Luciana
I was going to get fired.
Fired.
My hands shook as I made my way into Nikolai’s office. I’d only ever spoken to him three times.
The first time I’d almost blacked out from nerves and forgotten my own name.
He hadn’t been amused.
The second time had been at the office Christmas party. I was singing karaoke, and I wasn’t necessarily doing a bang-up job. The YouTube video was paired with howling dogs, if that gives any sort of clue to how great of a performance I gave.
And though I’d like to say the third time was a charm… it wasn’t. I had toilet paper stuck to the heel of my shoe, and he’d been kind enough to point it out during a staff meeting.
My face was red for a week.
Suffice it to say, I did not have high hopes for this meeting. There were only three reasons Nikolai called people into his office. To fire them, yell at them, or make them disappear.
I knew it was an urban legend, office gossip, something that they tell the new employees in order to put the fear of God in them, but it wasn’t necessary. He was terrifying without all the stories about him working for the mafia or, my personal favorite, being a distant relation to Jack the Ripper.
I inwardly rolled my eyes.
People needed to get lives. You’d think that working for one of the richest men in the world, one of the more infamous, would be exhausting, and it was, but my co-workers still found time to spin story after story.
“Miss Smith.” His lips curled around the word in amusement as if he knew something I didn’t.
I winced at the use of my last name, the only name that had been given to me before I was dropped off at the local orphanage was tucked away on my birth certificate and on old school reports, I’d taken my adoptive parents’ last name of Smith the minute I turned sixteen and never looked back. I was a Smith.
My old name held memories of foster care, being passed from home to home, never finding a place or a purpose.
Until a family had finally decided they liked me enough to adopt me.
Mom and Dad were in their seventies and hadn’t even spoken English when I’d first moved in with them, but they loved me.
And love didn’t really need words, did it?
Just actions.
I took a deep breath and smoothed my hands down my black pencil skirt. My electric blue heels clicked loudly against the marble floor as I walked through the massive glass door and faced my doom.
Maybe it was the caseload? I was a junior assistant to one of the ten lawyers he kept on retainer, and I never complained.
But I did tend to take on too much.
Which meant I could be missing something.
Shoot.
I mentally kicked myself; that was what I got for trying to claw my way to the top.
“Miss Smith.” Nikolai didn’t even bother to look at me. Maybe he really was a serial killer; the man had no heart! I was getting fired most likely, and he was staring out the window birdwatching! “Have a seat.”
I quickly sat in the nearest leather chair and folded my hands in my lap, then unfolded them, only to fold them again. I was losing it. He wasn’t going to judge my posture.
Though when he did turn around, I straightened.
Mouth dry, I watched his dark eyes take me in, as if he was taking stock of every damn thing I was doing wrong by simply existing. My hands started to sweat as his perusal continued.
Finally, finally he let out a long sigh as if the world was disappointing him — a if my presence disappointed him — and sat.
It was hard not to notice the tattoos on his fingers.
Had those always been there?
“Tell me, Miss Smith, do you enjoy working for me?”
Was this a trick question?
I waited, weighing my words, and finally just chose honesty. “I love my job. I’ve been staying late so I can take a bigger caseload. If there’s anything more I can do to—”
“No,” he interrupted, “that’s not why you’re here.”
“Oh.” My heart raced as I waited for him to say exactly why I was sitting in his office after hours.
In the dark.
“I need you…” He lowered his voice.
Oh no, was he hitting on me? He was a married man. His wife was gorgeous; she was on every magazine in the world for her classic style. They were like American royalty.
“…to do me a favor.”
“A favor?” I shot up out of my seat as anger sliced through me. “Look, I don’t know what you thought was going to happen, but I don’t give those sort of favors, sir.”
His lips twitched, and then a laugh escaped between them.
It sounded so foreign.
So gruff that I immediately decided the man had probably laughed twice in his life. It was the only explanation.
“Sit.” He full-on grinned.
I didn’t sit.
