The King - S.R. Jones Page 0,38

she’s doing, unlike some of the hackers for hire who love to flap their gums and talk. “In here is everything I can get you on Popov, the man you’re about to dig into. There’s his phone number, home address, car registration, date of birth and other things.”

She nods once, already looking at the papers, deep in thought. “His phone number will be enough of a doorway to get me into his life,” she says.

“Good, and listen, any issues—call me. Anytime, okay?”

She nods again, then looks up. “I don’t have your number.”

“It’s in the file,” I say, and then without anything else to add, I leave the room.

Two hours later, and I’m itching to go check on Cassie, but I tell myself not to. If I keep hovering over her, I’ll only interrupt her work. Instead, I call my driver and tell him to bring my car around to the front. I’m heading back to my offices in Camden, where I can’t go and check up on her every five minutes, working as we glide smoothly through the city streets.

When we arrive, I thank Mick for driving me, and tell him to park in the garage and take some time as I won’t be needing him for a few hours. I planned on getting some serious work done, but as I approach the doors of the offices I had built from scratch, I hesitate. Something makes me turn around and head to Rigattos, the coffee shop where I first met Cassie.

It’s still the same cozy, comfortable, inviting place, but now with no Cassie. I step inside and the skinny guy who worked here all those months ago grins at me. “Hello, Konstantin. Long time no see,” he says conversationally.

“Been busy,” I say with a smile of my own.

“Usual?” he asks.

“No, I’ll take a caramel macchiato and a slice of chocolate cake,” I tell him.

Since my days of frequenting this place when Cassie worked here, my sugar consumption has fallen drastically, but today, I feel like indulging my sweet tooth.

I don’t know if it was growing up dirt poor in post-Soviet Russia that has given me such a weakness for all things sugary and fatty, but normally I deny myself the craving. I work out hard, and if I spent my days eating shit like I’ve just ordered, it would be for nothing. I put on five pounds of pure lard when I was stalking Cassie.

Since then I’ve lost it and added a couple more pounds of muscle. I’m not one of those super cut guys, though. I was big before I started lifting, and now my muscle covers an already large frame. I lift to get bulk not to get shredded, and I do so to intimidate people. A nice side effect is that women love powerfully built men. We’re like catnip to them.

I think even intellectual, nerdy little Cassie likes it.

As if to prove my point, a new waitress steps out of the back, glances at me, glances again, eye-fucks me appreciatively and smiles. I smile back, but I’m not interested. My libido has got me into far too much fucking trouble already.

At the thought of Liza back at the house, my mood sours.

This morning, I went into the main bathroom because the faucet on the sink is broken in mine, to find a ton of girly crap scattered all over the fucking place. When I marched into her room and asked why, when she has a perfectly good attached bathroom, she’d messed up the main bath, she told me with a pout that her private bathroom didn’t have a bath, only a shower.

Then I went to the kitchen, and the place was a bomb site. Fucking half cut up strawberries and banana skins all over the counter. Cocoa powder sprinkled everywhere, and the blender left with a sludgy brown mess coating it’s insides. She’d obviously made herself a smoothie and didn't bother to clean up.

Thank fuck, I’ve got a housekeeper now.

It makes my skin itch, though, Liza being there in my home, her shit all over. She’s like a vine that’s reaching into the walls of my life, slowly inserting herself everywhere.

I regularly remind myself she’s carrying my child because otherwise I’d throw her out on her ass. I can’t stand her.

It’s a lesson I’ve learned late in life. Stop fucking women you don’t like just because they look good naked.

Cassie looks good naked I’d bet, and I like her too.

Something hits me then, and it’s a mildly