Inside the World of Pierce Rockwell: Money, Power, Blair, and the Monster I Keep on a Leash

By Pierce Rockwell

There are certain advantages to being me. Money is one of them. Intelligence helps.

Power is particularly useful, despite what people who don't have any of it like to say.

I've spent most of my adult life building companies, acquiring assets, negotiating contracts, reading people, and making decisions involving enough money to give otherwise healthy accountants heart palpitations. I'm very good at what I do. Exceptional, actually. That's not arrogance if it's statistically verifiable. Blair disagrees.

Blair disagrees with quite a lot of things I say, which is one of the many inconveniences associated with falling in love with a woman who isn't remotely impressed by you. Before Blair McKenzie entered my life, I had a system. Systems are wonderful things. They're predictable. Efficient. Controllable. People are considerably less cooperative, and Blair is the least cooperative of all. She questions me. Challenges me. Corrects me when I'm wrong, which happens so infrequently that you'd think she'd have the decency to enjoy the novelty quietly. She does not. She usually smiles. That smile has become the natural predator of my ego. I suppose I should thank her for keeping me humble.

Control Isn't a Personality Flaw If It Keeps Everyone Alive

People have accused me of being controlling. They're correct. I prefer to think of it as an aggressive commitment to preventing stupidity. There's a difference. When I walk into a room, I need to know where the exits are. I notice who's watching me, who's pretending not to watch me, who has power, who thinks they have power, and who is about to do something monumentally stupid that I'll eventually have to fix. I don't enjoy surrendering control of a room. I learned very young what happens when life takes control away from you.

My mother died. My father wasn't there. There are losses a child understands, and there are losses he spends the rest of his life trying to make certain never happen again. Somewhere along the way, I learned that if I could anticipate everything, control enough variables, become powerful enough, and never depend too heavily on anyone, perhaps nothing could ever blindside me again. It's an excellent theory. Completely ineffective in reality. Then Blair happened.

Blair McKenzie, Professional Destroyer of Carefully Constructed Plans

Falling in love was never part of my strategy. I didn't schedule it. I didn't approve it.

There wasn't even a meeting. One minute, my life was functioning with reasonable efficiency. The next, Blair was standing in the middle of it, challenging my decisions, testing my patience, and making me care about things I'd spent years convincing myself I didn't need.

She's intelligent enough to challenge me, stubborn enough to ignore me, and brave enough to frighten the hell out of me. That last one is not a compliment.

Blair has an alarming tendency to believe she can handle herself. She can. That's the problem. She doesn't need me to rescue her. She needs me to understand that protecting her doesn't mean controlling her. I'm still working on that distinction. Progress has been made.

According to Blair, not enough. According to me, her expectations are unreasonable.

Our relationship thrives on compromise. Mostly mine.

Then There's the Monster

There is another part of me Blair understands better than anyone. I call him the monster.

Not because I particularly enjoy melodrama. I leave that to people with less interesting lives.

The monster is rage. Cold at first. Then not. I've spent years learning how to control it. Most people will never see that side of me. They may see impatience, irritation, sarcasm, or the particular expression I apparently make when someone says something so stupid that my brain briefly considers resigning. That's different.

The monster doesn't emerge because someone insults me. Threaten my money. I'll make more. Threaten my company. I'll rebuild it. Come after me, and we'll deal with each other.

But hurt someone I love? Hurt Blair? That's when the rules change. There are places inside a man that civilized society would prefer remain locked. Mine has excellent security.

Blair is one of the reasons I keep it that way. Because protecting Blair doesn't only mean protecting her from Omega, enemies, conspiracies, men with guns, powerful people with dangerous ambitions, or whatever fresh catastrophe has decided to wander into our lives before breakfast. Sometimes protecting Blair means protecting her from me. From what I am capable of becoming when fear turns into rage. She doesn't fear the monster. I do.

Perhaps that's why she's the one person capable of bringing me back.

Omega Has Become Inconvenient

Then there's Omega. Omega is what happens when powerful people decide ordinary power isn't enough. Wealthy professionals. Judges. Politicians. World leaders. People with immaculate reputations, expensive homes, influential friends, and enough secrets between them to destabilize governments. Naturally, they've taken an interest in me. I'm touched.

Confused, but touched. What I can't understand is why.

