Authors: Laurie Teller
ROMANCE: BAD BOY MAFIA ROMANCE: On the Run (Pregnancy Hitman Suspense Mystery Romance) (Women’s Fiction Suspense Action & Adventure)
Copyright 2016 by Laurie Teller - All rights reserved.
In no way is it legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher. All rights reserved.
Respective authors own all copyrights not held by the publisher.
Mystery / Suspense Romance
*****
“Kara, have you taken everyone’s orders yet? Because if you haven’t, I’m going to go ahead and say you’re screwed.”
“I got it, Brenda. I’m just about to make the rounds, ok? Speaking of which, do you want anything?”
“No,” the dark haired beauty said with a not so beautiful smirk, “but like I said, you’re in deep shit. You should have taken the orders like, an hour ago. Mr. Whitney isn’t going to be very happy. He isn’t going to be happy at
all
. He doesn’t like it when people are late. You’re going to have to work late for sure. Maybe you should pay more attention, you know? Or maybe you just aren’t cut out for this job. It’s a fast paced place. Being an assistant to a man like Mr. Whitney isn’t for everyone, you know? It takes grooming. Nobody would think less of you if you quit.”
“I bet.”
Kara wished she could say it out loud, but it just wasn’t the way she operated. Being catty like that wasn’t in her DNA. Besides, what was the point? She was a hard worker and a fast learner and those were the things she was going to have to rely on. Or else she really would just have to quit. One thing was for sure, she wasn’t going to be able to rely on forming lifelong friendships with the other women in the office to help her learn the way things were supposed to work. She couldn’t have been more different from the women around her if she had tried.
Kara Welsh was originally from Texas, a sunny girl with blonde hair and blue eyes and a lithe tan body born out of years of playing out in the Texas son. But when she had been old enough she had moved to New York City for college and like many, many people before her, she had come with big dreams of success, none of which turned out exactly as she had planned. Instead of striking it out on her own as an author, the thing she had wanted from the time she was a little girl, she got one rejection letter after the other until she had to face the fact that things weren’t going to happen to her, at least not in the timeframe she had wanted. Having always been a girl to take matters into her own hands, however, she refused to go back to Texas with her tail between her legs. She pounded the pavement like so many others and found a job that would support her until she could make that dream come true. She had honestly believed that she would make a good assistant, too, but she had only been in the position for three weeks and she was well aware that she had made many more mistakes than she had done things correctly. In the back of her head there was a doubt beginning to take root, something she had never believed would happen to her. She was starting to think that maybe she honestly wasn’t cut out for New York.
“Um, Kara? Are you just going to stand there? I don’t think that’s going to help your case.”
“No, no I’m not. Now if you’ll excuse me.”
Kara brushed by Brenda with as much dignity as she could manage and began her rounds around the massive office which seemed to her to be made almost entirely out of metal and glass. It was like working in a giant piece of art and she was the only one who saw it. There just wasn’t any time for appreciation of that kind of thing in this busy place. There wasn’t any room for awe and wonder; those things were definitely frowned upon. What
wasn’t
frowned upon was promptness, which was something she seemed to be struggling with.
Most of the people she took orders from only looked at her with disdain, some of them just waving her away and out of the office with a sigh of disgust and some of them barking their order at her like she was a short order cook. Although she knew she shouldn’t have, she saved Mr. Whitney for last. But finally there was nobody else to speak to and so she had no choice but to make her way to his office, feeling the dread settle more and more firmly into the base of her stomach until she felt like she couldn’t breathe. Her footsteps sounded like little drumbeats signaling her coming; it felt like she was walking to her doom. In front of the massive double mahogany doors that opened into his office she stopped, shut her eyes, and took a deep, shaky breath. She knocked softly, almost hoping that he would not hear her or that he wasn’t in there at all. Unfortunately, this was not her lucky day.
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry to bother you, Mr. Whitney-”
“Come in.”
She pulled one of the doors open, trying not to make it look like a struggle, and walked in quickly, smoothing her skirt down and trying not to seem too nervous. She was pretty sure big, powerful men like this could smell fear.
“What brings you to my office?”
“I was just coming by to see what you would like me to put in for your lunch order.”
“No, that can’t be it.”
“I’m sorry? I’m not sure I understand.”
“You can’t be here for my lunch order. That was supposed to happen an hour and a half ago so you must be here for some other reason. You must have already come for my order, I must have already eaten it and forgotten. The only alternative is that you did not come when you were supposed to, which would mean you did not do your job.”
