He shrugs, adding an exasperated huff while his eyes dart back and forth between me and the rest of the room.

  “Alena, dear,” he begins, lifting his hand as he makes a move to touch me again. But I pin him down with a furious look, my piercing eyes latched onto that hand as my mind runs wild with violent images once again. My inner rage is almost painful, dancing at the tip of my tongue while the knuckles of my hands turn white as my hands clench up.

  Vicious heat assumes my entire body, and I'm sure the glowing sensation on my cheeks is accompanied by a treacherous blush of anger spreading across my face.

  I used to like this man, because I was grateful to him. He took a risk when hiring me. On paper, I was unqualified for the job and had nothing going for me other than my ambition.

  But he believed in me. He saw that I had potential.

  At least that’s what he said back then. He said he would help me flourish and that his door was always open.

  I felt obligated to work harder than anyone else and I gave a lot of thought to improvements for the benefit of this company and the people working for it. I tried—but he never listened. He never even gave me a chance, often rejecting my suggestions before I had a chance to finalize the proposals.

  I thought today would be different. I worked extra hard for this proposal, making sure it could truly hold up before asking for a chance to present it.

  He encouraged me along the way, he kept saying yes to everything—up until now.

  Did he wait to turn me down in front of the entire department, just to humiliate me? To make sure that I would never bother him again?

  Well, don't worry about that, asshole.

  For a while, no one speaks and the silence is deafening. My coworkers display their discomfort by shifting in their seats, the expensive leather squeaking under their awkward motions. Someone coughs. Another person clears her throat. There’s the sound of a pen doodling in a notebook somewhere to my left.

  No one says a word. No one has my back.

  I didn’t want to end it this way, but fuck it.

  Fuck him.

  Fuck all of them.

  I stand up so abruptly that Mr. Hammond jerks in surprise, nearly toppling his chair when he flings himself back into it. His startled gaze follows me as baffled gasps fill the air around us.

  I want to scream. I want to reach for the pile of papers and throw it in his face. I want to burn this entire building to the fucking ground.

  But I don’t and I won’t.

  I can do better.

  I inhale a sharp breath, straightening my posture and jutting my chin up before my lips part to speak in the most collected and sovereign manner I’ve ever managed in my entire life. Two words, that’s all it takes.

  Two words that will change my life forever.

  “I quit.”

  Chapter 2

  Alena

  Three days have passed, and my heart is still pumping with anxiety each time my mind wanders back to that moment when I forced a free fall upon myself.

  I caused this. I wanted this.

  I still want this.

  I don’t regret my decision. The way I gave voice to it feels like a spur-of-the-moment thing, a spontaneous detonation that no one saw coming. But it wasn’t like that at all, at least not for me.

  My closest office buddy Jill chased after me when I stomped out of the meeting room right after my announcement, effectively trying to calm me down.

  “It’ll be okay,” she said sympathetically, her hand resting on my shoulder in a sign of solidarity as we hurried down the corridor. “Don’t worry, I’m sure he’ll know you didn’t mean it like that.”

  But I did mean it like that. The frustration that poured out from that one poignant statement has been building up over months, years even.

  Hard work is all I’ve known since I can remember—but I’m not simply working hard for the sake of it. I want my reward, recognition. I want my goddamn promotion. I don’t want to feel like I’m making sacrifices for nothing.

  And God knows I’m done with being the little goody-two-shoes who constantly gets overlooked.

  I want more. Or at least… something else.

  I quickly left the office that day and haven’t been back since. I know I’ll have to return eventually if I don’t want to completely ruin my chances of getting a reference from Mr. Hammond, but that’s Future Alena’s problem.

  I called in sick for the rest of the week. Today is Friday and I refuse to face the reality of my decision before Monday, not before I absolutely have to.

  That’s the plan, at least.

  Of course, my overactive brain has other ideas. I can’t sit still because every time I do, the voices in my head start berating at me.

  You fucking idiot, how could you? You let your rage get the better of you—again!

  What are you going to do now?

  What will you live off of? How long do you think you’ll be able to survive on your meager savings?

  A month? Two?

  What if you haven’t found a new job by then?

  What if...

  I grimace as if in physical pain, jumping up from the bed and stumble toward the door. It’s almost noon. I stayed up until the early morning hours, unable to sleep. I’m a night owl by nature, but this is bad, even for me.

  Maybe I should change fields, I think, as I drag my feet over to the kitchen.

  Maybe I should become a bartender, like my friend Melina.

  A smile creeps across my face when I think of her, because Melina isn’t just a bartender at a regular downtown hipster bar. She works at The Velvet Rooms, a place that only very few people even know about. Selected people with peculiar tastes.

  She always corrects me when I call it a kink club, most likely quoting her boss when she insists that it’s more than that. And, I guess, in a way it is. It’s not a place where just anybody with a taste for kink can show up and play as their heart’s desire. Only a few selected clientele can even gain admittance, and for the first few months it was open, there was absolutely no chance a regular person like me could gain entrance off the street.

  It’s only thanks to Melina that I was selected to be one of the first women outside the circles of the super rich to be invited to one of their events.

  I was curious. I knew I wanted to experience something new, something challenging—and I wanted a chance to play without the burden of a relationship. The Velvet Rooms seemed to be the perfect place for that. Safe, exclusive, classy—and with a promise of finding something very special.

  The club hosts only a few events open to guests like me—single ladies who are not wealthy or paid escorts. I have been there a few times since then, mesmerized by the scenes that were played out on stage during the midnight show. I was intrigued by the atmosphere, the people, the forbidden.

  But I never played. I never dared.

  There was a time when I thought I wanted to, maybe even needed it. There was a moment when I thought I had found the perfect man to help me figure out who I am and what it is that I need.

  But that chance has passed and will never present itself again. Ever since I have come to accept that, I lost interest in visiting the club altogether.

  Besides, I couldn’t become his plaything anyway. Because that man is asking for something I couldn’t give.

  I decided to be prudent and rational for once in my life. Do the right thing, focus on my career, stop getting off track.

  A sinister smirk tugs at the corner of my mouth when I think about it.

  You wanted to be the good girl, a grown-up. Look where that fucking got you, Alena.

  Jobless, frustrated, and without a purpose.

  Nowhere, that’s where it got you. Fucking nowhere.

  I fetch my tablet before I sit down at the kitchen table, coffee in hand, and a bitter grimace masks my face as I open the club’s website. I don’t even know why I’m doing it. I can’t expect there to be an upcoming event, especially on such short notice, but my heart still sinks a little when I see that the club is closed for tonight.

  And then it almost stops when I check tomorrow’s schedule.

  Saturday is blacked out too, but for a different reason.

  My breath hikes and my eyes widen with disbelief as they hurriedly scan the few written words, checking the date and information again and again.

  It can’t be. This must be a mistake.

  Fate wouldn’t toy with me like that. Would it?

  I shake my head, my lips moving as they try to form the words that I keep reading again and again, unable to make sense of it all.

  Maybe the old saying is right: when one door closes, another one opens.

  But this door is one I’ve knocked at before. A long time ago. It didn’t open for me then, and I thought I would never have another chance.

  I finally force myself to speak, because I feel like I have to say it out loud to believe it.

  “He’s on the hunt.”

  Shit.

  I need to call Melina.

  End of preview

  Curious to see what happens at the puppetmaster’s hunt? Click here to read The Puppetmaster – free in Kindle Unlimited!

  Also by Linnea May

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  TAMED: A Bad Boy Billionaire Romance

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