Empire of Hate: A Second Chance Enemies to Lovers Romance

I learned early on to become a cat who’s full.

The type of cat who plays with his prey, tormenting it just for fun. And because he’s not hungry, the process can go on forever, until either the prey continues floundering in pain or dies of shock.

It’s a principle I’ve applied in my life ever since I found out about it.

I made sure to never be a hungry cat who offers their prey mercy and to make sure I play with them until I’m satisfied.

The reason I chose to become a solicitor is also because of that. I steered clear of criminal law and its needless hassle and chose international law instead.

That way, I get to feed the cat and never let it go hungry. With time, I became known as the player of the law circuit.

Not because I’m actually a player, although I am, but because I play games. Whether it’s psychological or manipulative, I’m not beneath playing games to win cases for my clients.

I’m not beneath being the ultimate player everyone wishes they could beat in court.

It’s how I obtained the type of reputation where people think twice before going against me.

I’m all fun and laughs until I flip the switch and turn everything into a game.

I’m playing one right now. One that’s different from all the other games I’ve played.

Usually, I only play a game when I’m ninety percent sure that I’ll win. The ten percent is the fun risk factor. This time, however, I’m not sure if that’s the same percentage or if it’s slightly lower.

Perhaps it’s higher because I won’t stop until I crush this game.

Until the prey decides to perish on its own.

Sitting behind my desk, I smooth my tie and watch through the space separating my office from Nicole’s.

She’s been reading through a contract draft that I asked her to proofread while simultaneously answering incoming calls, which obviously distracts her, because she shakes her head and flips to the previous page.

I lean back in my chair and watch the flutter of her thick lashes over her cheeks as she stares down at the paper.

Like yesterday, her hair is gathered in a ponytail, which highlights the soft contours of her face and her plump lips that are the color of peaches.

It doesn’t matter how many years pass or how old she gets, Nicole was and always will be beautiful. The provocative type.

The type I want to snuff out and shove down her slender throat.

Today, she’s wearing a dark green shirt that brings out the color of her eyes. They’re like a forest in the middle of winter. Mysterious. Manipulative.

Deadly.

That’s what she’s always been like—a lethal poison waiting for the next victim to attack.

A venom that’s designed to make people lose their minds.

Which is why I started this game.

She fucked with me first, and it’s time she has a taste of her own medicine.

When I saw her in one of Weaver & Shaw’s halls, I couldn’t believe my eyes.

It’s been eleven years. Eleven fucking years since I last saw her, but that one glimpse was enough to provoke the raging monster inside me.

One glimpse and it all came crashing down on me without mercy.

So I gave HR her name and asked what she was doing here when she’s supposed to be in fucking London where I bloody left her.

Turns out, Nicole was applying for an assistant position in the firm. As the bitch karma would have it, I recently let go of my one hundredth assistant, so Nicole was the perfect fit to fill in the role.

She’ll be my target for these couple of weeks and then she’ll beg me to let her go.

Little Miss Bitch will wish she’d turned around and ran the moment she saw me in my office.

I impatiently wait until she’s engrossed in the file again, then I lift my phone and press the button that connects me to her.

A slight jump lifts her shoulders and she purses her lips before picking up. To give her credit, she sounds welcoming. Soft, too. “Weaver & Shaw, Daniel Sterling’s office, how may I help you?”

“Are you finished with the contract?”

She stiffens visibly, steals a glance at me through the shutters, then stares back at her desk. “I’ll be done with it in a few.”

“A few isn’t a time frame. You should’ve been done with that ten minutes ago. Just like you should’ve brought me coffee three minutes earlier this morning. If my lunch is also late, don’t bother coming back. Are we clear, Ms. Adler?”

She pauses for a few seconds, probably to get her bearings. She’s clenching one of her fists on the pile of papers and grabbing the phone so tight, her knuckles look white.

It must be so humiliating to go from being the queen bee of the school to becoming an assistant. To go from wearing name brands and putting on premium perfume to buying cheap clothing from the store.

She was the type of bitch who walked all over those weaker than her with her designer heels while carrying her Dior bag. The type who smiled but never meant it because she excelled at being a fake, ugly monster who looked sweet like peaches but was rotten on the inside.

Considering what I know about her, I’d have sworn she would’ve cracked by now. She would’ve called me a “bloody idiot” like she did back then and walked out.

Her pride comes before everything. Even when she fell from grace and her mother was no longer in the picture, she never lowered her head or acted like a victim.

Never.

So the fact that she’s been keeping up with my ludicrous commands and harsh treatment is strange, to say the least.

It’s almost as if it’s not the same Nicole from back then.

“Yes, sir,” she says after a while.

My chest expands, then constricts in equal measure. I shouldn’t be feeling this fucking conflicted about the way she calls me “sir” when I intended to break her down with it, but fuck me, I’m not used to it.

Not one bit.

And I’m not sure whether that’s a good or a bad thing.

“I need that file in five minutes. If there are any mistakes, you’re fired.”

I hang up and pretend to focus on the screen of my computer. I can see her from my peripheral vision snapping the phone in place and glaring at me.

When I lift my head, she tactfully slides her attention back to the files.

I retrieve my phone, then I send her a series of tasks via text, separately.

Go to the IT department and get me a tech.

I need the draft for the Miles contract in thirty minutes.

Lunch in sixty minutes.

Another coffee in eighty minutes.

Book a meeting with Judge Harrison today.

Cancel golf this Sunday and come up with a good excuse.

