3 | A Walking Grenade

[JEREMIAH]

Jade and I got down and out of the building in no time and drove separately in our own cars. A familiar bungalow rolled in. I parked in the driveway. Casting the keys over to the guard standing near the door, I shuffled inside. Jade was already in. Her handbag was tossed onto the couch in the living room. The entire place was thoroughly illuminated, but no man or woman was in sight. I knew exactly where to find Jade and for that I headed upstairs, taking off the leather jacket and draping it over a chair before I took a turn in a hallway, watching one door in the line of many secured ones.

I could hear the enigmatic sound of someone from the other side and even though I hadn't opened the door yet, my ears perked up. But when I finally entered, I saw the sight of my life that knocked the air out of my lungs. In a good way.

A woman was tied up in a chair. Her blonde hair was all rumpled and messy, skin sweaty, and clothes wrinkled, blotched with hideous stains of blood. She had thick red liquid oozing out from a nasty cut on the side of her forehead. Her eyes shone with terror, and as I walked closer and closer, her beaten body trembled vigorously.

God, they scored her badly.

"Please- I really....don't know where he is," she sobbed breathlessly, chopped words coming out of her mouth hardly comprehensible. "Please..."

"Darling, we have played this game for too long," I told her, as calmly as humanly feasible. Maybe calm was the language she would understand better. "The longer you take to give us what we need, the more you're going to get hurt. Horribly, might I add? You wouldn't like that, would you?"

There were other men present in the room, but they stayed quiet despite that, trained to maintain silence and stay alert while I did my job. And then there was Jade, casually leaning against a wall across, playing with her hair.

I grabbed a seat in front of the handcuffed girl, arms crossed, cheerless eyes waiting patiently.

She said nothing.

"Alright, listen to me carefully, Mary-Masy, Mel- Melinda, is it? Yes, Melinda," I leaned in as if revealing to her a secret of some kind. "Have you ever thought that the man you're trying to save here, maybe, doesn't deserve it, have you? Who knows, I mean who knows, how many people he destroyed? How many women did he molest? how many kids are on the streets because of him? Do you really know? Do you?"

She gulped, blinking down at the surface, thrown off apparently. She never came up with a response, though, not even in his defence. I'll call this improvement.

"You look like a nice girl, Melinda," my fingers drove up to push a strand of hair out of her face. She flinched. "You're young, a law-abiding citizen, full of passion and dreams. You don't have to go through this. I wonder why are you doing this to yourself? What's yours that's at stake?"

Melinda said nothing this time, either. However, she shifted a little, uncomfortable in her seat. Her gaze sank into the floor as if trying to wake up the earth so it could swallow her down. And that's when the realization finally dawned on me.

"Dammit!" she trembled as I pushed the chair back furiously and stood upright, pacing the room before turning back to her. "Who is it?"

"My sister," she finally conceded, hot tears pouring down from the corner of her eyes. "He said he would kill her If I-" she broke down, staggering while violent sobs racked out of her skinny body. It made sense.

"We're on it." Jade was quick to her feet, dialling someone on her phone and running a series of directions. Meanwhile, on my way out, figuring my work was done, I told the men waiting outside to release the girl and tend to her wounds before dropping her back to her apartment, from where they carried her off. She was a victim, not an accomplice, as we assumed.

It was too late to get back home, so I went to the room I occupied during my stay here. I switched on the shower and started cleaning myself up. The hot water drizzled down my skin and felt so good and relaxing. My mind drifted, finally at peace.

By the time I appeared outside, a mere towel wrapped around my waist, I saw Jade consciously taking off her dress and undergarments, discarding them on the floor. She joined me in the bed and I fucked her just the way she liked. I don't remember who turned off the lights or how many times we came. All I remember was how much I made Jade scream and moan my name while I ferociously drove into her all night. Or whatever was left of it— until the climax ripped us both.

—

"Thank you for meeting us on such short notice," the man in the dark blue suit said.

The next morning arrived earlier than I hoped. If not for an important meeting with a client, I almost had a mindset of taking a well-rested off. But work had always been my priority since the day I fell on my senses. Work had always given me ample distraction from the reality I was determined to ignore.

After dropping Jade to her apartment, I went home and showered. Paul had already set up the breakfast in the dining room by the time I came down, ready to leave.

