Billion Dollar Bad Boy (Big City Billionaires #1)

by Nora Flite

  In the eerie waiting room, the water cooler bubbled in near darkness. A reddish light by the hallway was the only illumination I had. When I entered the room full of computers, they were all glowing blue. Shielding my eyes, I lifted my chin. There was a rattling sound, wood banging over and over. “Florian?” I asked, spotting him at the top of the stairs to Silver's office.

  He spun, his eyes flashing like a raccoon's in the dark. “What are you doing back here?” he asked me, wiping his face.

  “My phone,” I said, climbing the steps to join him. “It's still in his office. I really need it.”

  “Well, good fucking luck,” he groaned. “The door's locked, and Keswick has the only key.”

  The grip of depression started to strangle me. It didn't get far before I remembered what Silver had given me two weeks back. Unzipping my purse, I slid out the spare keys. “One of these might work.” He said he'd never let me think I couldn't reach him.

  The memory of his promise cut through me.

  Florian's eyebrows flew to the top of his scalp. “Thank fucking goodness! I didn't know what I was going to do.”

  It took a few seconds, but one of the keys clicked perfectly in the lock. Jiggling the door open, I flicked on the nearest lamp. “What were you trying to get in here for?” I asked, scanning the rug frantically. “Paperwork or something?”

  Florian ignored me, dropping into Silver's chair. The computer 'beeped' on, his fingers flying over the keyboard.

  Crouching, I spotted my cellphone under the couch in the corner. The weight of it in my hand was a relief. Turning it on, I scanned the messages Silver had sent me overnight.

  Silver: There's so much I want to tell you.

  Silver: So much I want to do with you.

  Silver: I want forever.

  Silver: I love you, Pet.

  Each of them cemented my desire to free him. Living without that man felt impossible.

  “Alright,” I said, standing to acknowledge Florian. “I'm going. I need to get to the police station right away.”

  He looked up at me briefly. “Yeah, yeah. I've gotta finish some stuff real quick. Say hello to the government cocks for me.”

  He'd said that earlier, too. Was that why it was familiar? No, I told myself. I've heard that before, but when?

  Rounding the desk, I meant to ask him where he'd heard that phrase. The brightness of the computer screen drew me in like a moth. Several pop-ups were open, numbers flying as fast as Florian's fingers. What looked like timers were counting down. “What the fuck?” I whispered automatically. “What are you doing?”

  He glanced at me, then away. “Nothing, work stuff. Go help Keswick.”

  In a black box, white code tumbled by in a waterfall of gibberish. I knew exactly where I'd seen that all before.

  Silver spoons for some, government cocks for everyone else.

  Cupping a hand over my mouth, I bit back a shout. Detective Roose! He'd shown me that phrase mixed in with some cryptic computer vomit in our first interview. He'd called it the hacker's calling card, he...

  Florian glanced at me, his fingers pausing on the keys. My horrified face must have given me away. “Shit,” he said.

  Backing up a step, I lifted my hands in front of me. “It was you!” Ripping my phone out, I went to dial for help.

  Florian jumped up in a panic, knocking my phone away from me. “Shit,” he said again, his hands up in the air like mine. We must have looked ridiculous.

  I moved first, scrambling to get the phone where it had fallen. Florian was all arms, wrapping me up, his palm pushing my cheek to the rug. “Let me go!” I shouted, struggling madly. The phone was inches away from me. I have to call the cops!

  “No one was supposed to find out!” Breathing heavily, he sat on my back. His knee stabbed between my shoulder blades painfully. “Fuck, fuck! Just stay down, I need to stop this!”

  Stop what, stop me? I didn't know what he was talking about, but I wasn't going to stay down. I reached back and dug my nails into his ankle. His scream was satisfying.

  Florian rocked off of me, enough that I could give myself rug burn as I crawled forward. I grabbed for my phone; Florian shoved me with everything he had, my chest bouncing off of the floor.

  The wind was kicked out of me, I gaped soundlessly as I rolled on my side. Panting, he stood over me and kicked my phone into the far corner by the door. Coiling his fingers in my hair, he wrenched me back. My scream was a mere whine, I could barely breathe.

