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)
He opens his mouth, but I’m on a roll now, words tumbling out faster than my brain can filter them.
“No, don’t answer that. Let me guess. ‘It’s business, Miss Take.’ Everything’s business with you people. Well, guess what? I’m not a line item on your spreadsheet of power plays. I’m a person with an actual life outside your little empire!”
I pace the little foyer, my Louboutins clicking an aggressive percussion to my rant.
“Maybe in your world, people can just float from one catastrophic decision to another with a blank check to fix the fallout, but some of us live in reality. You know, that place where actions have consequences and you can’t just throw money at problems until they go away?”
Giovanni blinks one time exactly.
“And yes, I’m aware of the irony of saying that while you’re literally trying to throw money at me to make me disappear. Very on-brand, Mr. Bavga. Ten out of ten for consistency in your sociopathic approach to human resources.”
I stop pacing abruptly, pointing an accusatory finger at him. “You don’t get to Marie Kondo me out of your life because I don’t spark joy in your master plan anymore. I’ve done everything—everything—you’ve asked. I wore the shoes. I sorted your stupid papers. I drove your compensatory midlife crisis on wheels through town like some twisted Cinderella whose fairy godmother moonlights as a loan shark.”
His eyebrows lift slightly at that one.
“Not everyone grew up in Mansion McMansionton with their own private pool house and... and whatever that thing is.” I wave vaguely at what might be a sauna in the corner. “Some of us had to work for a living. Some of us didn’t have the luxury of failing upward into criminal empires.”
The words are spilling out now, unchecked, a dam breaking after hours of pressure.
“So no, I will not take your guilt money and slink away like some inconvenient plot point in your mob drama. You made a deal. I’m holding up my end. Either fire me properly with two weeks’ notice and a reference letter—ha, imagine that on your letterhead—or let me finish the job I was hired to do.”
I finally pause for breath, chest heaving, and realize I’ve backed him against his own desk.
Giovanni blinks again, slowly, like a reptile considering whether its prey is worth the effort of digestion.
“Are you finished?” he asks, voice maddeningly calm.
And just like that, I hear myself. Really hear myself. The unhinged quality of my voice. The wild accusations. The complete and utter abandonment of any professional demeanor.
Oh god. I just called a mob boss’s car a “compensatory midlife crisis on wheels.”
To his face.
Giovanni walks to the black-out blind control panel like I didn’t just verbally waterboard him. He presses a button, and one shade rises with mechanical precision.
“Come here,” he says, beckoning me over with two fingers like I’m a reluctant cat.
Great. He’s going to show me where they bury the mouthy assistants. Probably has a whole garden of them. Fertilized with attitude and watered with tears of regret.
I move to the window, my heels clicking a death march across his immaculate floor. Standing beside Giovanni feels like standing next to a glacier—cold, imposing, and potentially catastrophic if it decides to move suddenly.
“My cousin Rico is throwing a party here tonight,” Giovanni says. “That’s him there in the burgundy suit.”
Rico looks like he walked straight out of central casting for “Mobster #3” in a network crime drama. Flashy, obvious, with a smile that belongs on a predator.
Giovanni, by contrast, is Magazine Cover Mobster—the kind who appears in GQ spreads about “The New Face of Organized Crime” or whatever euphemism they’re using these days.
“He’s dangerous,” Giovanni continues in that clipped, monotone voice that somehow conveys more menace than shouting ever could. “So dangerous that I’m worried about your safety.”
The translation app in my brain quickly converts this to: This man might kill you because you’re associated with me.
“I would like for you to go back to Riverview,” he finishes, pushing the five crisp hundred-dollar bills into my hand like it’s a lifeboat on the Titanic.
I shake my head no, refusing to take the money.
Twenty-one days until homelessness. Eight demerits. One shot at $31,750.
I will never, ever tell Giovanni I live in a shelter. I’d rather die with my dignity than live with his pity.
“I’ll take my chances,” I say, my fingers fumbling on the clasp of the little white clutch purse. I pull out the two notebooks, holding them up for him. “You started this game. You made spectacular promises. I want to win the week. Thirty-one thousand dollars. That was my reward if I stuck it out.”
The cash in his hand suddenly looks insulting rather than generous. Five hundred dollars. It’s more than I would’ve earned for a day at the bakery, sure. It would cover a week at a motel, maybe two if I found someplace sketchy enough.