Chapter 135

Chapter 135
Alina's POV

I knew this man — along with most people in the group — resented my presence. Yet none of them dared say no to Adams, so they settled for the next best thing: using their role as his watchdogs to make my life difficult.

I met Johnson's gaze without flinching, my voice level. "Mr. Adams asked me to familiarize myself with the group's history. I thought the old archives were the most direct place to start."

Johnson studied me for a moment, then produced what appeared to be a polite smile. "Of course. There is a procedure for accessing those files, though. In the future, if you'd like to review anything, please have your secretary log the request first — it makes filing easier."

I didn't bother with a reply. I looked him over once, top to bottom, and walked away.

I had already put some distance between us when I caught it — barely above a murmur, but deliberate enough to carry.

"Nothing but the chairman's little plaything, putting on airs in front of me..."

I stopped.

I turned around sharply. "What did you just say?"

Our eyes met. The contempt in Johnson's expression was unmistakable — the kind of look I despise more than anything. He didn't flinch. If anything, he seemed emboldened by his own position: administrative director, one of Adams's trusted inner circle. In his mind, that put him well above me.

When he saw me walking toward him, he tilted his chin up with a dismissive smirk. "Was I wrong?"

I handed the files I was carrying to the clerk behind me. Then I turned back, drew my fist, and drove it straight into the bridge of his nose.

"Ah—!"

Johnson cried out in pain. The crack was clean — his nose broke on impact. Blood began streaming from his nostrils. He stumbled back against the wall, one hand hovering over his face, the other braced against the wall behind him, staring up at me in stunned disbelief.

When I saw him start to push forward — thinking about striking back — I sidestepped and hit him again, this time at the temple.

He went down. He stayed down. From the floor, he shouted up at me, furious: "What gives you the right to hit me?!"

I looked down at him and said nothing. Then I turned and walked away with my people in tow.

If he felt wronged, he was welcome to report it. My position in the group had been Adams's own doing. As long as I didn't cross any lines that actually mattered, I could handle things however I saw fit.

Johnson simply didn't understand that.

But if I was being honest with myself, life at Charlecross Group was grinding me down in ways I hadn't anticipated.

My official title was the chairman's assistant. Each day I followed Adams in and out of meetings and social engagements, surrounded by a steady procession of suited men bearing documents, reports, and requests for approval. They were unfailingly courteous to my face. The looks they gave me behind my back never stopped. Johnson had simply been the first one to stop hiding it.

I was also clear-eyed about what Adams actually needed me for. Not much, in practical terms.

Most of the time I was a prop — something to be displayed, a signal to the outside world of his so-called "trust" and "investment" in me. The occasions when I was genuinely useful were the ones involving Lowell: when Adams needed to apply pressure, he'd bring me to the negotiating table as a senior executive of Charlecross Group, letting my presence there unsettle Lowell's people.

Beyond that, Adams's other "arrangements" for me took place on the top floor of the building — specifically, the private rest room concealed behind the hidden door of his executive office. That was where I fulfilled my real obligations as "the chairman's assistant."

That afternoon, he summoned me as usual. The stated reason was to review work. But when I arrived, he tossed the files aside, took my hand, and led me through the hidden door.

He threw me onto the bed. A shadow fell across me, and then his weight came down.

I gripped the sheets. No matter how many times this happened, I never got used to it. I kept my eyes shut, his labored breathing pressing down on me like something with physical weight.

He pushed inside me. Both hands — thick, veined — locked around my waist as he thrust, again and again, with the kind of force that didn't stop no matter how I cried out.

He was always like this. All he wanted from sex was the feeling of control. As long as it satisfied whatever was broken inside him, I was certain he could hurt me far worse and feel nothing.

All I could do was go silent and make whatever sounds he needed to hear, counting each moment down, willing it to end.

At some point, it did. Adams withdrew, and I was left lying face-down on the bed, trying to breathe through the pain. My body felt like it had been fed through a grinder, bones and all.

The room was quiet for a long time. Then I heard the rustling of sheets as he got up, followed by the metallic click of a belt buckle.

I dragged myself over and sat up on the edge of the bed, pulling on a piece of clothing before heading toward the bathroom.

I had just reached for the bathroom door when Adams spoke.

"What?" I turned to look at him.

"You hit Johnson in the archive room today?" He had already finished buttoning his shirt and was standing before the full-length mirror, fastening his cuffs.

"He said something he shouldn't have," I said, my expression flat. "I was making sure he understood the difference between what's acceptable and what isn't."

