Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 91489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
I’m on my third lap around this culinary fortress when I spot it—a narrow metal staircase tucked between two walls, practically invisible unless you’re looking for it. Which I wasn’t. Because normal buildings have doors, not architectural Easter eggs.
8:07. I’m not just late now. I’m “remember that time I almost had financial stability” late.
The metal staircase might as well have “Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here” engraved on each step. It’s narrow, steep, and creaking like the world’s most ominous ASMR track. Tetanus probably costs extra.
I grab the railing—cold and slightly sticky, delightful—and haul myself upward, my sensible thrift-store boots clunking with each step. The platform at the top is approximately the size of a postage stamp, or more accurately, the size of my remaining self-respect. Just enough room to stand and contemplate all my life choices that led to this precarious metal ledge outside a mobster’s lair.
A plain door sits there. No “Giovanni Bavga, Criminal Mastermind” plaque. No “Employees Must Wash Hands Before Returning to Organized Crime” sign. Just weathered metal with chipped black paint. But it’s open—just a crack—like the universe is saying, “Come on in, we’ve been expecting your catastrophic failure.”
The gap feels intentional. A test. Everything is a test with this man, I’m learning. Even oxygen in his vicinity seems to require his permission.
I push it open, holding my breath like I’m about to dive underwater. Inside: a hallway that’s aggressively nondescript. Beige walls. Beige tile. Beige existence. Empty except for another door at the far end—because of course there is. This isn’t a job interview; it’s a Russian nesting doll of anxiety.
Sister Margaret’s “Good luck” echoes in my head, less like encouragement and more like the ominous warning before the heroine enters the haunted house in every horror movie ever made. The subtext was clear: Don’t come crawling back when this fails spectacularly.
I approach the second door—metal again, heavier-looking. Three sharp knocks that sound like gunshots in the silent hallway. My heart is doing the cha-cha slide in my chest cavity.
The pause that follows is geological in length. Civilizations could rise and fall in this silence.
Then: “Come in.” Two words. Calm. Precise. Inevitable.
So I do. Because girls who sleep in shelters and wear other people’s discarded clothes don’t have the luxury of hesitation. Girls with twenty-one days until homelessness follow voices into unknown rooms.
I turn the handle and enter what I assume will be an office—some sterile corporate hellscape with filing cabinets and a sad fern dying in the corner.
Wrong again, Emmaleen. Wrong as always.
This isn’t an office. It’s a statement piece. Dark hardwood floors gleam like they’ve never known the indignity of footprints. A leather sectional—definitely not from IKEA—stretches across one wall, looking about as inviting as walking through a spider web. Floor-to-ceiling windows frame the pathetic Riverview skyline like Giovanni personally owns each miserable building below.
The space is brutally minimalist. No family photos. No houseplants desperately seeking therapy. No evidence that a human being with actual emotions has ever existed here. Just clean lines, cold surfaces, and the overwhelming scent of espresso and unspoken judgment.
And there he is. Giovanni Bavga. Sleeves rolled with mathematical precision to his mid-forearms. Top buttons undone but somehow still radiating more formality than a royal wedding. No tie, no jacket, just the kind of effortless perfection that makes my carefully curated thrift-store ensemble feel like I’m wearing a costume made of garbage bags.
He doesn’t acknowledge me. Just pours coffee from a stainless-steel French press with the focused intensity of someone dismantling a bomb. Every movement calculated, deliberate. Like caffeine is a sacred ritual and I’m the uninvited heathen who wandered into the temple.
My boots betray me with a squeak on his immaculate floor. My yellow cardigan suddenly feels like a hazmat violation in this monochromatic shrine to masculine austerity.
“Do you live here?” The words escape before my brain can tackle them to the ground.
Instant regret. The kind that makes your soul want to curl into the fetal position. Of course he lives here. Everything about this space screams Giovanni Bavga in seventy-two-point Helvetica.
I should say more. Apologize. Explain. But then his eyes lift to mine. Slowly. Deliberately. And they’re terrifyingly empty. No irritation. No amusement. No warmth. Just pure calculation. I’ve been assessed, categorized, and filed under “irrelevant” faster than Amazon’s algorithm recommends therapy books after you search “why am I like this.”
“I’m sorry,” he says, voice flat as a closed door. “But the offer has been rescinded.”
The world tilts. I grip the doorframe to stay upright. “What?” It slips out—cracked, thin, barely a word at all. Like maybe if I say it softly enough, it won’t count.
Giovanni sets the French press down with mechanical calm, as if this entire moment has been choreographed. “You’re late. Not just late. Eight minutes late.”
My heart stutters. “The restaurant was closed,” I blurt, words tumbling out too fast, too desperate. “I was here at seven forty-five, but—”