Control
1089 Words
Chapter 5
Control
Aiden
I prided myself on my control.
It was the foundation of everything I’d built, the reason I’d risen to the position I held. But as I stared at the documents in my hand and read the same sentence for the tenth time, I wondered if that control even mattered.
Because all I could think about was him.
Oliver Braxton.
I wanted to pummel that bastard out of existence.
He had touched her. He had hurt her.
And I would kill him for it.
That pathetic excuse of a man wasn’t even worth the dirt on Cordelia’s shoes, yet she’d chosen to date him. Chosen him. It was infuriating.
Cordelia had lost her damn mind in LA.
She never should have left Boston. She never should have walked away from the people who could have protected her. And I should have checked on her myself instead of relying on others to keep an eye on her from a distance. I’d thought it was enough. I hadn’t wanted to draw attention to her, to pull her deeper into a world she wasn’t truly a part of. She could have lived a normal life, safe and separate from all of this.
Could have.
But it was too late for that now.
She was coming back to Boston. And this time, she wasn’t leaving.
- - - -
I finally looked at her, hours into the flight.
And when I did, I sucked in a breath.
Fuck. She was beautiful.
The last three years hadn’t dulled her in the slightest. If anything, she looked more refined, more mature. But she still didn’t look 24—not to me. She seemed too young, too untouched by the world, even though I knew that wasn’t entirely true. She’d always been beautiful, always drawn attention from everyone around her. But for the longest time, she’d only had eyes for me.
Had.
I exhaled slowly, trying to steady myself.
She had never been one of those women who looked frail. Her figure had always been lush and curvy, a soft, inviting kind of beauty that had tempted me more than I cared to admit. But now, after three years, she had lost so much weight. Too much. She was still stunning, but she looked worn, like the life had been drained from her.
She needed to put the weight back on, needed the vitality she used to carry so effortlessly. Not this shadow of herself that made her look too close to breaking.
My jaw tightened at the thought of what—or who—might have caused that.
Earlier, when her hazel eyes had flashed dark with defiance after I demanded she return to Boston, it had ignited something primal in me. That fire in her had always been there, and it stirred something I hated to acknowledge.
I’d wanted to kiss her. Not softly, not gently, but with the kind of punishment that would remind her who she was dealing with.
But that wasn’t going to happen.
Little Cordelia Montgomery was too sweet for someone like me. Too light, too pure to be dragged down into my darkness.
At least, that’s what I kept telling myself.
I turned my attention to Cordelia’s asshole of a "boyfriend" and caught him staring at me.
The look in his eyes was almost amusing. There was a battle raging there—one part of him wanting to challenge me, to tear me apart, while the other part was scared of what I was capable of and feared it. It didn’t take long for the latter to win. He quickly looked away, his cowardice obvious.
The fool had no idea who we were—me or Cordelia’s uncle.
If he did, he wouldn’t have dared to demand he come along. I almost laughed at his arrogance.
When Niall had texted me that Oliver was waiting outside with a suitcase packed, I could have told him to get rid of the bastard right then and there. But where was the fun in that?
No, I’d let him tag along. Let him stew in his growing fear over the next few days as the reality of his situation began to sink in. I wanted to watch it happen, to see the panic take root in his eyes, until the inevitable moment when I finished him off.
The fucker thought he could get away with hurting Cordelia. He was wrong. Dead wrong. His life was already forfeit—the only question was when and where I would end it.
I glanced back at Cordelia, who was asleep in her seat. She had dozed off almost as soon as the plane had taken off, her body betraying just how exhausted she was.
What had she been thinking, falling for this s**t?
She had to know that the moment he laid a finger on her, his fate was sealed. Seamus Donnelly was a lot of things, but forgiving wasn’t one of them. He loved Cordelia like his own daughter—hell, maybe even more so. If he had known, Oliver wouldn’t have survived the first time.
But there was something about this situation that didn’t sit right. Something didn’t add up.
I shifted my attention back to the file in my lap, the one detailing every aspect of Oliver Braxton’s pathetic life.
He’d been born with a silver spoon in his mouth until his father gambled away the family fortune. British, living in LA through the generosity of a mysterious benefactor. He worked at a bank headquarters—a perfectly mundane position for someone who fancied himself more important than he was.
I knew everything about him. His parents’ and siblings’ names. His first kiss. The exact dollar amount in his bank account, down to the cent.
And yet, it still felt like I was missing something.
The profile painted a clear enough picture: he wanted Cordelia for her family’s money. The question was, did he know about the trust fund her parents had left her? Or the allowance Seamus sent her?
It seemed unlikely. Seamus had mentioned that she rarely touched it, and if Oliver had known, he would have coerced her into giving it to him already.
But it didn’t matter. Whatever his endgame was, he wouldn’t live long enough to see it play out.
Oliver Braxton was a dead man walking.
And whether it was Ronin or me who handled it, his time was running out. Just a few more days, and it would all be over.
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