to say to that, or if he even wanted me to speak. A man like this, I bet he didn’t like interruptions.
“You being here is a gift,” he said. “Me showing my generosity. It’s not something I do often, so don’t get used to it. Now, as to why I wanted to see you…you should know I own a lot of people in this town. I have eyes and ears everywhere, let alone the eyes and ears of the family. Your private investigator, Jacob Hall—”
Shit. Jacob was right. I never should’ve tried to figure out what the Scotts were hiding, because the way Markus was talking, it sounded like he could walk down any road in Midpark and kill someone in broad daylight and no one would stop him.
I must’ve worn a frightened expression, for Markus paused, a slow, steady, deviously dark smile spreading on his face. “Am I making you uncomfortable, Jaz?” He pushed off his desk, taking two steps in my direction.
If I could’ve sunk myself into the cushions of the chair I sat in, I would’ve, trust me.
He unfolded his arms, leaning down, resting both hands on the armrests on my chair, boxing me in. Danger radiated from him, every move he made calculated, the darkness in his eyes a cruel, cold one. “Believe me when I say this is me being nice,” he whispered.
Maybe I should mention that he whispered that while looking like he wanted to rip my face off.
Or maybe I was exaggerating. Who knew?
Markus did not move, he remained hovering over me, making me feel insanely small as he went on, “I have done nothing out of respect for Vaughn’s first obsession.” His dark eyes narrowed, and I knew what he wasn’t saying: me. Vaughn’s first obsession was me. “But know that if I catch one whiff of Jacob Hall sniffing around here again, or asking around town about us, or trying to hack into our systems…”
I swallowed hard when he lifted a hand and swept it across my right cheekbone, nearly flinching when he touched me. He felt cold. Or that could just be me, feeling so uneasy.
“I won’t hesitate to drag him into this house and end his pathetic, miserable life. And as for you—if you insist on digging where you shouldn’t, the moment Vaughn’s obsession with you ends, I’ll do the same with you.”
That was a threat if I ever heard one.
“Do you understand me, Jaz?” Markus hovered over me, no longer touching my face but still boxing me in in the most threatening manner possible.
I opened my mouth to respond, but the door to the office burst open, and Markus’s expression changed. I would say it lightened up a bit, but it was hard to tell, because he rolled his eyes and sighed as he pushed away from my chair and straightened his back.
“William, you were supposed to get Vaughn, not Stella—”
I was afraid to turn my head and look, to take my eyes off Markus seemed to be the stupidest thing you could do, so I threw a quick glance over my shoulder to see that William had returned with a woman.
She was pretty, in an off-putting way. Long, brown hair, a pale face that almost looked familiar, like I’d seen her on TV before or something. Her eyes were mismatched in color, her right eye a bright blue while the left was a light brown.
Stella. Her name sounded familiar, too.
“I ran into Will in the hall,” Stella said, unflinching under Markus’s intense stare. She seemed to handle him well, much to his chagrin. “So I came here to make sure you weren’t scaring Vaughn’s girlfriend.”
Markus frowned as he went to sit at his desk chair again. “Don’t you have a child to wrangle, or something?”
“She’s with Killian,” Stella spoke, waving Markus off.
Killian. Stella and Killian…those eyes. Why did I feel like I knew who they were?
“This girl makes him feel, Markus,” Stella said, moving to stand by my side. “Just like Lincoln and Edward did to me. I won’t let you intimidate her. Vaughn deserves his happiness, too.” She was defending me, even though she had no idea who I was.
I didn’t know whether to be thankful or weirded out.
Markus let out a sigh. “Then take her to him. I’m done with her, anyway.” His dark eyes returned to me, whispering the same threat his words had mere moments ago. He would not hesitate to kill Jacob, or me. Good to know.