The CEO (26 page)

“Aw, did that make you jealous?”

“No. I had the hots for you first.” He smiled as he went back across the hall into his office.

I decided to go downstairs and pay Mr. Keegan a visit to see if he’d made any more progress on his shitty ‘app’.

As I approached his office, I overheard him talking about me. “She’s hot, but she really needs to lighten up. She always seems like she has a dick shoved up her ass,” he laughed.

“John, you’re absolutely right, I should lighten up,” I interrupted.

“See, I told you,” he said, nudging Frank. “Not to be disrespectful, Ms. Quinn, but ever since your brother died, you’ve been kind of a bitch.”

I politely smiled at him and nodded. Little did he know, me being a bitch was in my nature, but he was going to find out the hard way how big of a bitch I could really be.

After a long day at work, I grabbed some Indian take out before finally arriving at my condo. Lucky had messaged me before I left the office wanting to meet me urgently, so I had him meet me at my place. I could tell by the tone of his voice that he’d found out something big.

“Thanks for meeting me here, Lucky. What were you able to find out?”

“Sheila, you may want to sit down for this.”

“Why?”

“Because,” he sighed, taking in a deep breath, “what I’m about to tell you is really going to send you over the edge.”

There it was again, that feeling in the pit of my stomach, only this time, it felt much worse. I sat down on my couch and prepared for the worst. He sat down beside me and pulled his laptop out of his bag, turning it around on his lap so I could see the screen. The pictures I saw on the screen froze me in place. There was a picture of John and Keith—together and shaking hands.

“Sheila, do you know these two men?”

“Yes. John Keegan and Keith Lee, what about them?”

“Did you know that they were both con artists?”

“No I didn’t. What kind of con artists are they?”

“From what I’ve discovered, they’ve scammed hundreds of businesses out of money and real estate. They infiltrate your company, find something you really want, and once they know they can black ball you, they try to convince you that you
need
their help and watch you fail miserably. If that doesn’t work, they offer you some shitty app service attached with spyware to collect more personal data from you.”

“Are you fucking serious?”

“Unfortunately. Have you done any business with Keith at all?”

“You could say that. He was trying to take my permit for the property across the street. He wanted to take me out on a date and fuck me in some dirty hotel in order for me to keep it.”

“And I’m guessing he wasn’t successful, so he sent John in to save the day.”

“Now I know why that asshole was so eager to meet with me again: he knew his friend was already in. But I don’t understand. Keith showed up at my job first, how would he have gotten information about me if I hadn’t met John yet?”

“I have no clue, Sheila. I did find out something else though and you’re not going to like it.”

“What is it?”

“They’re brothers and they both have a lot of information on you and your family Sheila. Seems like they’ve had their eyes on you for quite some time.”

Lucky showed me a slide show full of pictures he had found of Shannon, Dad, Kieran, and myself from the thumb drive I gave him. None of us were ever pictured together, just out and about separately, which was odd. It was like they were personally stalking each of us, like some sick creepy type of paparazzi. The last picture he showed me almost caused me to punch the wall behind us. Someone had taken a photo of Keith with my brother in an alley, on the same night Kieran was trying to call me. He must have known something was up.

“That son of a bitch! They’ve fucked with the wrong woman. They took my brother from me and now they’re trying to take my company? These assholes will
never
know what hit them!”

“Sheila, whatever you need, you know I’ll take care of it. Kieran was my best friend, even though we lost touch.”

“I know. I’ll be in contact soon,” I said, giving him a kiss on the cheek.

I shut the door behind Lucky and could feel the rage building, deep down inside of me. I wanted to find John and Keith and kill them both myself, but I knew it was too risky. I knew as the CEO of a huge company that I’d run into people trying to manipulate me, take advantage, and hell, even try to seduce me. But to get my family involved and get one of them killed? That called for an act of revenge, and I would get mine.

“Thank you for inviting me over to your place, John.”

“No problem,” he said, licking his lips as he stared at my voluptuous breasts bursting out of the top of my skin-tight, revealing dress.

He slid beside me on the couch and starting kissing the side of my neck. “Wait, John, before we do this, could you get us something to drink?”

“Sure, I’ll be right back.”

I removed my coat and placed my purse down on the floor beside me. “Here you go, I’m going to run to the bathroom,” he said, placing his cup down beside mine. “Don’t move!”

As I waited for him to come back, I took a sip of the wine he’d placed on the table in front of me.

“Back, now where were we?”

“We never said cheers, and that’s awfully rude.”

“Sorry,” he said tapping his glass against mine then swallowing a huge gulp of the bubbly liquid.