Prepare a birthday gift for the mayor’s son.

Another coffee in two hundred minutes.

Any failure to perform these tasks and you’re fired.

She clenches her fist every time her phone dings or vibrates. I continue doing it on purpose to distract her.

What? I said I would play, not that I would play fair.

I toy with her, scattering her attention every few seconds. She has to check the phone, then go back to the document, flip back a page, look at the phone again, and so on.

Her cheeks turn red and I swear she’s about to stand up and storm in here—or storm out.

Before she can do so, the door to her office opens and my friend, Knox, appears in the threshold.

We both came from London after secondary school, even though I’m one year older than him.

Knox and I studied law together at Harvard, passed the bar together, and got into Weaver & Shaw at the same time. He specializes in criminal law, though, because he loves dealing with criminals.

He’s a freak like that.

Recently, he was the counsel of one of the parties in a public trial that got the media’s full attention. It had his own personal drama involved as well, but he came out of it even stronger than before. The fucker.

Anyway, Knox never knocks, but he also rarely pays attention to my assistants.

Today, he does.

My friend pauses at the threshold and gives Nicole a once-over. Since he came to our secondary school right after she left, she doesn’t recognize him.

But he recognizes her.

Perfectly so.

In fact, a sly grin paints his lips as he stalks toward her.

I stand up, letting my phone fall to the desk before I march toward the door. The moment I open it, I hear the sadism in Knox’s tone. “My, my, who do we have here?”

“Excuse me?” Nicole asks incredulously.

“Knox,” I call his name with a coolness I don’t feel.

He gives me a mischievous grin. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your new…blonde assistant?”

I don’t miss the way the fucker emphasizes the word “blonde” and I’m about to use his tactics about “how to get away with murder” against him.

Nicole, however, seems confused more than anything else. All her earlier irritation has disappeared, too.

I grab Knox by the shoulder. “You, come with me.”

He reaches into his jacket, retrieves his card, and puts it in front of Nicole. “My name is Knox Van Doren. Call me if you need anything, Ms.…”

“Adler,” she says. “Nicole Adler.”

“And the mystery woman finally has a name.” Knox smiles wide like a bloody twat and I resist smacking him upside the head and revealing my reaction to the whole situation. “Call me.”

Before she can grab the card, I swiftly lift it and bark at her, “You have five minutes for that report.”

Then I pull Knox with me into the office and lower the shutters, blocking her and her slightly bemused, slightly frustrated expression out of view.

After clenching and unclenching my fist, I face Knox, who’s made himself at home and is sitting on the sofa.

His legs are spread wide and he has his arm thrown nonchalantly over the back of the sofa. That fucking grin is still plastered on his face that’s begging to be punched with a professional boxer’s strength.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Me?” He feigns innocence, searching behind him for someone else. “I haven’t done anything except for introducing myself ever so casually.”

“Stay out of this, Knox.”

“Afraid your mystery girl will choose me? Oh, wait. She’s not a mystery anymore. Her name is Nicole and she’s a bombshell.”

“First of all, fuck you. Second of all, this has nothing to do with you, so go wank the nearest pole.”

“Thanks for the image, but I’m going to have to decline. I’m happily engaged and don’t need your disgusting methods.”

“Congratulations for being a twat. Now, can you screw off, please? Some of us have to work.”

“Didn’t seem like it when you were watching her like Radiohead’s “Creep.””

“You’re one to talk about the creepy factor, considering your Viagra-on-steroids sexcapades during working hours.”

Knox taps a finger on his lips, not bothering to hide his sly smile that resembles a fox in heat. Not that I’ve seen one, but I imagine this is the expression they would have. “Oh, that. Good times.”

“At least one of us thinks so.”

“Your opinion on the location of my sexual encounters ranks with the importance of the Queen of England’s involvement in national affairs, Danny. Superficial, reserved, and holds no value. Now, back to the subject at hand. I assume you’re still holding a grudge? It’s been, what?” His hazel eyes twinkle with amusement as he starts counting with his fingers. “Eleven fucking years, no? Normal people would’ve moved on by now.”

“I’m not normal people.”

“You sure as fuck are not. Normal people don’t hire their nemesis as an assistant.”

“That’s because they lack imagination. This is the perfect way to torment her.”

His expression is deadly serious as he asks, “And then what?”

“What do you mean, then what?”

“You’re doing this for a result, no?”

“No. The endgame isn’t necessary, the process is.”

He chuckles. “Crazy cunt.”

“I should be calling you that for your recent involvement with the mafia.”

“We’re cool.” He smooths his tie. “Besides, the tables have turned now, and you’re the main entertainment.”

“I’m no one’s bloody entertainment.”

“We’ll leave that to the court of the group chat. I’m sure everyone will agree that you brought this shitshow upon yourself.”

“It’s not a shitshow. It’s called cold-blooded revenge.”

“You’re still holding that much of a grudge, huh?”

I stare at the closed shutters and I can perfectly imagine her on the other side. Only, she’s not the desperate Nicole who stooped low to work as an assistant.

All I see is the girl who made my and my best friend’s lives in school hell.

The girl who was on a mission to destroy everything pretty I held of her. Everything…innocent.

It’s smudged in dark red blood now. Dry blood that’s been there for over a fucking decade and refuses to come off.

But now, I’ll use her to scrub that blood clean.

“It’s not a grudge, Knox. It’s a fucking game.”

Like the one she used to play back in the day.

This time, I’ll win.