"I'm Aiden Hart's secretary!" I shrieked over the phone. "Calm down, Charlie. It can't be that bad." I heard amusement in Emily's voice. My roommate's attitude did nothing to soothe my nerves. "It's not bad; it's a disaster!" I convinced. "I can't work for someone as hot as him! I can't breathe around him!" I might have been on the verge of a panic attack. I was supposed to work for his father, the well-respected sixty-eight-year-old Alexander Hart, not his youngest son! This wasn't what I agreed to! Less than a month ago, my dear friend died while working at Hart Global Corporation as the CEO's secretary. Now, I was about to replace her while investigating the truth behind her death. I thought I was prepared to enter the snake's nest, but I clearly underestimated the enemy… Aiden Hart was the purest embodiment of my sexual fantasies, and believe me, after four sexless years, I had more than too many of them twirling inside my brain. Every day, I found my boss more and more alluring, and I could only protect my weak heart by repeating my newly created mantra... "Don't fall for Mr. Hart... Don't fall for Mr. Hart... Don't fall for Mr. Hart."
View MoreSix months later I shifted slightly and felt the pair of strong arms tighten around me. A smile formed on my lips, and I debated whether or not I should open my eyes. A gentle kiss caressed the nape of my neck, and another landed on the side, an inch away from my pulse. A pleasant shiver coursed through my body, and my smile widened. The plush lips moved lower, leaving a searing trail leading to the crook of my neck. I gasped and heard the deep chuckle rumbling in his chest. I would never get tired of this. It was my favorite way to wake up. Twisting my body slowly, I turned around without freeing myself from Aiden's embrace until I could dive into the perfect blue of his irises. "I love you," I whispered. His lips were on mine in less than a second. His tongue darted out, expertly entering me with lush licks. He pushed me to my back, knocking the air out of my lungs as he moved on top of me. "You wear too many clothes," he grunted, breaking the kiss. I raised a brow. "I wear a nig
CHARLIEThirty minutes earlierA series of scorching, shallow breaths scratched my throat and windpipe, barely touching my lungs. I definitely wasn't as strong as Kastor said I was. I felt as if I could break apart at any second, and it apparently didn't take much to break me. Leaving me alone, chained to the bed for hours, was more than enough for panic to burst out. I couldn't stand waiting for the unknown, waiting to be raped, beaten, strangled, or God knew what else with no way to defend myself, no way to escape...My mouth was dry, and my stomach growled. The adrenaline kept my system satiated, but now even the hormones weren't enough to restrain my body's natural needs. I was so damn tired and terrified, I could imagine myself begging to be freed. The helplessness I felt was able to easily drive me to insanity.The brief relief that came with Kastor leaving the room just after Christopher's corpse had been removed was long gone. Now I kept staring a
AIDENMy father had another stroke. He heard about Christopher's betrayal and his crimes. It surely must have been a massive blow for him. My mother spent most of the time by his bed, and for the first time, I regretted that I couldn't be there too, but there were other, important issues I needed to take care of first.Hart Global Corporation was going down. The news about our warehouses being basically robbed and the frequent shipment to the sponsoring terrorism countries spread faster than a bolt of lightning. The bankruptcy was unavoidable, but I had no time to explain to the shareholders why my half-brother decided to screw them all over and disappear. The fact that people expected me to stand before them and apologize seriously pissed me off, but as the still-acting CEO of the dying company, I was obligated to make an official statement.I should have been elsewhere. I should have been looking for Charlie, but currently, I was about to become a source of entertainment for a large
I spent several hours alone in that windowless room, chained to the wall. Perhaps it was nighttime, but since I had no way to check, I could only judge by the fewer sounds coming through the steel door. Dominique's body had been taken away, but the sickening puddle of his blood on the concrete remained. I could only see the place where I was locked properly once Landon was gone, and even if this place was terrifying, I was relieved when everyone left, locking me in here alone. My prison was a hall, resembling the middle-sized space of an empty warehouse. Since everything inside smelled like a decaying basement, I guessed I had to be somewhere underground. My disgusting space was illuminated by several loosely hanging lightbulbs, giving merely a dim light in a few seemingly random parts of the room, leaving more than a couple of square feet sunk in the darkness. It didn't take long for my mind to craft all kinds of horrifying scenarios as I imagined what or who could be lur