“Mr. Whitney,”
“Look at my very closely, Ms. Welsh. Do I look like I’m running a charitable institution here?”
“No. Not at all, sir.”
“Well that is surely a relief. I can assure you, I am not. You are here to do a job, Ms. Welsh, and I expect you to do it well. It is time you realize that there are consequences for not performing up to expectations, and that time is now.”
“Please, Mr. Whitney, give me another chance. I promise I can do this job. I
promise
I’ll do better.”
“I’m not firing you. Not yet. But I’m staying late tonight and on the off chance that I need something, and I mean
anything
, I expect you to stay as well. I expect you to stay for just as long as I do. If I stay all night, I expect you to say all night as well. Is that clear?”
“Yes sir.”
“Are you very certain? Because if you do not do this thing and do it the way I expect, it will be the last night of your employment here.”
“I understand. I’ll be here. I’ll be here for as long as you need me.”
He did not say anything else, did not even look at her again, and she turned and walked out as quickly as she possibly could. She wasn’t afraid anymore. She knew exactly what she was going to do. She was going to stay in that office for as long as it took to prove that she was going to be the best damned assistant Mr. Whitney had ever seen.
o? I’m sorry, is somebody there?”
Kara stood slowly, wincing at the aching that moved through every one of her joints. It was close to three o’clock in the morning and she had been in the office since eight in the morning. She had known she was in it for the long haul for that day and she was ok with it, but her body ached nevertheless. She had run herself ragged and she was willing to keep going. If, for example, the noise she had just heard (hopefully it was real and she wasn’t so tired she was hearing things) was Mr. Whitney calling for her to come perform some new task, she would do it without hesitation. She was not afraid to work hard. She was afraid of very few things, although for some reason she was feeling rather uncomfortable at the moment. Whatever the noise was, it didn’t
sound
like Mt. Whitney. It sounded like some kind of struggle, like things were being broken. Was that Mr. Whitney? She knew it was only the two of them in the office at this point, but it didn’t make any sense to her that he would be destroying his own property. She walked slowly down the maze of dim halls, moving cautiously towards her boss’ office. She knew it was crazy to think, but it felt like there as somebody else here. She didn’t fully understand how she could know a thing like that, but she did. She was sure of it. She rounded the corner and gasped as she saw a man sprinting towards the elevators. He stopped for just a moment when he saw her, just long enough for her to catch the quickest glimpse of his face, and then he stampeded through the fire exit stairs, the alarm sounding immediately. Kara struggled to make sense of the situation, struggled mightily not to lose her grip on her consciousness, which was of the utmost importance because she knew two things for certain. The first was that whoever that was had come from the direction of Mr. Whitney’s office. The second was that he had been covered in what looked very much like blood.
*****
“I’m not interested.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me. I spoke loud and clear. Not interested.”
“That’s not an option, Williams. You want to be part of this unit, you’ll
get
interested.”
“That so? That’s the way it’s gonna be?”
“You know it is. Don’t take it personally. its how it’s got to be.”
Brent Williams slammed his fist down onto his sergeant's big oak desk and stood, pacing the room and lighting up a cigarette. His boss wrinkled his nose, it was a well-known fact that he wasn’t a fan of smoking, but he wasn’t about to tell Brent to put it out. He may have been the sergeant which technically put him in charge, but nobody told Brent Williams what to do. Nobody was
really
his boss. His superiors were really more tasked with keeping him reigned in as best they could, which was a full time, thankless job.
Sergeant Sharp had dreaded coming into work from the moment he woke up, knowing that he was going to have to deliver Brent with news he wasn’t going to like. He had waited until the end of the day, not particularly interested in dealing with his temper for the entire day, and now that he had said what was required of him he felt almost relieved. He knew Brent well enough to know that after the bellyaching he would do what was being asked of him. He would do it because it was his job and if there was one thing he found important, it was the job. It seemed to be the thing he lived for. He would just take a little bit of time to come around. That’s how things went with him.
“What if I decide not to do it?”
“Well then we’ll have to deal with that decision, won’t we? So here’s what we’re going to do. I’ll make a deal with you. You take tonight, think it over. If you show up tomorrow morning I’ll know you’re on board. If not, then we’ll take the necessary steps.”
