Bob’s weak eyes were wide with shock, and he nodded.
Wulf released him by twitching Jim Bob’s face as if trying to flick dirt off. He seated himself on a wide chair and spoke to the black-clothed security guys standing beside the St. Andrew’s cross. “Lancaster, Jock, give him his clothes and show him out of the establishment.”
The two security men unwound the cords around Jim Bob’s arms and legs. When Jim Bob took a swing at one of them, the man twisted Jim Bob’s arm and frog-marched him out of the room. The other guard swiped a pile of clothes from the floor and followed. Jim Bob tripped on his leather pants, which were drooping around his ankles, and then Rae couldn’t see him on the monitor.
Wulf pulled his cell phone from his pants pocket.
Rae turned to ask a question, but Jeff the Security Guy’s malicious grin unnerved her. He said, “You think your cousin was screwed before? Watch this.” He twisted a dial on the board to increase the volume from Wulf’s dungeon.
Wulf held his cell phone up to his ear, and Rae watched through the security camera as if she were hovering on the ceiling of Play Room One.
Wulf said, “Mayor Harding. Your nephew, James Mulligan, the one you vouched for, attempted to rape one of my girls and threatened me with your influence.”
He paused, and his dry tone became derisive. “I found it less than humorous. I trust you will take care of the problem?”
After another moment, Wulf said, “Your membership remains in good standing then. Your appointment next week may proceed as scheduled.” He tapped the phone to hang it up.
In the booth,
Rae turned to the security guy. “He has my uncle on speed-dial?”
“Nah. Scrolling through contacts slows him down. He memorizes every phone number he sees. All the girls. All our clients. All our vendors. He has a freakishly good head for numbers. By the way, I’m Jeff. Head of Security.”
“Hi,” she said. “I’m Rae. I’m new here.”
He chuckled. “Yeah. I know.”
Wulf’s voice came over the speakers, “Rae, may I see you in my office?”
“You better go,” Jeff said. “The Boss does not like it when people are late.”
Rae had to ask Jeff one more question, since he seemed to be warming up to her. “Do you know The Dom’s real name?”
“Nope. No one ‘round here does. And don’t go asking. He takes his privacy real seriously.”
“How seriously?” She wanted to know just how far that shiny shell extended.
Jeff glanced at the monitor as if Wulf might hear them through the screen. “After work, he has our security guys here drive him a ways or else follow him in his car, and then they pull over, and another big, black SUV driven by other security guys escorts him the rest of the way home, I assume. We never knew why he was so paranoid, but maybe getting shot as a kid will do that to you. You didn’t tell anyone ‘bout that, right?”
Rae shook her head. “No. Not at all.”
“Good. The Boss is funny that way. I’ve known him for five years, and that was the first I’d heard of it. I didn’t even tell my wife what we saw.”
~~~~~
Keep Calm and Carry On
Wulf reached his office before Rae and sat behind his desk, flipping through bright bands of email on his phone screen.
One of Wulf’s great uncles, a German who had married an Englishwoman, had spouted the WWII-era maxim “Keep Calm and Carry On,” as if he, himself, had originated it, and Wulf allowed that phrase to cycle through his mind while he tapped his phone screen, reading the banal emails that appeared in his account every day.
The desert sun shone in the window and glared on the phone’s screen. Wulf angled the phone away so he could see the small type.
Most of the emails originated with accounting firms and detailed his and his family’s other business holdings, which he tracked. His family knew nothing of The Devilhouse. Wulf had been misled about the business model when he had become a silent partner five years ago, believing the club was meant to be a dance venue. When his old friend, an alumnus of the Swiss boarding school where Wulf had been raised, had absconded with a substantial portion of his initial investment, Wulf had taken over and had planned to manage the property until it produced a profit.
The Devilhouse had turned an excellent profit for the last three years, and yet, he still hadn’t divested himself and moved on. Perhaps a genetic weakness for extravagance and indulgence was to blame.
The second to the last email was from his father. He chatted in German about problems he was encountering in the state parliament and his Grand Prix race next week. Wulf marked it to follow up.
The last email, from his sister Flicka, concerned her wedding plans, which he skimmed. He would concoct some excuse at the last minute. From her effusive detailing of the bouquets and décor, he suspected that even she did not believe he would attend though, as always, they kept up appearances. He would visit her and Pierre sometime soon after, somewhere private.
He paused for a moment and glanced at the gardens just beyond his window. Spring flowers bloomed at the bases of the hedges. He tried to appreciate the desert spring, but rage still seethed in his head.
When Rae did a scene with another man, it perturbed Wulf.
Any attempted rape of any of his women would have been dealt with harshly.
After what Mulligan had attempted, that jackass was a lucky bastard that Wulf hadn’t lost his temper in Play Room One and flayed his mottled skin from his fat body with the signal whip.
Wulf still wanted to destroy the puny man. His hand itched to dial his mobile phone, call the state’s attorney general, another Devilhouse client, and alert him about the warehouses full of drugs in Pirtleville.
One of Wulf’s old school chums worked in US Attorney General’s office, too. Networks of Anciens Roséens reached into most governments around the world.
