Seduced Fall ✔️

35. The bargain

Stefan Peirce

My phone's ear vibrating ringtone buzzes for the third time in a row, interrupting my barely-got sleep. I groan and go for the phone, where the name and face of my loving sister flash across the screen. I squint my eyes to make sure it's her calling me in the early morning while she hardly is a morning person herself.

"Yes, Mae?" I ask as I rise from my sleeping position and lean against the headrest, knowing I won't be getting any more restful sleep.

"Thank fucking god, Stefan!" she screams from the other side, jolting all of my senses awake with her furious, no-shits voice. "Are you kidding me? I must have called you a hundred times before your sleepy-ass remembered to pick up my fucking calls!"

In the background of her voice, I hear footsteps and the wind blowing, indicating that she is somewhere outside.

"What's wrong, Mae?" My voice is hoarse but calm, the polar opposite of hers.

"Everything," she says exaggerating, as a car door opens and closes behind her. "You remember the fight you had with two at the Caelfall airport?"

"Yes, what about it?"

My body posture changes from languid to stiff as I become more alert. Mae had just informed me about those two being in town last night, and that they were the ones she had come looking for and ended up at Clara's.

Mae swung her magic wand of terror around to close that chapter after I successfully escaped the airport and the messed-up scene that day. I never saw those two men from Asher Wyatt's Arctic Stones. After years of backstabbing and bribing each other, my father and Asher Wyatt had agreed to a truce. However, Wyatt appears to have a fantastic acting ability as a two-faced man.

"Those bastards are back to screw with our brains, Stef," she explains as the background noises are drowned out by her harsh car driving. "And they're messing with someone who has nothing to do with the business or with them."

I stand up and rub my face with my hands. I question further as I walk into my barely illuminated room. "Who?"

It's can't be our mother. Rubee Peirce, my mom, is one of the company's directors. Aside from the four of us in our family, no one in the business world has a Peirce name. We don't have any weaknesses that strangers are aware of. Dad always makes sure that we don't have anyone in our lives who people like Asher Wyatt can blackmail us through.

"Clara."

I come to an abrupt stop.

"Why is she involved in all of this?" I question, my teeth clenched as fury burns in my veins. Despite the fact that I have a rough idea about it all.

Mae lets out an exasperated sigh before responding, "She has become your weakness."

I deliberately close my eyes slowly this time, allowing the truth to settle in. "They were lurking around Clara's house, weren't they?" I ask, taking a few long breaths and connecting all the threads in my mind.

Their phone locations near Clara's house were discovered by Mae's hacker. It wasn't the hacker who made the error; it was us. We, or rather I, had failed to see it before.

Clara has become my weakness, or as a more accurate label would be my heart's soft spot.

"Look, Stef, I know it's my duty to deal with these fuckers," Mae hisses.

"But?"

"But, this time I need you to tell me what to do."

My phone vibrates, alerting me to a new message.

Clara: Look forward for your gift

I breathe out in a rush. I know how to deal with my feelings of rage and loathing for Wyatt's heinous games, but I can't function effectively when Clara is in danger. I simply cannot afford to lose her. Not at all. Not after the agony I felt last night when I knew she was talking about leaving me.

"I'll deal with it," For Clara, "Tell me where to find them."

My blood rushes through me with a strong urge to slam the ginger-haired jerk's already fractured nose. To get rid of that dreadful smirk on his smug face.

"Say that again, I swear I'll break your fucking teeth!" My fist is clenched as my elbow rests on the car's open window. The suggestive plastered satisfaction on his face makes it worse for me to maintain my composure.

"Say what?" he mocks, laughing grumpily. "That I'll have your brunette girl chained in my basement?"

I punch him. Hard.

His lips are dripping with blood the next second. My chest tightens with the want to do it again.

If it weren't for my foolish impulses to have a regular conversation, I'd have him tied in my basement. Threats are nothing new to me, but you'll have to go past me when you involve the innocent Clara, who has nothing to do with this nonsense.

"Hit a nerve, didn't I?" He mumbles, his voice scratchy and his eyes red from the amount of alcohol he must be high on.

"What do you want?" I ask. I'm so focused on him and his words that I don't hear Mae on the other end of the earpiece. I cast a cautious check over the man's shoulder to my parked car, which is only a few meters away. For the past 15 minutes, Mae has been attempting to get me out of this car so she can have her way with this man.

For the past few years, Halder J has become one of Asher's best undercover men. Halder J stands out as an iconic fucker of Asher's paws in the chess of business, with a reputation as a jerk, brutal-beater, and the worst man one may ever encounter. And not to mention, the men who I had dealt with at Caelfall airport were Halder's.

"Ah, you know what I want, Peirce, don't you?" He adjusts his fake branded grey T-shirt and continues, "But, allow me to repeat myself for you."

He sniffs and clears his throat. "Tell your daddy not to put his nose in Arctic Stones business deals, and get his shit and fuck off from the contract with the Japanese."

I stare at him with my eyes narrowed, hoping I had the power and magic to kill him with my look. Mae had forewarned me about this potential bargaining, or rather threat.

"And what if I don't?"

He smirks. "I'll have your girl kidnapped."