  Twisting me into a choke-hold with one arm, Florian yanked me towards the desk. This new angle let me see the screen again. One of the timers was blinking, a red warning that said 'two minutes.'

  “Dammit!” he shouted, dropping me on the floor. I hunched there, working to fill my lungs, my gasps ragged. Over my head, I heard him tapping on the keyboard. “Gotta stop it, gotta, fuuuck.”

  The timer, I realized through my daze. He's worried about the timer. I didn't know why, but if he was scared of it going off, then I wanted it to happen.

  His scrawny legs hung over me. Bunching my muscles, I pulled my knees to my stomach and then kicked them out. Florian toppled, slipping against the rolling chair as he collapsed to the rug. “Augh!” he shouted.

  Dizzy, I grabbed the desk's ledge, using it to stand. My phone looked miles away, but I took it step by step. Behind me, he snarled a nonsense sentence of swears and hatred.

  Move, get the phone!

  One leg gave out, but I landed in arm's length. Snatching my cell, I frantically dialed, rolling to watch Florian looming over me. He was an avalanche, and I had a few mere seconds to speak.

  Vermont picked up instantly, his voice clipped. “What now, Alexis? I'm on my way—”

  “It wasn't him!”

  “Huh? What are you talking about?”

  Leaning into the phone, I started to shriek. “It's not Silver—not Keswick! It was Florian!”

  “Who the hell is Florian?”

  The hacker cracked his fist into my ear. Every color in existence spun in my vision, and I noticed I was looking up at the ceiling.

  “You little bitch!” Dropping the phone, he crushed it under his heel. “You really wanted to ruin everything, didn't you?”

  The computer made a tiny clicking sound. Florian froze where he was, his face turning ghostly white. I knew that noise was a good noise.

  Whirling, he ran for the desk. Slamming his palms on either side of the keyboard, he boggled at the screen. The blue light made his face alien. “No! No no no!” Pounding the keys, he scraped his nails over his temples. I'd never seen a person so unhinged.

  I did it, the timer went off.

  His stare flicked to me, and my joy melted.

  “I hope it was worth it.” He stalked towards me around the desk. “Ruining my alibi is the last thing you'll do on this damn Earth.”

  Once, five years ago, I'd known the fear of death. It had clung to me the moment Silver had put a gun to my head. Watching Florian approach should have locked me down like that first time.

  But I wasn't that girl anymore.

  Instead of crumbling into a shaking pile, I forced myself to run for the door. He was breathing down my neck. Wind grazed my elbow; he'd moved to catch me.

  I was already bolting down the stairs.

  “Get back here!” he screamed behind me.

  Taking a hard turn, I plowed around a corner. The throbbing in my head was making me ill. When I burst into a room full of brightly colored sex toys on display, dread became my new companion. This was where I'd been with Silver last night. It wasn't the exit.

  In my panic, I'd taken a wrong turn.

  His shoes stampeded behind me on the hard floor. Low grunts made him sound like a dragon that planned to eat me alive. I didn't know the full weight of what I'd done to Florian, but he was furious. Deadly.

  With a final growl, he shoved into me before I could run again. Toppling against the table, I sent vibrators and other items crumbling to the floor around me.<
br />
  This is it, I thought in wonder. This is how I die.

  My eyes blurred, focusing on the texture of the tiles in front of me. The scuffling shoes of my attacker approached, echoing like thunder claps. I can't give up. What a strong, useless thought. I was fighting tooth and nail, and still, Florian had broken me down.

  But I wasn't done.

  Not yet.

  “I'll kill you,” he huffed, finger-tips digging into my shoulder. “I never planned to hurt anyone, but fuck if you haven't changed that, you dumb bitch.”

  Spinning, I swung at his temple with the full strength of every bad thing that had ever happened to me behind it. The edge of the heavy metal base on the toy cut into his skin, colliding off of his skull.

  Florian toppled to the ground in a giant heap.

  Breathing in great swallows of air, I stared down at him savagely. My grip on the big red dildo was bone-white. I'd done it. I'd actually done it. For the first time in my life, I'd faced down someone trying to hurt me...

