Page 75 of Savage King
Well, okay then.
We take a circle around the arena, but I don’t see Rose anywhere.
“Let’s go to the control room and see what we can see there,” Mateo says and leads me to a door away from the crowds.
The room is about half the size of his office, and it looks like a NASA control center.
Huge monitors cover the wall, all of them displaying a different camera feed. There’s a long desk in front of them with several computers, and the only person in the room is a woman.
A beautiful, bombshell of a woman.
And my back immediately goes up.
She’s not sitting, she’s standing behind a tall desk, her fingers clicking on the keyboard. How she’s able to type so fast with nails that long, I have no idea. She’s in a red skintight bodysuit that leaves absolutelynothingto the imagination. Her dark hair is loose around her shoulders, and when she hears the door open, she glances at us and then does a double take when she sees me.
“Pandora is my general manager,” Mateo says as he wraps his arm around my shoulders and kisses the top of my head. “Pandora, this is Violet. She’s mine. Whatever she needs, you make it happen.”
The other woman lifts a perfectly stenciled eyebrow. She doesn’t smile. She doesn’t even say hello.
“Is she mute?” I ask Mateo, not taking my eyes off the other woman.
Her eyes narrow, but Mateo chuckles.
“No, she’s just moody. Come on, let’s look at these screens.”
He leads me over and stands next to me, threading his fingers through mine. He never stops touching me, and I fucking love it.
“These six are the screens you’ll want to pay attention to,” he says, pointing to the ones on top. “These others are on bets and behind the scenes.”
“Why is she here?” Pandora asks, trying to sound bored.
She just sounds jealous.
“Because I want her here,” Mateo says, turning to the other woman. “Watch yourself, Dora.”
She rolls her eyes, and I can’t help but blink at her and then turn to Mateo. If literallyanyoneelse were to do that, I don’t doubt he’d put a bullet in their head.
“Later,” is all he says, and we turn back to the screens.
“Whore,” I hear her whisper behind me, and I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who can hear her because she’s closest to me.
I choose to ignore that one.
I’m busy scanning the screen in the top middle when I hear her whisper something else.
“Fucking gold digger.”
And now, I can’t control myself anymore. Because I’m no doormat.
“Do you have a fucking problem?” I demand as I turn to face Pandora. She doesn’t even look surprised, but now shedoessmile.
“Who, me?”
“Call me a whore one more time. I fucking dare you.”
“What the?—”
“I’ve got this,” I say to Mateo, pressing my hand on his chest, without looking away from the shit stirrer in front of me. “You want to take a go at me in that cage, bitch? Because you don’t fucking scare me. I will kick your ass. You’ve picked on the wrong fucking girl.”
