“You said you had a proposition for me.” (Patreon)

Snippets from the night Maximus blackmailed Roth. 

He was lying out of his ass. Jasmine hadn’t come home as meek as he hoped. If it wasn’t for Roth giving her a hard time about the divorce, he doubted she would have come to him at all. Her career as a writer had given her financial independence. He didn’t like it, but he was learning to adapt to her newfound confidence. As for Roth, he wanted to draw blood before he checkmated this fucker. He wanted to hammer home that his charade was over. Jasmine was moving onto the life she would have had if she hadn’t fallen for his lies. 

But his verbal jabs weren’t getting him the reaction he wanted. Roth stood there, eyeing him like he was some harmless door salesman instead of one of the most powerful men in the States. He had run him out of the country and cost him millions. Roth should be pacing, shifting his weight, or expressing some unease about his sudden appearance. Instead, he drank Scotch and watched him. Cool, unmoved, detached. How the hell did Jasmine convince herself that this man cared for her? 

“You said you had a proposition for me.”

Roth’s voice was low and even. He knew Roth was a cold, cunning bastard, but he hadn’t believed he was a sociopath until tonight. The man either felt very little or nothing at all. He planned to draw this out a little longer and make him sweat, but what was the point? He wasn’t sure he could stay on his feet much longer. Time to cut the crap. He faced the son-in-law he vowed to never accept and went for the jugular. 

“The proposition’s simple. Sign the divorce papers and I won’t ruin what you built here.”

“Do your worst.”

He suppressed the urge to hurl his glass at him. If he was fifteen years younger, he might have. Instead, he shoved his demons down and reached for the control he was famous for when he was closing a deal. “You sure you want me to do that?”

**This is a raw draft of Roth’s book. Please do not share or distribute.