Page 96 of Brutal
“Fuck me,” I mutter. “What the fuck are you two doing here? I’m… busy.”
“You’re about to be,” Chase says. He pulls on my wrist, and he’s surprisingly strong for a guy two inches shorter than me. “Get up. You need to tell us what’s going on so we can deal with it.”
I sit up with another groan. “Come on, Chase. Just fuck off already. It’s too late to do anything about this shit. This little conspiracy has been going on for months already.”
“What conspiracy?” Chase asks. “I helped with the IPO contract. They shouldn’t be able to vote you out unless…” His grip loosens. “Did you do something stupid, Drake?”
“I always do stupid shit,” I tell him. “That’s nothing new.”
Hunter is silently looking around the bedroom. His eyes land on the cage, and he asks, “What did you do with your girl?”
I start laughing. “What did… I let her go. Grew a conscience or whatever. She’s probably down at the police station turning me in at this very moment.”
Chase groans loudly. “Now? You let her go now?”
“So much for being above it all,” Hunter mutters. He goes into my bathroom, and I have no idea what he’s doing until he comes back out with a white pill bottle in hand. “What was in this?”
“Jesus, what is this? An intervention?” I complain. “I don’t fucking know. But I got cut off from whatever it was. Maybe he’s the snitch. Maybe that’s the final straw they needed. They’ve never fucking liked me. You know that. They’ve been just looking for an excuse to fire me from my own fucking company.” I shake my head and immediately wish I hadn’t. “I don’t know what they have on me, all right?”
Chase sits down at the edge of the bed and shakes his head. “Okay. So, you’re either high, drunk, in withdrawal, or all three at once. Some of the board members are conspiring to get rid of you—and they know well enough to keep me and Hunter out of the meeting entirely. You let your girlfriend leave you so you’d be in an even worse emotional state, and?—”
“She’s not my fucking girlfriend!” I shout, the wave of rage and nausea almost too much to stand. “She fucking hates me, man. She’s just a cold little bitch who played me. I didn’t need her around to?—”
To see me fall apart.
To see me lose everything.
Hunter rolls his eyes. “You were concerned enough to call me in when her feet got infected.”
I scowl at him, but as usual, he doesn’t look remotely perturbed.
“And May said she felt sorry for her because she clearly didn’t know yet what an asshole you were,” Chase adds. His lips twitch. “She probably knew, but she didn’t want to tell May because of some sense of loyalty.”
“Loyalty?” I sputter. “To who? The Pope? Because it sure as fuck wasn’t to me.”
“So you think she was in on it?” Hunter asks coldly. “Because if yes, we can find her and make her, at least, regret everything.”
The idea of Mimosa at Hunter’s questionable mercy makes another wave of nausea swell. “No. Don’t fucking touch her. Mimi hasn’t done anything. It was Caroline. She’s been fucking with my appointments. Encouraged me to go on vacation, and I didn’t even…” I wish there was something to punch that wasn’t Chase or Hunter. “I should’ve seen this coming.”
“Caroline?” Hunter asks.
“His executive assistant.” Chase shakes his head. “She couldn’t have orchestrated it all, Drake. It’ll have been some of the board members. If they have evidence of misconduct, they can present that and call for a vote to remove you. They might even have a replacement in mind already. That’d expedite things.”
“If he shows up like that, it’ll be plenty of evidence,” Hunter points out. “Does your Piña Colada have an address, or a phone number?” He picks up my phone from the nightstand, powering it on.
I blink at him, baffled. “What are you talking about?”
“Mimosa,” Chase says, sounding exasperated now.
I sit up straighter. “You won’t fucking go near her,” I snap.
Why am I being so protective of her? She wouldn’t do the same for me.
Hunter gives me one of his icy looks. “I see how ‘done’ with her you are. That’s also why you have a fucking app on your phone tracking her location and all her purchases. She apparently bought groceries for one hundred and sixteen dollars today.”
“I haven’t deleted it yet,” I mumble. “Give that to me. How’d you even get into it?” I reach for my phone, but Hunter keeps it away from me.
“You haven’t changed the passcode in fifteen years,” Hunter answers. “And I remember how often I had to use your phone to call you a cab at university.”