The Hunter
“No!” Junsu barked desperately, tugging at my hand.
I lunged into the driver’s seat, locking the doors automatically before he got to me. He pounded his palms over the window, his voice muffled by the glass between us.
“She had money! I needed to pay for my son’s college.”
I started the car, feeling tears stinging my eyes. I didn’t dare let them loose.
“Sailor! You ruin my career if you do that! My family! My reputation!”
I backed out of the parking lot, blazing down the street I’d driven every day. It held memories, a piece of my heart, and a broken dream I now left behind.
I knew I wouldn’t be able to set foot on it afterwards.
By nighttime, the details about Junsu and Lana were plastered all over the news. I got calls asking if I wanted to retake a match with someone else, considering Lana was not going anywhere near the Olympics anytime soon after what she’d done. I declined. The Olympic spot went to a thirty-three-year-old mother of four from rural Indiana by default. Her stats were crazy.
Mom, Dad, and Sam gathered in the living room around me while we watched her interview. Their hands were on my back, shoulders, and arms.
I was safe with my family. I was home.
It occurred to me, as I stepped into my father’s office for the first time in four days, that I was about to get my ass fucked so hard, I’d be able to easily slide an entire watermelon into it by the time he was done with me.
Four days.
Zero sleep.
Zero work time.
Two unwritten college assignments.
Plenty of half-leads regarding Syllie’s wrongdoings.
Victory was within reach. I could brush it with my fingertips, and I was rabid for it. Maybe the bloodthirsty Fitzpatrick lineage did run through me. Because I’d never felt particularly competitive until I moved here.
The visit to the refinery was scheduled for tomorrow, and guess who’d finally decided to show signs of life and reappear at the office?
Ding, ding, motherfucking ding. Yours truly.
“You’re alive,” my father pointed out rather unhappily, still reading something on his iPad at his desk, his eyebrows somewhere on his upper forehead.
Cillian sprawled in front of him in his designated seat, texting.
“Don’t sound so disappointed.” I stepped inside, planting my ass on the seat next to Cillian.
I turned to my brother. “Leave.”
His molten eyes shot up from his phone. He had the challenging, taunting gaze of a man who was waiting to be invited to war.
“Are you high?” he inquired politely.
“Sober as a miserable, bloated celebrity post-rehab. I need to talk to Da. Alone.”
They exchanged a look that spoke dozens of sentences. Finally, Gerald nodded. My brother stood, but not before flashing me a warning look that said after Da plowed into my ass, he intended to shove explosives into it.
The door closed, and I turned to my father.
“I have some great leads about what Sylvester is up to,” I started, but he cut me off with a wave of a hand, sending the iPad crashing against his desk.
“You go MIA for four days after your agreement with the Brennan girl goes bust, and you think I care about your conspiracy theories?”
“I think you care about this company,” I enunciated through gritted teeth. “And I have information.”
“Stop being a professional timewaster,” Da countered. “And get to the heart of it. You are here because you messed up and didn’t have the guts to face the music. You broke the rules. You weren’t celibate.”
“No,” I admitted. “I wasn’t, but I didn’t sleep with that other chick, Lana. And that thing with Sailor…” I paused, feeling my nostrils flare. “It wasn’t just fucking.”
I wanted to take back the sentence, take it all the way back. What was I saying? I didn’t have feelings for Carrot Top, did I? Only she hadn’t been Carrot Top for a long-ass time. She was the girl I wanted to talk to every day, all day, if I could. The girl who made me laugh. The girl who gave me a hard-on, not only up close, but just thinking about her. The traces of her scent alone made me want to hump the shower tiles.
I hated that I cared about Sailor Brennan, that I couldn’t stop thinking about her, worrying about her, obsessing over what she was doing, thinking, DoorDashing. The little huntress had gone and conquered every inch of my brain, filling it with herself, and without my notice—without my fucking permission—slipped from my brain to my heart.
“Don’t try to sell me the girlfriend angle.” Da raised his hand to cut me off. “I wasn’t born yesterday.”
“I didn’t say she was my girlfriend. But I feel…things,” I said vaguely. I also said the word things like it was made out of pube hair, spitting it out of my mouth in record time.
“Was?” Athair regarded me skeptically.
“She dumped me,” I admitted.
“I don’t believe that for a second.”
“I don’t give a flying fuck what you believe.” I smiled courteously, crossing my legs and cupping my hands over one knee. “It is the truth, and you don’t get to dismiss it. I guess this is the part you’ve been waiting for, where you wave your new signed will in my face. Go ahead. Have your fun.”