  And I'd won.

  “Here,” I mumbled, tossing the toy so that it bounced off of his temple. “Have one of those cocks you won't shut up about.”

  “Alexis!”

  Whipping my eyes up, I stared in disbelief. The man I loved, his hands bound by metal cuffs, was coming my way in a hurry. Did I have a concussion?

  “Silver?” I asked, swaying on my feet.

  Impossibly fast he crossed the room, catching me in spite of his bound hands. “Pet!” he growled, cradling me where he knelt. “Are you alright?”

  Blinking, I reached up to touch his cheek. “How are you here?”

  Pushing his hips to my forehead, he embraced me furiously. “You can thank your friend over there for that.”

  Vermont approached Florian. Another pair of officers entered the room, bending over the fallen man. Their loud chattering said his injuries were mild. I'd hit him as hard as I could, but he wasn't in critical health.

  Sensing my stare, Vermont looked at me. His ears were glowing red; the pen was tugged free, waving between his knuckles. “Your guy there wouldn't shut the hell up about us turning around once he heard you on the phone with me. I thought he was going to smash his face through the damn window just to get here.”

  My chin swung like a pendulum. “How did you know where I was?”

  “You tripped the alarm,” Silver said. “I heard it go off in my pocket.” Briefly, he glared at the detective. “I told him something was wrong, to check my phone and see the cameras, but he ignored me.”

  Vermont shrugged uncomfortably. “I thought he was looking for a way out.”

  From the corner of my vision, I saw them cuffing Florian and pulling him to his feet. He was groggy, his head lolling. Still watching him, I spoke softly to Silver. “You got here so fast.”

  He cupped my cheeks, tenderly feeling the swelling above my eye. “We were still on the road when we turned around.”

  Vermont crouched beside Silver, reaching for his wrists. “Let me get these off, they're pointless now.” The cuffs slid free, and while I saw his skin was raw from struggling, Silver didn't bother checking out his injuries. He was too busy fixating on mine.

  “He could have killed you,” Silver whispered hotly. His hands held me tighter, there was a good chance he'd never let me go. “Why would you put yourself in danger like that for me?”

  I ran the pad of my thumb across his brow, then down to the dip of his cheekbone. “When you're in love, you stop caring about the risks.”

  Silver looked down at me with his mouth fixed in a perfect line. I had a minute of feeling ridiculous. Had I really said that?

  Burying my worries with his lips, the man I loved... the man I trusted... kissed me until I knew nothing but that moment. There was no pain, no fear, no torment. All that existed was the two of us wrapped together.

  What more could I ever need?

  - Epilogue -

  Silver

  The next few days were a funny blur.

  Florian was, of course, charged with hacking the security systems of all the banks. Even Old Stone, a crime that belonged entirely to me. I didn't mind; it meant I could finally stop looking over my shoulder.

  It was hard to feel sympathy for my old friend. He'd intended to let me take the fall for every robbery. The automatic system he'd buried in my computer was set on a timer. It would hack each bank one by one, tucking the money safely away in encrypted bits in overseas accounts.

  Every bit of evidence would point to me.

  But then, I'd been arrested before he'd expected me to be. And the next timer was too soon, if it went off, it would make it harder to prove I'd done everything—because I was in cuffs at the time.

  He probably could have said I'd been using an auto-timed system, but his fingers were all over the code, the damn calling card. He'd been too cocky... he always had been.

  At some point, he'd found the old code I'd used years ago to hack Old Stone. I think it must have been around the time he'd found some old designs of mine, or perhaps that had all been a ploy to dig through my files. It didn't matter.

  He'd found the trail of my actions, and then he'd refined my program. I always said he was a genius. He was also dead to me.

  I'd never forgive anyone that hurt Alexis.

  And that was why I had no qualms handing all the evidence on my computer over to Detective Roose. And why I had no problem tweaking the code to remove any hint that I'd ever touched it in the past.

  Florian could have all the credit.

  I just wanted her.