He ran his hand over my cheek, pushing my hair behind my ear. Then he traced his lips from my ear down to my collar bone, sending chills down my spine. “Sheila, I don’t feel right.”

“What’s wrong?” I said pulling his bottom lip into my mouth with my teeth.

“I—don’t—know.”

“Maybe you should lie down and let me take over.”

He lay back on the couch and I unbuttoned his shirt, revealing his toned tight abs and hairless chest. I kissed his lips and ran a trail of kisses all the way down to the bulge in his pants. I unzipped his pants and slid the head of his cock into my mouth. “You sure have a beautiful cock, John. Too bad this will be the last time anyone is near it ever again, you son of a bitch!”

“What do you mean?” he said, trying to move but couldn’t.

“You fucked with the wrong family. I know that you and Keith are brothers and were working with Ashley Vaughn to try and fuck me over.”

“What are you talking about?”

“It was no coincidence that you found me in the bar that night. You were following me. And your brother gave my druggy brother his final hit before he ended up in the hospital. Now I know why he was calling me so much: he knew I was in danger.”

His eyes were starting to glaze over and his speech was becoming inaudible. “What’s the matter John? Cat got your tongue?”

I grabbed his cheek and slapped the shit out of it, then I texted Lucky the address so he could come over and take care of the problem for me.

I watched John closely as he tried to mouth words, but no sound was coming out. It gave me great pleasure watching him suffer like this, just like I was sure he got pleasure knowing my brother suffered.

There was a light knock on the door and I looked out the peephole before opening it, just in case it wasn’t Lucky. “Thanks for getting here so quickly, he’s nice and sedated for you,” I said, placing one last kiss on John’s lips before I let Lucky take over.

“Thanks.” I watched as Lucky pulled a black case out of his bag that was full of syringes.

“Hello, John, my name is Lucky and I’ll be taking care of you tonight.” I watched as Lucky stuck him in the leg with one of the syringes and John’s pupils dilated. He seemed to be more alert and focused, but he still couldn’t move or say anything.

“What did you give him?”

“A special concoction I made. It keeps them alert, but still has a high dose of sedative so they can’t move. I want him to know what I’m doing even though he won’t feel it…at least not at first…”

John’s eyes widened when he fully comprehended what Lucky had said. Lucky pulled out another case full of scalpels and other medical equipment with a look of pure joy on his face.

I stood by the door and watched as Lucky removed John’s pants and sliced thin pieces of skin off of his leg and placed them in a plastic bag. John didn’t move at all, but the fear was written all over his face. I felt completely numb inside watching the dismemberment.

“I’m going to go now, make sure you clean up this mess. I don’t want it linked back to me, Lucky.”

“Will do, Ms. Quinn.”

I’d do whatever it took to keep my family and business safe. I’d lost my brother due to my own negligence and I would never forget it. Keith Lee was going to learn the hard way that he had fucked with the wrong woman. I would
personally
make sure he
never
forgot the bullshit he put my family through.
I lost my brother and now he will too.

The day of John’s funeral, I had to pretend to show sympathy for his family and mourn the loss of the employee that had tried to fuck me over. I dug deep inside myself to find a time where I’d experienced nothing but sadness, and that was when my mom died. I felt the heat from my tears sting my eyes and knew it was game time.

Keith was bawling his eyes out reading his brother’s eulogy. He looked so pathetic and I wished I could have killed him too, but watching him suffer was much more fulfilling.

The service and burial were short and sweet and as the preacher finished his speech, I tossed a flower on John’s casket as they lowered it into the ground and left. I called Ryan to ask if he was ready for our trip and he didn’t answer, which was strange.

I rushed home to change out of my drab black pant suit and into something more fun: a black see-through lace top and some capris. I needed to get away from this world and go somewhere where there would be lots of sun and less death and paperwork.

I’d booked a trip for Ryan and me to the Virgin Islands. As my limo arrived in front of my condo, I tossed my bags on the porch and the driver retrieved them.

I gave myself a final onceover before I locked up my apartment and tried to call Ryan again. He didn’t answer, but the limo was headed to his place next.

The driver honked the horn twice after two more failed phone calls. Finally, the door popped open and Ryan didn’t seem quite like himself. He wouldn’t let the driver take his things and appeared to be upset and on edge. He let himself into the car after dumping his bags in the trunk and told the driver to piss off.

“Ryan, are you all right?”

“Yeah, just a sad day, I’m ready to get drunk on the beach and forget all about it.”

We arrived at Logan airport and had to catch a short flight to New York City for our connecting flight straight to the Virgin Islands.