Derick's POV
I sat on the edge of the mattress, my breath coming in heavy, jagged hitches that echoed off the bare walls. I didn't turn on the light. I didn't need to see. My mind was a projector, looping the image of Helen pinned against the brick alleyway, the way her expensive perfume had mixed with the smell of wet pavement, and the way her body had betrayed her icy words by melting against mine.
My hand was wrapped tightly around my cock, the skin hot and strained to the point of aching. I pumped slowly at first, then relentlessly, my thumb circling the flared head, slick with my pre-cum that smeared down the length in glistening trails. Every slide of my palm was a calculated, sensory memory. I closed my eyes, and I wasn't in a run-down South Side apartment anymore; I was back in that alley, feeling the silk of her skin beneath my calloused fingers and the sharp, desperate heat of her breath against my neck.
I imagined her lips, those sharp, aristocratic lips that had spat the word tool at me like a curse parting not for a retort, but for me. In the theater of my mind, she dropped to her knees on penthouse marble, mascara streaking as tears welled, her gaze locked on mine in raw defeat. I could almost feel the wet, velvet heat of her mouth sliding over my cock, her tongue swirling around the sensitive ridge as she took me deep, her throat tight and demanding. A low, guttural growl tore from my chest, my hips jerking upward in a reflexive, primal surge as my grip tightened.
The friction brought me to the agonizing, white-hot edge of release. I wanted to hear her moan my name—not the fake one, but the real one. I wanted to see the billionaire heiress, the untouchable CEO of Vance Global, reduced to nothing but gasps and shudders beneath the weight of a man she thought she had destroyed. I was inches away, my muscles locking, my mind screaming for the explosion…. The sharp, shrill ring of my phone shattered the fantasy like a bullet through glass.
I froze, my chest heaving, my body screaming for the climax I'd just denied. I let out a jagged, frustrated breath that was half-snarl, half-groan, and snatched the phone from the nightstand. The caller ID glowed with a clinical blue light: HELEN VANCE. I answered, my voice a dark, gravelly rasp that still vibrated with leftover lust. "I was just thinking about you."
"Did you do it?" Her voice was a whip-crack, trembling with a fury that sounded like it was a hair's breadth from shattering into total panic. "The news, Derick. Agatha Adler. They have the location. They have a name. How?"
I sat up, my eyes narrowing into cold slits as I stared into the dark. The pleasure was gone, replaced instantly by the analytical chill of an operative. "I saw the news."
"You were the only one there!" she hissed. I could almost see her pacing her penthouse, her knuckles white as she gripped her phone. "You took my car. You took my phone. If I find out you're the one who leaked this and if you think you can use this to bleed me for a payout—I will ruin you, Derick. I will use every cent of the Vance inheritance to make your life so miserable that death will feel like a promotion. Do you hear me? You're a tool, Derick. A means to an end. Don't forget where you stand."
"Helen, listen—" Click. The line went dead. I pulled the phone away, a dark, dangerous twitch pulling at the corner of my mouth. She was spiraling. And a woman who was spiraling was easy to control, but even easier to lose.
*****
By noon, the reality of my existence settled back in. Derick Ashford, the fired waiter, needed a new life. I sat in a cramped internet café, the blue light of the screen highlighting the tension in my jaw as I scrolled through job listings.
I remembered the frustration of the early years, the hollow ache in my gut as I searched for work in the past, back when I was just another face in the crowd before the Bureau gave me a purpose. The humiliation of being unskilled labor was a skin I hated wearing, even for a mission.
I found a listing for The Vault, a high-end underground club where the elite came to sin and the staff was paid to be deaf, dumb, and blind. I arrived an hour later, the mid-day Chicago sun feeling too bright and too honest for the work I was about to do.
The manager, a man named Miller with skin like wrinkled parchment and a gaze that didn't miss a single detail of my 6'4" frame or the lethal capability in the way I moved, didn't even bother asking for a resume.
"Can you handle the animals in the VIP lounge without making a scene?" Miller asked, a half-chewed cigar bobbing in his mouth.
"Can you start tonight?" the man asked.
"I can resume immediately," I replied, my voice flat, my eyes fixed on his throat.
"Good and the uniform is a black suit. You don't ask questions. Whatever you see here, you didn't see it. Understood?"
"Perfectly." I said. The club was a sensory assault, heavy bass, flashing neon, and the smell of expensive gin and desperation. I moved through the shadows of the VIP lounge like a predator in a suit. I was invisible. I was the tool Helen had called me.
I went near the back service entrance, and my encrypted personal phone vibrated with a specific sequence. Three short bursts. A secure line.
I stepped into the cold, damp alley behind the club, my back to the brick. I didn't say a word.
"Status," the voice on the other end said, It was my handler, Reid.
"The target is unstable," I said, my eyes scanning the perimeter of the alley. "The accident with Agatha Adler has been leaked. Someone is feeding the press faster than we can scrub the scene. It's a targeted hit on her reputation."
"That's not why I'm calling, Matteo," Reid's voice was grim. "We've just intercepted a transmission.
Have you seen Silas Thorne?"
"Not yet," I said, my grip tightening on the phone.
"We keep watching her and we must not break cover. There is something you need to know about the hit-and-run. Our forensics backchannel just got the preliminary on Adler."
"And?"
"Agatha Adler didn't die from the impact, Matteo," the voice whispered. "She was already dead when the car hit her. Someone staged that body in the street to frame Helen Vance. You aren't just covering a crime, you're being lured into a trap. And you just dragged the target right into the center of it."
My heart hammered against my ribs. I looked up at the glowing lights of the city. I wasn't just her savior or her captor anymore. I was the one holding her hand while we both walked off a cliff.
"We need to stay close," I said. "If Thorne moves, we move."