Chapter 35: A Potential Scandal

I stared at him, calculating the offer. He sounded sincere. But what if this was just a calculated bribe to ensure I didn’t spread the word about what he’d done? No. A simple promise wouldn’t work. If I was going to move forward with him, I needed a proper leash around his neck.

"I’ll accept your support," I said.

A quiet, almost imperceptible sense of relief washed over his features, but before he could speak, I raised a single hand.

"But... That doesn’t make us even."

"Then...?"

I walked straight toward him, closing the distance between us until I was standing right in his space. I was going to make him feel—even if not all of it—a fraction of what his unhinged nephew had forced on me.

Reaching up, I grabbed his loose tie—which looked like it had been worn purely for decoration anyway—and yanked it clean off his collar.

Without waiting for permission, I walked behind him, my voice dropping into a cold command.

"Hands to the back."

"Brianna, what—"

"You don’t get to resist," I cut him off, leaning near his body. "I never got the chance to, so I’m putting you in the exact same position."

Edgar went quiet. He clearly didn’t know the full extent of what I was planning, but he decided he wouldn’t fight me. He brought his broad hands behind his back, letting me loop the silk tie around his wrists and bind them firmly together.

Seeing the direction this was heading, Oliver quietly bowed, turned on his heel, and stepped out into the hallway, shutting the double doors behind him. He knew better than to be an audience to his master’s disgrace.

The moment the knot was secure, I lashed out with a swift, targeted kick straight to the back of Edgar’s knees.

THUD.

His knees hit the hardwood floor, a deep suppressed groan vibrating in his throat.

He didn’t struggle. Instead, he tilted his head back, looking up at me with a faint, dark glint in his golden eyes. "Having fun? Putting an Alpha on his knees?"

"You think this is fun?" I asked, stepping back around to stand directly in front of him. "Then you’re even more unhinged than I thought."

I leaned down, locking my gaze onto his restrained frame.

"Edgar, this is how helpless your nephew made me feel," I whispered, my voice devoid of a single drop of warmth. "And next... I’m going to suffocate you, just like he did with me."

Edgar’s breath hitched slightly, but he didn’t pull away. He stayed on his knees, his hands bound tightly behind him with his own tie, his golden eyes burning into mine with an intense, unreadable focus.

"Do it then," he said, his voice a low, rough murmur.

I leaned down, my face getting closer to his, but the moment he realized it wasnt a simple suffocation and was something else, he panicked.

His eyes widened slightly and he whipped his head back, pulling away from my descending face before my lips could make contact.

"You... You need to think this through," he said, his voice dropping into a tight, urgent whisper, his eyes wide with genuine alarm. "If this leaks out, you could get dragged into a scandal."

I frowned, my eyes narrowing into slits.

So that was it, after all. The real reason behind his sudden generosity, his sudden willingness to throw resources and money at my feet—he wasn’t just compensating me. He was trying to buy my silence.

He wanted to make sure I didn’t breathe a word about what happened in the sub-basement, keeping both his reputation and that unhinged bastard’s name completely clean from a massive public mess.

In that case, this was the ultimate revenge.

"You don’t get to resist, Edgar," I murmured, sliding my fingers through the dark locks at the back of his hair, locking his head completely in place. "You brought this on yourself."

Before he could utter another word, I pulled him forward and slammed my lips onto his.

I didn’t care about passion—what even was that—and I certainly didn’t care about affection. I intended to do to him exactly what Benjamin had done to me—a brutal, suffocating display of total control.

But as I took his mouth, clumsily forcing my tongue past his lips the exact way I remembered his nephew doing, I had no idea what kind of line I was actually crossing.

Edgar went completely, unnaturally rigid.

The shock of having a girl in the age range of his younger sister and nephew force herself onto him—an Alpha, bound on his knees—paralyzed him. But as my clumsy attempt to imitate Benjamin’s aggression hit him, it wasn’t just his lungs screaming for air that made his body react.

It was his wolf.

Bulging veins crawled across his neck and arms, his dark skin flushing hot. The silk tie around his wrists strained under a sudden, terrifying surge of pure predator instinct.

Having a female’s mouth on his, tasting her, feeling her push against him while his hands were tied behind his back—it was taking every ounce of his legendary self-control not to snap the fabric, grab me by the waist, and tear the control right out of my hands.

His chest rose and fell in short, jagged hitches, his golden eyes blown wide, dark, and hazy, fighting a desperate war against his own wild nature. I kept the pressure tight, sealing off his breath and forcing him to endure every second of the suffocation.

Five seconds. Ten seconds.

His breath ran completely dry, his pulse hammering wildly against my fingertips where I held his hair. Just as his posture began to slacken and his eyelids fluttered under the double assault of lack of air and overwhelming sensory overload, I yanked myself back.

I released his hair, breaking the seal.

I might be suffocating him, but I was also suffocating myself. Regardless, the suffocation was not the actual aim. The aim was to have him powerless, have him humiliated. And I believed I had achieved that goal.

Edgar collapsed forward, his forehead nearly touching the wood before he caught his balance, drawing in violent, ragged gasps of air. He coughed, his chest heaving like a bellows, his lips swollen, wet, and bright red.

I stood over him, wiping the back of my hand across my mouth.

"Now," I said, my voice cutting through his ragged breathing like a razor blade. "We’re even."

Edgar drew in one last shaky breath, slowly forcing his head up. The arrogant, untouchable casino boss was gone, replaced by an Alpha panting on the floor, his entire body trembling as he fought to bring his flared wolf back under control.

"You..." Edgar rasped out, his voice thick, rough, and laced with utter disbelief. "You really have no idea what you just did, do you?"

"I know I paid you back," I said coldly, stepping past him to snatch the black credit voucher from his desk.

I slid the card into my hoodie pocket, turned toward the double doors, and walked out without giving him a second glance.

Things took a turn for the worse, but since I didn’t lose anything, I guess it was a win for me. I thought, swiping my thumb across my lips and feeling a lingering sensation from the kiss. That... Definitely felt weird.