As soon as I reached the office, Margo, my PA, notified me about a bunch of men eager to have a meeting with me. Something seemed off right off the bat. However, regardless of the odd feeling slithering inside my chest, I ordered Margo to organize the meeting in the conference room.

"Of course," I said with a nod, gesturing all the five men to take a seat while I settled on mine. "So, tell me, how can I help you?"

The meeting went on for what seemed like an hour or longer, while in reality, I dismissed them in less than ten minutes. Turns out, my father was behind what they worded as: a matter of slight inconvenience. Dad and I hadn't seen each other eye to eye since the day I can remember. We were two different people with two absolutely divergent perspectives on life. It was impossible for any father-son pair to be that distinct. We never agreed on anything. Never ate a meal under one roof without breaking into a verbal fight. He hated my guts for one reason or another. I wasn't a fan of his either. This was the only reason dad chose to live with my younger brother, Nathan, while mom lived with me.

Anyway, the men he sent were from a law firm he had hired to offer me a deal. The moment they said the word 'deal', I knew what dad really wanted.

Sunny Daze. A house in Miami he had his eyes on since the day grandpa transferred it to my name in his will. Long story short, whatever his deal was this time, I was least interested. He wasn't getting Sunny Daze, no matter what price he was willing to pay. I wouldn't let that happen. Ever.

I couldn't force myself to move from the conference room for the next two hours. I just couldn't. My father always had this effect on me. He made me want to seclude myself from the world and think hard about what went down four years back. If only I wasn't that coward...

"Ma'am—please, you cannot barge in like this. It's terribly inappropriate."

Margo's tense voice oozed in through the partly open door of the conference room. I never heard this much panic in her tone. Whatever was happening outside, whoever she was talking to, gripped my attention like anything.

As I moved outside, Margo's back came into view. She seemed to be stopping someone from moving any further. There were guards behind whomever my assistant was trying hard to deter.

"You listen to me!" a head full of glossy platinum curls cocked to the side. The features of the intruder were still not visible to me, but at least now I knew the gender.

A girl, and with that kind of voice, probably in her mid-twenties.

"I have been trying to have a decent conversation with your so-called boss for the last four days," the platinum-haired intruder snapped. "Four days! That's a lot of time for someone to at least take out ten minutes from their fucking hectic schedule. Even the president of the United States can't be this busy. What the hell?"

The guards seemed to flinch at how loud the intruder screamed. If I'm being honest, something fluttered in my chest, too.

What was her deal?

Margo sighed. "I don't know how that—well, I'm not sure how that's possible. There must be some sort of explanation."

"Of course," the intruder said, "of course, there is an explanation. And while you look into that, I need to get done with what I'm here for. If you can just direct me to your boss' room, that would be really nice. Actually, never mind, I'll find that asshole myself."

While Margo did her best to obstruct the hallway that lead to my office, the intruder was quick to shove her to the side with hardly any push.

"Ma'am!" Margo called while the intruder hurricane-d past her. "Ma'am please, stop!"

With her bright blue eyes and a deep frown drawn on those full pink lips, the woman flipped her long, snow-like hair over her shoulder and started to head in my direction. Margo yelled at the guards to stop her, but the guards followed her order only after exchanging a few pitiful glances.

Honestly, who is this girl?

And what made her so mad at me?

She didn't look like anyone I slept with within the past few weeks. In fact, I don't remember screwing anyone, any fucking time in my life, with hair so long and gorgeous. I almost had the urge to wrap them around my fist and bend her over my office desk. The image turned out to be so vivid that something in the south stirred awake.

"Excuse me," her perfect mouth parted and words flew out. It took me a second too long to realize that she was talking to me. "Can you please tell me where Mr Richmond's office is?"

Margo followed her right away, panting. "Boss, I'm so sorry—I tried to stop her, but she is just not ready to listen. She is really crazy!" the last few words Margo muttered in a hard whisper, but despite her attempt to be discreet about them, the beautiful intruder managed to hear everything.

She literally growled at my assistant.

Well, before she turned to face me, her blue eyes turned into a swell of fierce fire. Probably realizing that I'm the man she had been looking for.

I wonder what this is about.

"Are you Mr Richmond? Jeremiah Richmond?" she asked to be sure.

Although I could tell from the way her face grew redder and meaner, she knew exactly who I was, and was just waiting for me to confirm before she exploded like a grenade.

Well, this should be interesting.