*TRIGGER WARNING* The final paragraphs of this chapter contain a description of violence and physical torture.CHARLIEMy head hurt so much that I was afraid that if I opened my eyes, it might explode. My consciousness returned slowly, and a new wave of different pain reached me just several heartbeats later. I was lying on something hard. There were rough and heavy cuffs around my wrists and ankles. My feet were bare, and I was shivering from the cold. As I inhaled through my nose, I sensed something moist and rotting in the air, which made me scared to open my eyes even more.A not-so-distant rustling sound signaled someone's presence. Someone was watching me. I squeezed in a breath that came out more audible than I expected and opened my eyes. The dark, rusty-metal-like ceiling was the first thing I saw. My "bed" was made of wooden boxes that formed a row next to a dirty, black wall. The thick cuffs on my wrists and ankles were chained to a large ring, sticking out a few inches abo
AIDEN I was making my fourth mental note to punch that Murray fucker as soon as this was all over. He insisted on keeping my detainee status, so I was currently cuffed and sitting in the backseat of his car instead of driving mine at full speed. "You're OK in there?" Murray asked, and I could clearly see the smug smirk in the rearview mirror. Deller was sitting in the front passenger's seat, and, fortunately, he turned out to be more rational than his asshole partner. "Not OK at all," I hissed. "You're too slow, and perhaps you're still not aware, but there are lives on the line!" "We're doing our best, Mr. Hart." Deller glanced at me, twisting his head over his shoulder. "We still need to follow the rules, and we can't just—" "Screw the rules!" I snapped. "Those people we're against follow no rules except for the ones they create! If something happened to Charlie because we were too slow, then I swear to God—" "Shut your mouth, Hart!" Murray roared. "Don't you dare say a word ab
CHARLIESixty minutes earlierI forced myself to stop crying. I had no time to shed more tears. I needed to focus. Forcing air into my lungs, I stretched my tightened ribcage. Every inch of my insides burned, but I ground my teeth and willed my hand to lower over Kevin's cold body.I closed his lifeless eyes. It might have been the hardest thing I had ever done, but I had to. I felt like he died because of me. I brought this upon him. I pulled him into this mess. He agreed to be a part of it, but he didn't have to. It was my war, and this time I couldn't save him. I wasn't his super-girl; I was the one who had come too late and let him die.I sucked another breath that seemed too shallow and groaned. "Focus, Charlie, focus!" I pulled the phone out of my jeans pocket and cursed. The battery died. I was too absorbed in everything that had happened to notice it...I looked around and saw Kevin's cell phone lying on the floor. Faint slivers of rationality seeped through, causing me to be
AIDEN I had spent three hours in custody before that asshole, Murray, decided to bring me into the interrogation room. My hands were cuffed, and I was left in those cute bracelets for another hour before my lawyer showed up and demanded to take them off my hands. For the next fifteen or more minutes, Chandler and I were left in that room alone. Fuckers. So much for client-lawyer confidentiality. Luckily, I had nothing to hide, well, almost nothing to hide. Chandler scanned the room, a displeased grimace forming on his mouth. I couldn't blame him. Two cameras were hanging from the ceiling, gaping at us from two opposite corners with their red lights. The large one-way mirror also carried the promise of no privacy. "If anything you did is questionably legal, I suggest you keep your mouth shut," he grunted. I gave him a look. "If you want to know whether you're about to defend a guilty man, then my answer is no. Truthfully, I have no idea what the FBI was looking for or why. And yes,
CHARLIE Feeling a little paranoid, I hid in the toilet until the truck was gone, as if the driver could recognize me and drag me back into that box with machine guns. As soon as I assured myself that the coast was clear, I began to analyze my situation. I was at the gas station right outside Greenwich, Connecticut. My phone was dead—not like battery-dead but literally dead-gone-dead. It seemed like all its circuits had burned out, just like it had happened to my earpiece. Luckily, my wallet didn't suffer, and my credit cards were still in place. I drew a deep breath and stared at the mirror. I looked like I had run a marathon on heels during a desert storm. It took me fifteen or more minutes before I resembled a human being. I washed the dirt off my face and combed my hair using my fingers. I still looked like shit, but I had more urgent matters than improving my looks. I asked the clerk at the station if I could use his phone and called Kevin. He didn't answer. My stomach twisted s
Countless all-nighters spent by the books, countless hours spent on learning law, economy, and politics, and here I was—sitting on a freaking tree in the middle of the night. After years of dreaming of becoming an investigative journalist, I—Charlotte Madison—was now forced to turn into a pervert while hunting for scandalous pictures of the new-rising actress Angelica Butterfly. She was suspected of dating congressmen, and getting a picture of her and any known politician was my current assignment. It was the hot stuff that my editor-in-chief would kill for, and he would definitely kill me if I didn't get him what he wanted. Certainly, this so-called assignment was wrong in more ways than I could count, not to mention that I was violating close to a dozen legal rules. Unfortunately, for my bosses at the Bombshell News—one of the worst New York tabloids—the law was meaningless while sales meant everything. Since I sucked at invading other people's privacy, this crappy task was my fina
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