Brent cursed under his breath and tossed his cigarette on the sergeant’s floor, grinding it into the carpet without ever breaking eye contact. Then he stormed out, out of the office, out of the building entirely. He was done working for the day if they wanted to give him news like that. Fuck ‘em. It was already a little bit past the sun going down anyway and Brent knew exactly where he was heading. It was the same place he always headed when he felt like this, this pulsing anger throbbing in his temples. He tore open the door of Malone’s Irish Pub with a bang, announcing his entrance to all of the patrons inside. It was by no means an original name for a bar but it was cheap drinks and an owner who didn’t take shit from anyone and those were both things Brent could appreciate. Plus it was one of the few places where he could still smoke inside, and as far as Brent was concerned that made the establishment as good as gold. He squinted in the merciful, smoky dark before sliding heavily onto his usual stool. Dave, the owner/bartender with gray hair and a knowing look in his eye met him with a tall beer and a warm shot of whiskey. Just the way he liked it.
“Neither one of them days, huh boss?”
“It wasn’t anything.”
“Sure,” he said with a sarcastic laugh, “and nothing is exactly what it looks like. In fact you look just as content as a newborn babe napping on his mother’s belly. Don’t bullshit me, son.”
“Well what’s the point in complaining? It won’t change anything, right? End of the day, I still gotta do the job, whether I want to or not.”
“So that’s it then. Them up at the precinct again, is that right? They got you doing something you don’t want to do and you ain’t happy about it.”
“That sounds about right.”
“So let me ask you a question, Brent. That ok with you?”
Brent threw back his shot with a little grimace and briefly shut his eyes. They were striking eyes, dark and stormy just like his personality, and they had already caught the attention of the few women already in the bar. Attention from women was something Brent was used to, whether he liked it or not. Along with the dark eyes was a head of thick, curly black hair and a tall frame with broad shoulders and impeccable muscles, just like someone on the cover of a fitness magazine. He had a smile full of perfectly straight, perfectly white teeth that, on the rare occasion when he chose to flash it, got him through pretty much any door he wanted to go through. His mother used to tell him that his looks were lost on him, that they should have gone to a man with more charm and less of a tendency to brood. She was probably right, too, because attention was something that mostly just pissed him off. Even now, he had half a mind to tell the woman standing by the jukebox and looking him up and down to just fuck off and look somewhere else. No, charm sure hadn’t ever been one of his strong points. Not even close.
“Hey, boy, I’m talking to you.”
“Sure, I heard you. No need to yell, Dave. Just ask your question, alright?”
“Aw, how kind of you. I believe I will. What I wanna know is, if you hate the things they have you do so fucking much, why do you stay? Why don’t you just walk away, find something you like better. If anything like that is actually out there.”
“I can’t, that’s all. I’ve gotta do something, you know? I’ve gotta do something that matters a little bit in this godforsaken world. There isn’t anything else
for
me.”
“So then what are you gonna do?”
“I’m gonna do what I have to,” Brent responded with a grim face and a long swig off of his long neck, “I’m gonna show up tomorrow like a good little boy.”
“Anything I can do to help?”
“As a matter of fact, Dave, there is.”
“Keep ‘em coming?”
“That’s exactly what I was going to say. Keep ‘em coming and we’ll see how they feel about having me on the job come morning.”
Even the sound of his car door shutting was enough to make him feel like he was going to die. Dave had definitely taken him to heart when he told him how to help, and he was paying for it dearly on this unfortunate morning after. Sweet Christ, when was he ever going to learn? How many times had he done this to himself, drowned his sorrows in the bottom of a bottle just to wake up with a mouth that tasted like the grave and a head pounding with a frightening ferocity? It never helped and it never changed the outcome of things for him. What was that saying? The definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results? Well if that was the case then he was batshit crazy and now he would have to do this thing he didn’t want to with the raging hangover and everything. He stumbled into the elevator, thankful for the small miracle of there being nobody else in there with him, and leaned up against the wall, closing his eyes and trying not to hurl as the elevator carried him all the way up, so many floors he felt like he was on a trajectory straight into the sky. He wasn’t too keen on heights in the best of situations, which this most certainly wasn’t. By the time he got up to the twenty-fifth floor he was so happy not to be moving anymore that he was almost grateful to be on the job. Almost. He stepped out into the ultra mod, ultra expensive floor and looked around for his sergeant. Might as well get this over with since it wasn’t going away, despite all of his bitching and best efforts. One of the nearest cops told him which office to head to and he walked briskly, each footstep ringing painfully in his head.
“Williams, you made it. You look like shit, but I’m glad you’re here.”
“Sure, Sarge, wouldn’t miss it for the world. Now where’s the job? Let’s just get this shit over with.”
“Real nice, way to make the situation more comfortable. But here she is. Brent Williams, meet Kara Welsh. She’s your job until further notice. And so help me god, you better not fuck this up.”
*****
