Fangs, Fate & Other Bad Decisions Chapter 46

By midday Tuesday, I’m one stiff comment away from ending someone's bloodline.

The office is a symphony of all the things I loathe: phones ringing, people breathing too loudly, and Griffin humming under his breath like he doesn't value his life.

I try to focus on the quarterly reports spread out in front of me. Revenue’s up, so the shareholders are happy. And our growth projections are record-breaking. It should thrill me. It always has before.

Now, though, I can only think about how Harley’s hair smelled when she fell asleep against me. The soft little sounds she made. And the way she mumbled my name like it was a secret she didn’t even know she was keeping.

I push the papers away with a growl, the veins in my forearm flexing.

Griffin pokes his head into my office with a file folder tucked under his arm and a saintly expression plastered on his face. "I have the updated contracts for..."

"Shut the door," I snap at him.

He blinks once, then twice, then obeys.

When the door clicks shut behind him, I stand—and it’s slow, controlled, and predatory.

Griffin watches me warily, as if he knows what’s coming.

“Her number," I bite out. "Give it to me."

He doesn’t even have to ask who I mean. Of course, he doesn’t. He was there. He saw everything.

Griffin, the loyal bastard that he is, treads carefully. "Sir, with all due respect...you asked us to remove all personal details unless they’re voluntarily given. It’s our privacy protocol. Remember?"

I step around the desk towards him, my temper coiling tighter with every step.

"I’m revising that protocol," I say silkily and dangerously. "Right fucking now."

Griffin sighs under his breath like a man confronting an inevitable fate, before calmly saying, "You're not thinking clearly, sir."

"I’m thinking more clearly than I have in *centuries*," I snarl at him, pinning him with a glare that could turn headstones to dust.

A beat of silence passes between us. Then a breath. And finally, a decision.

Slowly, Griffin reaches into his jacket and pulls out a small notebook. Not his company phone. Not his company tablet. A *handwritten* damn notebook.

Of course.

He’s too smart to keep Harley’s details anywhere that could be traced. Another reason he’s the best PA in the goddamn country.

He flips it open, finds the page he’s looking for, and then tears it out neatly, before walking forward and setting the paper on the small conference table off to the side without a word—no apology or explanation.

Just the information I’ve been craving like a dying man craves air.

Harley’s name. Her mobile number. And an address. The bookstore—*her* bookstore.

I stare at it for one second longer than I should.

"You’re a dead man if she gets angry about this," Griffin says under his breath, but there’s no real heat behind it. Only a slight, knowing smile, he doesn’t even bother to hide.

Smartass.

I pocket the piece of paper and grab my jacket.

"Mike," I bark into my phone as I stride from my office, "Car, downstairs, now."

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Twenty minutes later, I’m in the back of my SUV, tapping my fingers against my knee like a psychopath as Mike expertly weaves through downtown traffic.

He doesn’t ask where we’re going, because he already knows.

It’s written in my every clipped answer, and every tension-coiled silence radiating off me like a thunderstorm.

Still, halfway through the ride, he glances at me in the rearview mirror and asks, low and even, "You sure about this, boss?"

I grind my molars together, expecting them to become dust any second. "No."

Another few seconds of silence pass, then Mike mutters, almost to himself, "Sometimes, the wrong thing feels right first."

I don’t answer him. Because if I do, I might say something like *‘I can't breathe without her’* or *‘I’m already too far gone’.*

Instead, I close my eyes and let the city blur past my window, one mile at a time, getting closer to the only woman who's ever unraveled me without even so much as trying.

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Mike pulls up quietly and smoothly to the curb, parking in front of the unassuming little building like he’s done it a hundred times before. Sunlight catches in the bookstore window, filtering through dust motes and hanging signs that say things like ‘NEW ROMANCE ARRIVALS’ and ‘FREE COFFEE FRIDAYS’.

I stare at the quaint glass-fronted door like it might open all on its own.

Like she might step out, see me and say... What exactly? I’m not sure. But it’ll most likely be scathing, sarcastic, and uncomfortably honest. And I’d take it—gladly—just to hear her voice.

She’s somewhere in there. Laughing, maybe. Or arguing with a supplier on the phone about a delayed delivery. Or biting her lip while shelving a stack of hardcovers. All while she’s blissfully unaware that I’m parked twenty feet away, with her name like a brand on the inside of my ribcage.

“Boss?” Mike asks quietly but not tentatively, “Are we staying or circling?”

I don’t answer him at first. I just sit there, with my elbows on my knees, and my eyes pinned to the shopfront like it’s the only thing tethering me to this earth. I take in every detail—the chalkboard sign with an uneven quote, the crooked hanging fairy lights inside, and even the way a streak of sunlight breaks across the doorframe as some sort of beacon that calls to me.

“It feels wrong to leave,” I murmur. “But worse to go in.”

Mike hums thoughtfully, both of his hands still on the wheel. “You ever see those old movies where the guy charges into the airport just before the love of his life boards a plane?”

I grunt, my gaze still locked on the storefront, “The ones that usually end with bad dialogue and a kiss that wouldn’t pass a CPR course.”

He chuckles softly, before adding, “Yeah. But you know what always bugs me? It’s never the right time. Never the right words. But they go anyway.”

I look at him, unsure where he’s going with this, “And?”

Mike shrugs and replies, “I just always wonder if maybe...that’s the whole point.”

I glance back at the door that I know is unlocked and ready to be opened.

Just a few steps. That’s all it would take. I could walk inside, cross the threshold, and let whatever’s happening between us breathe in the open air instead of suffocating in silence.

But I don’t. Not today.

Because if I walk in now, I’ll take too much from her and ask for more than she’s ready to give.

So, I sit back slowly, the leather seat cool against my spine, my hands curling into fists in my lap, and the ache in my chest deepening.

“Drive,” I say quietly.

Mike doesn’t argue. He just flicks on his turn signal and pulls away from the curb like nothing happened. Like I didn’t just sit outside her door and *choose* to leave instead of crashing back into her life like a tidal wave.

But as the bookstore fades into the distance through the side mirror—smaller, blurrier, gone—I feel something deep inside me resist.

My body might be leaving, but my soul doesn’t. It stays behind, rooted there, and waiting patiently for its other half inside that store.

And I honestly don’t know how long it’ll stay there before it demands I go back and collect both of them.