  ****

  “Now, don't be too impressed,” she said, setting the casserole dish on the table between us. “I make a pretty good macaroni and cheese bake. Not bragging.”

  Chuckling, I folded my hands in front of me. It was the first time Alexis had let me into her home, a fact I'd brought up to her several times. Apparently, after being exposed to my own place, she'd been too nervous to show me where she lived.

  How could she not realize that anyplace she was, was worth more than the most luxurious house in existence?

  Waving steam away with an oven mitt, she beamed. “Look good?”

  Squinting at the bright orange cheesy pile, I smiled. “Smells good.”

  “Then dig in!”

  We ate with occasional laughter, and the occasional fidgeting on her part. I had no control when it came to touching her leg under the table. When our plates were cleared, she poured us some wine.

  Sipping the tangy drink, I nodded at her. “Thanks for making us dinner.”

  “Oh, it was nothing.” She squeezed the glass tight. “I still don't know why you were so insistent on coming here. Wouldn't dinner at a fancy restaurant be nicer?”

  “Maybe,” I said, feeling inside my pocket. “But I suspect you'd prefer privacy?”

  Alexis crinkled her mouth. “For what?”

  Gently, I slid the soft, black box across the table. It bumped her elbow, she nearly spilled her drink as she sat back in surprise. “What's this?” she asked, her palm cradling the box.

  My smile was sly.

  Setting her wine aside, she carefully opened it. Her eyes flashed between the gift, then me, then back again. “How?”

  I was overjoyed with her reaction. “I don't think the pawn shop owner was expecting to sell those to someone just an hour after he'd bought them.”

  Alexis lifted the earrings, the emerald depths stretching for miles in the light. Twisting them, she touched the silver edges in wonderment. “I didn't think I'd ever see them again.”

  I didn't mention that I was glad she didn't throw them away when the post office worker tried to give them to her. I'd had to go retrieve the gift from him myself.

  Curling my fingers around her wrist, I urged her closer. One by one, I clipped the earrings into place onto the perfect shells of her ears.

  “How do they look?” she asked, cupping one.

  “Much nicer than they did in a glass case.”

  The
fringe of her smile started to fade. “You hung onto these for weeks, why give them to me now?”

  “Well,” I said, bending my knee to the floor. My insides flipped with how wide her eyes became, and the “o” shape of her mouth flushed me with desire. “I wanted to make sure that they matched perfectly with this.”

  Withdrawing the ring from my pocket, I held it between us. The silver metal glinted, green emeralds made nearly black by the clarity of the diamond between them.

  “Silver...” She whispered my name like a prayer.

  Taking her left hand, I teased my fingers over her palm. “Marry me, Alexis. Come with me to LA and let me give you the life I stole. You wanted the big city dream, you wanted to explore your career and find who you were. Do that with me a your side. With me... as your husband.”

  Alexis—my beautiful woman, my perfect pet—jumped to her feet. The chair fell over, clattering on her scuffed kitchen floors. My heart sank into the deepest part of my being. Is she going to say no?

  Her whole arm trembled when she lifted it. I still held the ring, but I thought she was imagining it on her bare finger. “What about your company here?”

  “I can find someone to run it. I said before, I own others. I'll even open a new one in Los Angeles, you can design outfits for it—whatever you want.”

  “And you think that will help me find out who I really am?”

  Fuck, I could feel my pulse all the way in my throat. “I do. And if not, I'll find out what will, and give you that.”

  “Stop,” she said firmly. Leveling her eyes on me, she blinked as if she'd never seen me before. “Marriage, a dream career I gave up on forever ago? You don't need to do any of that for me. I might have missed out on the life I'd planned... but I already know who I am.”

  Leaning closer, I stared up at her. “Then tell me.”

  Alexis collapsed forward, a force that was soft as spring wind and as solid as an oak tree. Cradling my jaw, she pressed her nose to mine. “I'm yours,” she whispered. “That's plenty enough for me.”

  Shutting my eyes, I breathed inward. She's mine. Forever mine.

  “But,” she said, glancing down at the ring I held. “If it's no difference to you, I think I could handle being your wife, too.”