Adams paused, just slightly, before finishing the button. He looked up and let his gaze rest on my face for a moment. Then he smiled — a cold thing, shallow enough that it never reached his eyes. "Talking behind my darling's back. Yes, I suppose he had it coming."

Something shifted in my chest. I kept my face still. "By that logic," I said evenly, "anyone in the group who decides to run their mouth in the future — I can deal with them the same way?"

"Handle them however you like." Adams lowered his hands and crossed the room toward me, unhurried. He drew me into his arms, pressed his lips to my forehead — the faint bitterness of tobacco lingering there — and his tone carried something almost indulgent. "You're senior management now. Everyone in this group answers to you. Everyone except me."

I looked at him directly, and let a smile come. "So if I wanted to clear out a few of the people around me, you'd approve that too?"

Adams paused. Something shifted behind his eyes — a flash of calculation, quick and cold — as if he'd seen exactly where I was going.

After a beat, he stepped back and let go of me. "The people around you were assigned by me personally. You're still finding your footing with how the business operates — it makes sense to have experienced people nearby to help you stay on track."

I heard what he said, and I swallowed the response that rose in my throat. "Help me stay on track." We both knew what he meant. He had no intention of letting me slip from his grip — not truly. The title he'd given me might look respectable from the outside, but the assistants and the drivers tailing me every hour of the day were never going away.

"Fine, but is there any chance of cutting the number down?" I tried to make my voice sound casually irritated, the way anyone would be. "Having that many people following me everywhere is excessive. It draws attention. And it wastes the group's resources."

Adams folded his arms across his chest and regarded me with the unhurried ease of someone who had already won. "Having a few extra eyes on you gives me peace of mind. And your safety matters — if Lowell's people ever got to you, I'd have to spend time and energy tracking you down."

I swallowed the anger and let it go. "Fine. Do whatever you want."

Adams smiled — clearly pleased that I'd known when to stop. "If it really bothers you that much, I can keep you company myself."

I looked down and didn't respond. He gave a low laugh, reached out and touched me between the legs, told me to go wash up, and left the room.

I had run into a wall. I dropped the subject of reassigning my staff and didn't bring it up again.

But the bitterness stayed with me.

---

That afternoon I left Adams's office with a stack of documents to review, and made my way down the corridor. I passed a cluster of employees in low conversation; the murmuring cut out the moment I came near, then resumed once I was far enough away.

The incident had clearly made the rounds. Word was that I'd hit Johnson and that Adams had subsequently removed him from his administrative post. For now, at least, no one was willing to challenge me openly.

The hostility toward my sudden elevation hadn't gone anywhere — but the situation was better than it had been.

I stepped into the elevator, pressed the button for the first floor, and let that thought settle.

There was a café on the ground floor, tucked into the east side of the lobby. Floor-to-ceiling windows faced the street outside, where the afternoon light came flooding through the glass and spilled across the dark wood of the tabletops in long, warm pools.

I ordered a black coffee, carried it to a window seat, and turned my attention to the two people who had been assigned to watch me — because I had decided it was time to make their afternoon unpleasant.

It was two o'clock. The sun was out, but the cold was brutal. The snow from the previous days was beginning to melt, and what remained had frozen and thawed and frozen again in uneven layers, making the walkways outside treacherous to clear. On top of that, the wind was vicious — the kind that cuts straight through fabric and bites at exposed skin like something sharp.

"You two." I took a slow sip of my coffee and nodded toward the street. "Go out and clear the snow."

The two women exchanged a pained look before one of them ventured, carefully: "There's a crew assigned to that — they just haven't started their shift yet..."

"I don't like looking at it," I said, cutting her off. "Is there a problem with me asking you to take care of it right now?"

They looked at each other again — the look of people who had decided further argument wasn't worth the cost — then went to find snow-clearing equipment.

With them outside, I had a rare few minutes to myself. I sat back and let the quiet settle over me.

The street beyond the window was alive with its usual mid-afternoon motion. The sunlight stretched the shadows of the pedestrians into long, thin shapes as they leaned into the wind, heads down, shoulders drawn in, everyone moving as if the cold were something to outrun.

I was still watching when the café door opened from outside.

I glanced up out of habit. The moment my eyes landed on the figure in the doorway, my hand stopped mid-air, the coffee cup suspended and forgotten.

Jason stood at the entrance in a deep grey coat, a briefcase in one hand, heading toward the counter.

His gaze swept across the café — and landed on me.

He stopped. Completely still. As if the ground had simply caught him there and refused to let him move.