“When I said, ‘fuck you,’ one of his friends thought I said, ‘fuck Jews.’ He testified under oath that those were the words he heard. Because I was in a motorcycle club, and because he was Jewish, they made it a gang-related hate crime. The judge gave me eight years.”
“You were in a motorcycle club?” she asked excitedly.
She was all but drooling. She seemed rather disinterested in the fact that I’d pummeled a man half to death.
I gave an affirmative nod. “Yeah.”
“Like Sons of Anarchy?”
We made the Sons of Anarchy look like nuns. At my earliest convenience, I intended to return to them and to the life I left behind. They were the only family I had, and being without them was a reminder of it.
I shrugged. “More or less.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh, wow.”
I gave her a moment to digest everything. Staring blankly at the tattoo on my neck, she seemed to be taking it rather well.
“So, what should I do about that question?” I asked. “Is it going to be a problem?”
“That’s it? You beat up a guy because he was hitting a girl?”
“In summary, that’s all that happened.”
She wrinkled her nose. “How bad did you beat him up?”
If I was mad enough to beat someone, they didn’t get a mild ass whipping. I beat the guy within an inch of his life. I didn’t think expanding on the subject was necessary. She’d undoubtedly Google me and read about it anyway.
“It was a suitable punishment for what he’d done,” I said.
“Eight years.” She shook her head in disbelief. “How long ago was that?”
“The fight?”
“Umm. Yeah.”
“About eight years ago,” I responded. “Roughly.”
Her eyes widened a little more. “You just got out of prison?”
I nodded. “Sixteen days ago.”
She looked me over. Thoroughly. Not as if she were sexually interested. It seemed to be more of an inspection, of sorts.
“I’ve got a few questions for you. Are you ready?”
“Sure.”
“Have you ever been violent toward a woman?”
It seemed like an odd question for a job interview. I shook my head. “No.”
“Arrested for domestic violence?”
“No.”
“Had a PFS filed against you?”
“A what?”
“Protection from Stalking order.”
I chuckled. “No.”
She gave me a side-eyed look. “You know I can find out if you have.”
“I haven’t.”
“Have you ever stolen anything from someone you knew?”
“No.”
“Is this a job you can see yourself keeping?” she asked. “Or is it a stepping stone to something bigger?”
“If I like it here, I’ll stay,” I replied, not really knowing if the statement was completely true. I’d at least stay long enough to satisfy my parole officer.
“Check the box,” she said with a nod. “Everything will be fine.”
“I’m hired?”
She tried to change her grin to a stern look. “If you’ll accept forty-two thousand a year as salary.”
“Make it fifty thousand.”
She put her hands on her hips. “Forty-six.”
Considering my housing arrangement with the eighty-year-old widower I lived with, I could survive on five thousand a year. My only real concern was staying out of prison.
“Go forty-eight, and I’ll agree.”
“Fine,” she said. “Forty-eight thousand it is.”
“I don’t need to see Teddi?”
“She’s not here, so I’m making an executive decision. In fact, let’s keep the entire you’ve-been-to-prison thing between you and me, okay?”
“You don’t want me to tell her?”
“Not yet.”
“What if she sees my application?”
“She won’t.”
“She might.”
She grinned mischievously. “Not if I misplace it.”
“So, that’s it?” I asked. “I’m hired?”
She extended her hand. “Welcome to the team.”
Chapter Two
Teddi
Naples had three types of homes. Those situated in gated communities, the mansions along the Gulf Coast, and everything else. My focus was selling the first two types of homes. I left the everything else for the remaining Realtors who spent their time scurrying to match my sales figures.
The average asking price for my homes was eight figures. Properties were typically on the market for sixty days or less, and it was common for me to obtain ten percent over ask. In the world of Southwest Florida Realtors, I was despised. In the community, men respected me, women feared me, and those who didn’t know me referred to me using the word no woman wanted to be called.
“Sixty days?” I choked on my wine. “Margaret. Really? It’s the off-season. You can’t expect me to—”
“You’ve had the listing for six months, Teddi.” She folded her napkin and laid it beside her half-eaten plate of ceviche. “We’ve got two hundred million tied up in two homes, one of which we don’t need. Raymond’s livid about this. He said to give you sixty more days. If the home isn’t sold at that point, we’ll look at other alternatives.”
Other alternatives meant other listing agents. If I lost the listing, it would my first. I’d become the laughingstock of the industry. The loss would be the beginning of the end my career. I took a gulp of wine and then another. It wasn’t my fault the home hadn’t sold. Its continued existence on the MLS listing certainly wasn’t from my lack of trying.
Six months prior, I sold Raymond and Margaret a one-hundred-and-thirty-million-dollar modern beachfront mansion. They then placed their twelve-thousand-square-foot Mediterranean home on the market for less than half that amount.
The sixty-million-dollar mansion had been crafted of imported limestone. Standing at the gated entrance, it was breathtaking. The interior, however, was plagued with massive marble columns, hand-carved dark wood ceilings with Venetian plaster inlays, imported Emperador marble that was even darker, and arched stone doorways. Short of a wealthy European couple, I could see no one accepting the dungeon-esque home in as-is condition.
I pushed my empty wineglass to the side. “See if he’ll entertain a hundred and eighty days. That will give me an opportunity to direct my focus solely on European clients. I should be able to schedule viewings—”
“Sixty days,” she said. “He was adamant. I’m sorry.”
“What can I do, Margaret? We’ve known each other for what? Almost fifteen years? I sold you your first home here, right after Raymond—”
Her apologetic look hardened to one of distress. “I’m sorry.”
There was clearly nothing she could do.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuckity-fuck-fuck-fuck.
I put on a smile. “I’ll get my team on it.”
“I want you on it, Teddi. I want you devoted to this sale.”