I feel my panic escalating. This isn’t how this was supposed to have gone, it’s an outcome I hadn’t prepared for. Sorrento would be furious with me for screwing up.
“I’ll be in my office,” Ethan tells the men.
Keeping his hand tight around my throat, he twists his wrist and turns me to face him. His eyes burn with a sinister light when they meet with mine, and the tension in his jaw is prominent, even beneath his facial hair.
“You are going to walk with me calmly,” he instructs.
“We are going back through that door, into my office. And you will do nothing to draw attention to yourself, do you understand me?”
I nod my head, then once he releases my throat I fight to draw in the huge breath my chest has been starved of.
Automatically, my hand touches to the place where he held me. Ethan hasn’t been the first man to hold me by my throat, Sorrento threatened me the same way only a few months ago. But it had a very different effect on me.
Where Sorrento’s touch had chilled my bones, and frozen me rigid. Ethan’s sent a heat surging through my blood, scorching me from the inside out.
He reeks of danger in the same way Sorrento does, and I predict that he intends to hurt me. But, strangely, none of that stops me craving his hands on me again.
My bones feel like they might crack under his grip when he snatches my wrist and drags me back through the front door. He pauses, smiling politely as a group of people move past us, all their faces confused as they’re ushered out by the man he’d called Joel.
With a quick check over his shoulder, Ethan opens the door to his office and roughly pushes me inside.
It’s almost as cold in this room as it is outside. The sash window they’d used to make their escape still standing wide open. I flinch when the door slams shut behind me and the lock clicks.
“Sit.” Ethan’s voice cuts from behind me, and without hesitation I do as he asks, dropping into the chair opposite his desk.
I try to stop, but my eyes automatically roam to the wall. I know what we’d come here to take, and where to find it. We’d been briefed by one of Sorrento’s henchmen, and I’m relieved to see that the space on the wall where the mounted butterfly had hung is now empty. It confirms that the others have been successful, maybe Sorrento won't be so mad after all.
Who am I kidding?
I’d seen the picture of Ethan in his office, with the rare specimen displayed proudly in the background.
Apparently, that one dead butterfly is worth a small fortune, and at this point, I suspect it might be worth my life too.
Ethan slams the window shut, then moves into the space in front of me. His ass resting on the front of his desk, as he loosens his tie. He rubs his hand over his jaw and tilts his head as if trying to read into my thoughts.
“I’m sorr…” I start. But his eyes tighten, and his head shakes, pausing me mid-sentence.
“You speak when I tell you to speak.” His eyebrows furrow. “Who were those people?”
“I don’t know their names, but they all work for…” I stop myself, unsure if continuing is a good idea. If by some miracle I ever get out of this mess, Sorrento would surely hunt me down and kill me if he found out I told.
“I know who they fuckin work for,” Ethan tells me impatiently. “I’m asking you who they are.”
How could he know?
“I’m sorry, I don’t know much about them. One guy, his name is Rick, he’s kinda in charge of us,” I blurt out.
When a knock at the door sounds, my body jolts nervously.
“Boss, it’s me,” a voice calls from the other side and Ethan moves to unlock the door. Leaving it shut, he walks back passed me to sit at his desk.
“Come in,” he calls out, and one of the security guys step inside.
“All the cameras were hacked, boss. There's nothing. Joel’s just seeing out the last of the guests, then we’ll do a full sweep.”
Ethan nods slowly, I can see how pissed he is.
“Do you want me to contact the police, sir?”