Wulf could crush Jim Bob Mulligan as flat as he desired.
He must control his emotions. He must not lose control. He must not send a Panzer battalion against a lone horseman.
Keep calm and carry on.
~~~~~
More Convoluted than the Plantagenets’
Rae peeked through the doorway into Wulf’s Devilhouse office. He sat behind his desk, languidly reading on his phone. Sunlight dappled him through the leaves of the garden outside his window.
She might be able to breathe if she sat in his lap and rested her cheek against his suit just one more time.
If Wulf fired her for yet another debacle session, Rae could look Lizzy in the eye while she packed to leave college. She wouldn’t have to worry about her family finding out anything because, even if Jim Bob said something, she would have been at home for a while and would have no money. No one would believe his illogical accusations.
Rae wouldn’t have to worry about her sweet, stupid dream of a clinic for autistic kids any more, either. Her planned-out life would be simpler, less stressful, and require far less effort.
Wulf glanced up from his phone and saw her peeking around the door frame. His bright blue eyes seemed calm, as always. “Come in. You may close the door behind you.”
Rae pressed the door closed with her palms and then sat in one of the chairs in front of Wulf’s desk. “I’m sorry,” she began.
Wulf waved her apologies away as if brushing away smoke in the air. “There was no way you could have known. The pseudonyms in the files are for our clients’ privacy. You should peruse the business files, which include legal names, to ensure that you are not related to any of our other clients. There is one more relative of yours here, as I’m sure you’ve figured out.”
“My uncle. The mayor.”
If she wasn’t fired, then she either had to quit or figure out some other way to stop poaching Lizzy’s guy.
“He utilizes the very vanilla side of the business.” Wulf smiled, and sympathy spread through his eyes. “I would like to apologize to you. I had forgotten that this corner of the United States has as many familial relations as certain areas of Europe.”
“Yeah,” Rae said. She held her breath with conflicted emotions and blew it out with relief. “Bloodlines around here are more convoluted than the Plantagenets’.”
Wulf’s face hardened, and he reared up behind his desk to his feet. He leaned over the glass, bracing his hands as if to vault it. Rae pushed back in her chair even though the glass desk separated them.
Wulf asked, so quietly, “I beg your pardon?”
Rae didn’t know what had set him off, but he stared at her as if she were a heretic during the Spanish Inquisition. “The Plantagenets? Like Richard the Third? Shakespeare?”
“I know who the Plantagenets are. Why did you reference them?”
“Because, you know, everyone was their own uncle. Their family tree doesn’t so much branch as tangle in upon itself.” She’d heard that phrase a thousand times growing up. “My family is the same way. Second cousins marrying each other, you know?”
Wulf straightened and adjusted his shirt cuffs under his suit jacket. He inhaled through his nose and regarded the garden outside his window for a moment. “Yes, the Plantagenet line does evince consanguinity.”
Rae picked apart that last word into con, which means same, and sang, which means blood, so he must be agreeing with her. “Right.”
Wulf sat in his office chair and rolled himself in. “The business files are in our accountant’s office,” he said, as if he had never leapt out of his chair. “You should make use of them.”
“Right,” Rae said. “Just in case I’m related to any more of the spank-and
-wankers.”
Humor returned to Wulf’s blue eyes. He adjusted his tie knot with a practiced tug. “Yes. Can’t have that.”
“You know, Wulf, maybe I shouldn’t work here.” Rae stared at her hands. She turned them over and flexed her rough fingers. She really needed to paint her nails, whether she was going to work at The Devilhouse or not. “I’m too much of a liability. I mean, girls like Lizzy and Georgie, who are both from Back East, they don’t know anyone around here. I’m connected to half the state, and they’re connected to everyone else, even politicians and police chiefs and judges and drug lords and coyotes from across the Border. I don’t want to cause trouble for you.”
“You don’t have to worry about The Devilhouse or me, Reagan.”
She looked up when he used her full name. Usually, she didn’t like it when people called her that, but Wulf tended to use more formal names, and on his lips, it sounded different, more polite.
He continued, “This establishment has special licenses from the state for its operation, and our clientele is our best asset.”
“Evidently. Man, I thought you were going to kill Jim Bob.”
“Oh, I never think about killing people.”
Rae glanced up at his icy eyes. That was a whole lot of denial for such an exaggerated cliché. It didn’t take a psychology major or a Shakespearean actor to notice that Wulf doth protest too much. However, maybe his reasoning came from having been on the wrong end of a rifle. “Um, well, I can’t believe you called Mayor Harding,” Jim Bob’s uncle and her uncle, too, “and that he comes here.”
Her family had never been on the best of terms with the Hardings, which is why Rae could never have asked them for the money for college. They would have laughed at her for her presumption, just because her mother’s sister had married one of the Harding brothers.
“Yes, and that’s another reason why you should remain employed at The Devilhouse. I told your cousin that I would protect you. If you return home, Jim Bob might not be so tractable. He might try his assault again.”
Red Hot Obsessions: Ten Contemporary Hot Alpha Male Romance Novels Boxed Set Page 185