I nodded and waited until the last person left the room.
“I was hoping that I would be able to announce that you were my employee of the month today,” he said. “Even though you’ve only been working here for a month and a half, you’ve made quite the impact. I was really impressed with how well-researched you are. In fact, that’s a huge part of why I hired you, but—”
“But what?”
“Well, lately you haven’t been yourself. You’re lacking the team spirit, and you’re lacking the drive. You’re also—for lack of a better word—sucking ass.”
I raised my eyebrow.
“Especially these last couple of days,” he said. “You went from being nice and approachable to brooding and cold. You were once the first associate to volunteer to work late hours, but you’ve been leaving super early. Also, I don’t know why the hell you went and got tattoos all over your hands and on your goddamn neck like you’re some type of wannabe crime boss, but you need to cover those things up the next time you step into my building.”
I smiled, saying nothing.
“Now,” he said. “I can only afford to keep the employees who give their all every day, so I’m willing to give you a chance to stay on board at the best hedge fund in the city. What do you think about that?”
“I think…” I paused, wondered whether I should be a nice person about this or be myself.
“Um, hello Mr. Dawson?” He crossed his arms. “I can’t wait all day for you to respond. Time is money, and we do have more sales to make.”
Myself it is... “I think your company is a festering shit hole that preys upon the poor, and I think your father is rolling around in his grave right now at the fact that you call this is a hedge-fund company. I can guarantee that he’s more than disappointed with you and how disgustingly greedy you’ve become. I also think you have no idea how to be a real CEO.” I paused. “Then again, you are cheating on your wife with the college girl who brings you coffee, cheating your employees by more than seventy percent, and lying to all of your other rich friends about running a hedge fund instead of a pathetic payday loan company. Since being a CEO requires knowing how to be full of shit, maybe you do know how to be a real one.”
His face paled and he looked as if he’d lost his soul.
“Are you still impressed with my research, or do I need to tell you a little bit more about yourself?”
He said nothing, he just stared at me.
I shrugged and headed to the door. Pushing it open, I looked over my shoulder. “If it’s any consolation, I was already planning to make today my last day.”
I walked through the offices, taking the elevator down to the garage.
The moment I slid behind the wheel of my Jaguar, I sent my identical twin brother a text message.
Me: Congratulations. You’re fired now.
His name immediately crossed my screen via phone call.
“Yes?” I answered.
“Did he try to beg me to stay? Was he surprised?” His words rushed out like a river. “Never mind, don’t answer that. Thank you for taking another one for the team.”
“Why don’t you ever submit a two weeks’ notice or simply stop showing up to these shitty jobs like a normal person?”
“Because I have deep and severe closure issues.” There was a smile in his voice. “Don’t you remember our dear therapist saying that?”
“I only remember you continuing to use it as an excuse.” I rolled my eyes as I pulled out of the parking garage. I heard one of my burner phones buzzing in the glove compartment and stopped the car. “Hold on a second.”
Opening it, I rummaged through all seven of them until I found the culprit. The one that was marked “work.”
“Yes?” I answered.
“Good morning, Mr. Anderson,” the soft sound of my lead employee’s voice came over the line. “I’m so sorry to bother you this early in the morning, but we have a few major problems.”
“Tell me the biggest one.”
“We’re almost sold out on VIP tables for New Year’s Eve, and Rio Warren is here right now wanting to buy four of them.”
“Okay, and?”
“It’s Rio Warren, sir.” She suddenly sounded softer. “As in, the rumored boss of the D’Amato mafia family…”
No, he’s actually their ‘underboss’. I shrugged. “Is he willing to pay his money upfront?”
“Yes, he um…He laid it all out in hundred dollar bills a few minutes ago.”
“Is his money green?”
“Yes, sir…”
“Then this isn’t a problem at all,” I said. “Tell the bartender to take an extra bottle of Dom Perignon, on me, to Mr. Warren’s table, whenever he and his friends arrive this weekend.”
“No offense, Mr. Anderson,” she said, her voice still wavering. “I don’t think our customers will appreciate partying with these type of people, sir. I also don’t think that the honorable man who sold you this club two years ago would appreciate you accepting money from—well, God knows where their money comes from. I’m begging you to reconsider.”
I tapped my fingers against the steering wheel, mentally replaying her words—trying not to focus on the “these type of people” line.
It was in rare moments like this when my two worlds nearly collided, the dark with the light, the halfway pure with the wickedly depraved. One wrong move in either direction could fuck it all up, and I’d been way too damn careful over the past nine years to risk making the wrong choice.
“You’re right, Tiffany,” I said, trying to sound as convincing as possible. “A man like Rio Warren is not the type of person I want at Fahrenheit 900. I’ll turn him down face to face when I get there in fifteen minutes.”
“Thank you very much, sir.”
“You’re welcome. You can hang up now.”
“Well, I still have a few more major problems I have to let you know about.”
“I’ll let you know when I want to hear them.” I ended the call and tossed the phone into my glove compartment; I’d deal with her when I arrived at the club.
Holding the other phone up to my ear, I heard my brother softly laughing.
“Something funny, Trevor?”
“Nothing at all,” he said. “Are you honestly going to tell Rio Warren that he’s not welcome?”
“Hell, no.” I sped onto the street. “I’m going to offer him the top suite and let him use the hidden celebrity entrance.”
“I would expect nothing less,” he said. “Two last things. One, I forwarded you the weekly updated list of sexual offenders and current city criminal defendants, and guess what?”
“What?”
“It’s the same as last week.” He scoffed. “Why you waste your time on this, I’ll never know.”
“I’ll never tell you. What’s the other thing?”
“I received some random ‘thank you for that’ bouquets at four of our other businesses today. Did you send more than my condolences to Liam Kline’s family after his funeral last year?”