I've spent my life studying motives. Everyone wants something. Money. Influence. Revenge. Protection. Recognition. Control. Omega is different. Every answer produces another question. Every door opens into another corridor. Every person who should be an enemy may not be, and some of the people who appear harmless are anything but. For a man who likes knowing exactly what game he's playing, this is deeply irritating. And Omega isn't merely coming after my businesses. They're coming after me. The question is why. The more I uncover, the less comfortable the answer becomes.

And Somehow Atlas Is on My Side

Atlas should complicate matters. Instead, it's becoming something I didn't expect.

An ally. Baron West built Atlas into an extraordinary network of wealth, influence, loyalty, and power. Old money meets private alliances, contracts, political connections, and relationships most people will never know exist. The kind of organization I would normally distrust on principle. Unfortunately, Baron makes that difficult. Baron has become something I never expected to have at this stage of my life. A father figure.

I don't use those words lightly. I grew up understanding absence better than presence. Fathers were something other people had. Something I stopped expecting a long time ago.

Then Baron walked into my life with his experience, his loyalty, his irritating ability to see through me, and the occasional habit of treating me like the son I never agreed to become.

I tolerate it. Mostly. The truth is considerably more dangerous. I love the man. Don't tell him.

His ego is already adequately funded.

Apparently, I Have a Friend Now Too

Then there's Thomas. I didn't need another friend. To be fair, I'm not entirely convinced I needed the ones I already had. Friendship requires conversation, patience, trust, and occasionally listening to another human being explain a problem when you've already identified the solution approximately thirty seconds into the discussion. You can see why I've struggled.

Thomas, however, has managed to become a friend despite my best efforts.

He's intelligent, loyal, useful under pressure, and apparently immune to my personality.

Those are rare qualifications. I respect him. Which is Pierce Rockwell language for, If someone hurts him, we're going to have a problem. I'm told normal people simply say, "He's my friend." Where's the fun in that?

The Problem With Loving People

Before Blair, Baron, Thomas, Atlas, and the chaos surrounding Omega, my life was considerably simpler. I controlled my businesses. I controlled my environment. I controlled myself. Or at least I believed I did. Then something unexpected happened. I acquired people.

Not literally. Apparently, phrasing it that way is "disturbing." I found people who matter to me. And that changes everything.

Because power feels very different when you finally have something worth losing.

Blair has taught me that. She has also taught me that love doesn't make you weaker. It simply gives your enemies somewhere to aim. That's the part I don't particularly enjoy. I can survive someone coming after me. What I'm not certain I can survive is losing her. And somewhere inside that fear lives the monster. Waiting.

Welcome to My World

So, what exactly are the Pierce Rockwell novels? They're billionaire romance, dark romance, business romance... depending on how you feel when you're finished reading book one (Book two is in the works), if you insist on labels. There's money, power, private jets, corporate warfare, secret organizations, and old families with dangerous connections.

People who smile over expensive dinners while quietly planning each other's destruction.

There is Omega, operating in shadows I'm still trying to understand. There is Atlas, standing beside me when logic suggests they shouldn't. There's Baron, giving me something resembling a father long after I stopped believing I needed one. There's Thomas, proving friendship can arrive when you're not looking for it. And then there's Blair.

The woman who walked straight through every defense I spent a lifetime building. She challenges my arrogance. Tests my patience. Questions my decisions. Refuses to be controlled.

Makes me laugh when I'm trying very hard to remain angry. And somehow trusts the man underneath everything else. Even the parts of him I don't entirely trust myself. So yes, I protect Blair. I protect her from anyone foolish enough to believe hurting her is an effective way to get to me. And when necessary, I protect her from the darkest parts of myself.

Because the world may see Pierce Rockwell as powerful, arrogant, controlled, wealthy, dangerous, or occasionally an insufferable bastard. Blair sees something else. She sees me.

Which, frankly, is terrifying. If you want a perfectly behaved billionaire with excellent communication skills, reasonable emotional boundaries, and a healthy relationship with control, I strongly recommend another book. If you'd rather meet a man trying to uncover why a powerful organization is coming after him while protecting the woman he loves, wrestling with a rage he doesn't entirely trust, discovering family where he never expected to find it, and attempting to remain ten steps ahead of enemies who may already know his next move...

Welcome to my world.

Just remember one thing. Don't hurt Blair. I have enough character flaws already. I'd hate to add homicide.