My jaw clenched, but I didn’t dare look away. I stared at him so hard I thought we were both going to pounce on each other again. My left eye was still purple, and his nose was still bruised from our hotel incident.

Dean was the first to open his mouth. “Make it worth my while to sit around in Los Angeles while you chase Millie’s ass and beg her to forgive the assholeness that is you.”

“Name your price.” I knew there were sacrifices to be made, and I was willing to make them. It was justifiable. I got it. I’d fucked up and I needed to atone for my sins.

“Sell me ten percent of your shares.” Dean shrugged. “And I’ll pack a bag and wait it out in LA for six months.”

“That’s seven million dollars’ worth,” I ground out.

Each of us held 25% of the shares. We had equal power. Buying out my shares was buying me out of my power, my influence, my everything. I wanted to laugh in his face, but he looked too serious to fuck with. By the way his hand clenched his phone as he tapped it against his lips, I knew he meant business.

“Fuck that shit. I mean really, Dean?” I huffed. “It’s not like I fucked your sister.”

“I actually suspect you did fuck Keeley at some point, but I’m not going to ask you about it for your sake. You asked me to name a price, Vicious, and I did. Take it or leave it.”

“Five percent,” I shot back. I was so used to negotiating that I thought maybe I could sell him something I could buy back for double or triple the price.

“Ten percent for six months, and if you try to negotiate one more time, I’m taking this offer off the table, and we both know what’s gonna happen.”

Yes. Trent and Jaime would fly out to New York to babysit us again. Then, Jaime was going to drag my ass back to Los Angeles like I was a kicking and screaming toddler and I’d lose her. Forever.

She was mine. I didn’t come this far just to turn around and walk out of this again.

“Fine,” I said, finally. “Ten percent. I’ll draft the contract tomorrow.”

“No need. I’ll ask my lawyer to do it,” Dean said. “I don’t trust your ass with anything anymore. Oh, I want you to keep Sue. You’re right. She is a mediocre fuck and she wants me to meet her parents, even though I told her I never want to date. Ever. In. My. Life.”

“Fine.” My nostrils flared and I closed my eyes. This was a fucking nightmare.

But Dean continued, undeterred. “I also don’t want you in my apartment. You won’t be fucking my ex-girlfriend in my bed anymore. You can take the apartment you gave Millie. It’s vacant now, anyway.”

I didn’t say a word, processing it all. My expression must’ve been crestfallen, because Dean’s smile only grew wider by the second.

“Shit, man, you’re going to do this, huh? For real.” He threw a foam ball at me.

I didn’t blink or reply. Goddammit, I was making a deal with this joker.

Dean got up from his chair and leaned into my face. “How far are you willing to go for this girl, Vic?”

I ran a hand through my hair, tugging hard at the roots. “Well, I think I’m about to find the fuck out.”

The next couple of days were busy. I signed the contract Dean’s lawyer had drafted (not his dad—a sorry bastard fresh out of law school who drafted a contract littered with enough loopholes and ways out for me to play with when the time came), and I moved my shit into Emilia’s apartment downstairs. Dean was scheduled to head to Los Angeles at the end of the week. We told his staff that I was staying in order to recruit two more lawyers to our New York branch and that I needed to train them. It was only a half-lie. This had been in the works for months now, but I was never set to train them in New York.

People bought it. Though I didn’t know why we needed to explain anything. They fucking worked for us.

Jaime lost his shit when he heard I only had fifteen percent left in the company.

And Trent laughed and said he didn’t feel sorry for me after treating him like an asshole when he confided in me about knocking up that stripper.

I gave Emilia two days. Two fucking days before I came for her. Finding out where she lived was no issue. Fiscal Heights Holdings still had to send her a paycheck for her last week of work, and our personnel head had her new address.

I decided to personally deliver the check, because I was nice like that.

Truthfully, I had no fucking clue what I was doing. I knew I was pursuing her, that I’d given up a lot to stay in New York for her, postponing my revenge on Jo and putting my personal goals on the back burner, but I didn’t understand any other part about this. I tried not to label what I felt for her. I tried not to read too much into it. As I said, Emilia was an impulse. Currently, all I knew was that I was acting on it. On my instinct. On my need. On something feral and basic.

She’d moved to a run-down neighborhood in the Bronx.

Her apartment was just above a Chinese joint that smelled of grease and sweat and had bathroom tiles on the walls. All around on her block, I saw old cars with busted windows and windshields. Gray wet trash lined the gutters, and string-thin, wide-eyed women carried groceries in a hurry to escape whatever danger was waiting for them around the corner. It was one thing to live in a zip code that wasn’t exactly desirable because you had cash flow issues, but a completely other thing to live in a neighborhood that looked like it had one of the highest crime rates in the city.

What the hell was she thinking? She and Rosie screamed prey. They were small, beautiful, innocent, and alone.

I waited outside the door that led upstairs for two hours before she came back home. It was boring as fuck so I spent my time reading emails and making phone calls. I stood out in this neighborhood like a sore thumb. But I didn’t give a shit.

Emilia approached the building, and when she realized that I was there at her front door, she rolled her eyes and sighed. “Go away, Vicious. You’re like a puppy begging for me to adopt you and take you home. Only significantly less cute.” She scrunched her nose.