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Hey babes! So below is chapter one of the series that I’m about to finish! Let me know your thoughts…
My relationship dies today.
Don’t get me wrong—I don’t get off on breaking hearts, and I’m definitely not a cold-hearted bitch. Well, at least most of the times.
Today, though, is a special occasion: I’ll get paid to break a heart and be a cold-hearted bitch.
“Here’s fine,” I tell my driver, leaning forward and gently laying my hand on his shoulder. With a quick nod, he pulls up to the curb and jumps out of the driver’s seat to get my door. Stepping outside, I use my hand to shield my eyes from the morning sun, a smile spreading across my lips.
What a beautiful day to kick ass.
“I won’t be long, Mark.” I let my gaze wander toward the apartment building right in front of me, my eyes drawn to one of the windows on the 17th floor. My floor. Or Peter’s, really. Both our names are on the contract, at least for a couple of hours more. After I’m through with this, the first thing I’m going to do is cross my name off the lease.
“Good luck, Ms. King.” Tipping his hat off at me, Mark lets a knowing expression take over his face.
“Don’t need it,” I reply, taking a deep breath as I ready myself. “But thank you.”
With that, I start my march toward the apartment building.
Cue the music and pay attention—this is my intro shot.
Louboutins on my feet, Hermes bag in my hands.
A smile on my face, and ice on my heart.
The name’s Alexa King, and I’m the best damn fixer there is.
Never heard of me? Don’t worry, I’m not in the fame game. I’m too busy cracking skulls and fixing problems to worry about having my face on the cover of some vapid magazine.
Those who matter, they all know my name.
Most times I work in the shadows, operating behind the scenes, and that’s how most my clients prefer it. When you spend most of your day sweeping issues under a proverbial rug, the shadows quickly become your best friend.
See, whenever someone important needs a problem to go away, it’s me they call. Curiously enough, I’m the last person they call. Not because I’m not good at my job, but because I’m the best at it. After all, you only call for the big guns after you’ve already hit the emergency button.
“Good morning, Ms. King,” the doorman greets me as he pushes the door open.
“Good morning,” I greet him in return. “Is Peter still in?”
“Yes, he is, ma’am.”
Good.
There’s nothing better than going home for a quick visit during the morning and have your long-term boyfriend already there, waiting for you. Especially when you’re planning to break-up with him—I’d hate to come home just to head out again and look for his sorry ass.
When I finally get to my floor, I hesitate before sliding the key into the lock. Shifting my weight from one foot to the other, I consider the best way to approach the situation. Peter’s ass has to go, there’s no doubt about it—I’m just not sure on what the best approach is. Do I put him down gently, or do I go in hard?
“Go hard,” I mutter under my breath, solving that riddle in half a second. The fact he’s my boyfriend should award him a few compassion points, but I really don’t care—he’s the one that screwed up. Besides, I’ve never really understood why I started to date him in the first place.
Maybe it was his easy smile, or his confident attitude.
Maybe I thought it was time for me to settle down.
Either way, Peter Rivera was a mistake from the start. I’m not in the habit of making mistakes, but I’m damn good at fixing them. It’s time I fix this one as well.
Not that any of this is personal…it’s just business, babe.
Peter Rivera, my soon-to-be-ex, is Maxxon Oil’s anointed heir. The only son of Anthony Rivera, the founder and owner of one of the biggest oil companies operating in the western hemisphere, Peter is bound to inherit the whole company and a cool two billion when his father finally passes. Thing is, Peter doesn’t like to wait. Even though he’s already on Maxxon Oil’s executive board, he’s an impatient one.
I just had no idea how impatient.
No more than a week ago, I was hired by one of Maxxon Oil’s rivals company to make a problem go away: someone was extorting their own executives, using all kinds of compromising material to have them give up on a bid for a drilling site. I did some digging, and it turned out my sweet corrupt boyfriend was the one behind it. He was planning to create a subsidiary for himself, one from which all profits would flow into his own pocket, and he was looking to secure the first drilling site by twisting arms and pressuring people.
That ends today.
In just a few minutes, I’m gonna lay him flat on his ass, and then I’m going to call my client and tell him that the problem’s solved. After that? Collect my check, and move on. In this line of business, feelings just get in the way.
“Peter,” I start as I open the door. “We need to—”
“YES, MISTRESS!” Peter groans, his voice almost a scream. “I’ve been very bad, and I deserve to be punished.”
Well, shit.
With both hands on my hips, I narrow my eyes and take in the scene in front of me. Peter’s on all fours on the floor, wearing nothing but his boxers and socks, and there’s the heel of a leather boot sitting right between his shoulder blades. A boot belonging to a woman clad in tight leather, a punishing expression on her face and an even more punishing looking riding-whip on her right hand.
“Am I interrupting?” I ask as I slam the door shut. That’s enough to get Peter’s attention. He looks up at me, his eyes widening as he realizes I just caught him cheating on me with what looks like a BDSM biker from hell.
“Alexa?” The moment he says my name he falls back on his ass. “I thought you’d be working all day. You said that—”
“That I had an assignment, yes. Turns out, the assignment’s you.”