“You’ll do better than I thought.” He seemed amused at my outburst. “If you let me finish, I’ll continue with the job offer, or are you too offended for me to continue? By the way, I love my wife, my very pregnant, very beautiful wife.”
Shame washed over me. “I-I’m so sorry. You just said favor and, I know I’ve reported a few cases of sexual harassment—”
“Come again?” His voice thundered. “Sexual harassment? Who’s been harassing you? Name. Now.”
I fired off the names of two of my superiors; one had cornered me a few times near the restrooms by my desk; the other tried to grab my breasts from behind then said he’d been joking.
He wrote the names down. “They won’t be living very long.”
My eyes narrowed.
He just shrugged. “I know people. Consider it done. It’s the least I can do since I’m about to owe you a favor and, Miss Smith, I do not like having debt.”
“Living?” I was still stuck on that part of the conversation. “You mean they won’t be… living, breathing—”
“Let’s focus on you.” He changed the subject and stood. “You’ll need to move. The situation is delicate. And you’ll need to sign an NDA. If you break the NDA…” He shrugged.
I half expected him to laugh and say, “I’ll break your legs.”
He didn’t.
“What exactly is this… favor?”
“A business associate of mine is in desperate need of a lawyer, a good lawyer, someone young who can stay with the business for life.”
“Life?” I repeated. “You’re joking.”
“I rarely joke.”
Shocker.
“Can I think about it?”
“You’ll be given a company car, your choice, of course.” He ignored my question.
“My choice of the cars they have?”
“Your choice of car. Period. They’ll take care of the details. I believe they replace the car every two years. Your housing is taken care of. You have six weeks’ vacation every year, and your salary will start at six figures. The particulars are up to them, but their last lawyer, upon retirement, could afford to buy an island and live on it.”
My mouth dropped open.
He smiled, or at least his face moved a bit before he opened a leather black portfolio and turned it toward me. “You just need to sign on the dotted line.”
“But—” I pressed my fingers against my temples. “—you can’t be serious? What if I hate it? What if I’m not good enough? I’m only twenty-five.”
“Ninety-day-test period.” He shrugged like the entire offer wasn’t insane. “If you hate it, or if it doesn’t work out, we’ll find someone else.”
“I’m not…” I hated to ask it, but a car? Housing? “…I’m not doing anything illegal, am I?”
He didn’t answer. He locked eyes with me and whispered, “Nothing we do in life is ever truly legal, Miss Smith. And I’m not at liberty to discuss their business deals, but know you won’t be burying bodies, no.”
He seemed amused at his own joke, while I was ready to puke at the idea. After being beaten in some foster homes, passed off like trash, the last thing I could stomach was violence of any kind.
I was the girl who actually threw up while watching Die Hard.
Pathetic.
“Think of the money.” The guy just wouldn’t stop. “Your parents could retire. You could send them on a nice long vacation. They still work their hands to the bone. Imagine the life you could offer them.”
Straight to the point.
My heart clenched.
Dad had a heart condition.
Mom still worked as a bookkeeper, and Dad had done janitorial jobs until he couldn’t work anymore.
They’d worked their whole lives, sometimes two jobs to help put me through college. Part of the reason I’d even taken the job with Nikolai had been because I could help support them, but it wasn’t enough, it never was, especially with Dad’s medical bills.
There really wasn’t anything to think about, was there?
It was life-changing money.
It would give them back what they’d given me.
My greatest purpose had always been to repay what they’d given me the day they said they’d always wanted a little girl, in their broken Italian accents.
I bit down on my lip and nodded. “Where do I sign?”
“Good girl.” He winked and handed me the pen.
The minute my name slid across the white paper, the minute the black ink stained my thumb, I felt it.
Like the universe was trying to warn me.
Like the air itself was charged around me.
I wasn’t just signing for a job.
My hand shook as I finished writing the date, and when I looked up into Nikolai’s black-as-death eyes, he whispered, “Raise hell.”