“What…is going on?” The woman standing in the middle of our living room asks, looking from Peter to me, the whip hanging limply from her hand. “You never told me anything about a third party, Mr. Rivera. That’ll cost you more.”
“Oh, you have no idea how much it’ll cost him,” I tell the woman, doing my best not to grin. I should be crushed right now—I just caught my boyfriend cheating on me with a BDSM escort, after all—but I feel elated instead. “You can leave now.”
The woman looks at me, trying to decode the whole situation, but then ends up shrugging. She grabs a long coat from the couch, throws it over her shoulders and ties it at the front, hiding all the leather from view. As she walks past me and toward the door, I reach for her shoulders and make her stop.
“I’ll take it from here,” I tell her, grabbing the whip from her hands.
“Well, I already got paid,” she shrugs, throwing me an apologetic look. With that, she finally turns around and leaves, the sound of the door closing making this whole situation feel even more surreal.
“So, what were you saying?” I ask Peter, walking toward him as I smack the tip of the whip against the palm of my left hand. “You’ve been bad and deserve to be punished…is that it?”
“Alexa,” he starts, using his feet to push himself back across the floor, only stopping when his back is against the couch. “I can explain. She’s just a friend, and—”
“Shut the fuck up, Peter,” I growl, taking one more step forward. Peter’s eyes fly straight to the whip in my hands, and fear starts pooling in his eyes. “I’ll be the one doing the explaining. To start with, the two of us…we’re done. It’s over.”
“What?” He stammers. “Please, Alexa, I know you’re mad about this, but—”
“I’m mad about this, don’t doubt it. But I’m not breaking up with you because of it.”
“No?”
“No,” I grin. “I’m breaking up with you because I just found out you’re a criminal. You’ve been extorting and bribing your way into the oil business. Yeah, I know about your dealings. You’ve been trying to get the Angolan government to rig the bidding for one of their oil wells, and you’ve been blackmailing the best-positioned company, doing your damn best to have them drop out of the race.”
“How the hell do you know about that?”
“That’s my job,” I continue. “To know things.”
“That’s just business. And that’s how it has to be done! I’m just trying to—”
“Line your own pockets?” I finish his sentence for him. “Because that’s what it looks like. How much of an idiot can you be, Peter? You’re well positioned inside Maxxon Oil, and you’ll inherit the whole thing anyway. But you don’t like waiting, do you? You want all the money you can get, and you want it now.”
“I—”
The moment he opens his mouth, I bring the tip of the whip down, using it to smack the floor between his legs, one single inch away from his balls.
“Did I give you permission to speak?”
He looks up at me, fear in his eyes, and says nothing.
Good.
“Here’s what’s going to happen, Peter,” I continue, slowly moving the tip of the whip toward his balls. As I brush it over the fabric of his boxers, Peter starts growing pale, his whole body tensing up. “You’re going to stop extorting and blackmailing my client, and you’ll get your ass out of Angola right now. If you don’t, I won’t even bother with leaking this to the media…I’ll just tell your father.”
“My father?” If he was pale before, now he’s as white as the snow-capped Everest. He knows that if his father finds out he’s is doing business illegally, the first thing that’s going to happen is Peter is going to lose his position inside the company…as well as his whole inheritance.
“That’s right,” I nod, pressing down on his balls with the whip until the white in his face starts being taken over by a faint blue. Is he going to pass out? “And this is my final warning. Stop what you’re doing, or you’ll be living inside a cardboard box in just a few days. If not jail.”
“Y-yes,” he stammers once more, furiously nodding at me.
“Say ‘yes, mistress’,” I whisper, leaning forward and transferring some of my weight down the length of the whip. Did I say he was getting blue in the face? Let’s go with purple now.
“YES, MISTRESS!” He screams, closing his eyes in pain.
“Good boy,” I grin, finally easing the pressure. “This is the last time you’re going to see me, Peter. Don’t come looking for me, don’t call me, and don’t text me. And, oh, don’t send me any creepy Snapchats either. I know you think they’re funny but, newsflash, they’re not.”
“But I love you,” he whispers meekly, and that just irks me. I bring down the whip hard, using its small but vicious tip to slap his balls. He howls in pain, the expression on his face almost enough to make me feel sorry for him. Keyword being almost.
“And that’s the last time you’ll ever say that to me,” I snap back at him. “Try it one more time and you’ll lose your balls for good.”
With that, I throw the whip on top of the couch and leave the apartment, Peter’s cries of pain following me all the way to the elevator. I don’t care. From this moment on, Peter’s part of the past.
With a sigh, I grab my phone from inside my purse and press it against my ear. “It’s done,” I tell the voice on the other side of the line. “I’ll invoice you.”
Kicking ass and taking names—there’s no better way to spend the day. Especially when you’re the best at what you do and get paid handsomely for it.
There’s something bothering me, though.
Peter was cheating on me, and I didn’t see it coming. No, I’m not sad about the breakup or the cheating…it’s just that my intuition has never failed me before like this. Any other time and I would’ve seen it coming from miles away.
Am I losing my edge? Am I growing soft?
Did I miss the signs?
No, that’s impossible. I just need to prove myself that I haven’t lost it, that I’m at the top of my game.
It’s time I get myself a real challenge.
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