Cisco walked into the shop around the corner thinking that he would see Melody mixing drinks at the coffee bar. That wasn’t quite how it happened. There were two young men behind the counter. They made his coffee, but they wouldn’t tell him anything about Melody other than she would be in later that day sometime. It was rather odd. He could have sworn that it was almost as though they had been coached not to tell him anything. But had Melody coached them, or had someone else done it? Was there someone else interfering with Cisco’s relationship with Melody? And what was his relationship with Melody anyway?

Cisco had no choice but to take his coffee to the front of the shop and choose a table to sit down. He needed to think. It was wonderfully warm outside for May. He settled himself at a table in the outdoor seating area with his back pressed against the building. There were half a dozen other people sitting outside enjoying the weather and the sunshine. Cisco didn’t feel as though he were a part of that.

He had no idea how long he was sitting there staring into space when someone else took a seat uninvited at his table. It was almost surreal. He looked up and realized that the manager woman—Janice—had taken the opposite seat.

She was tall and thin with sharp dark eyes. Cisco didn’t like her though he could not have said why beyond his disapproval of the way she treated her employees. He had absolutely no idea why she would be sitting at his table or pestering him in any way.

“You’re Francisco Hernandez,” Janice told him in a frank tone of voice.

“Yes.” Cisco refused to let her see that her presence at his table disturbed him at all. “And you’re the manager. I believe your name is Janice though I’ve no notion of your last name.”

“I bet Melody talks about me like I’m the devil.” Janice’s derisive and almost dismissive tone of voice told Cisco several things. The young woman wanted badly not to care what her employees thought of her while simultaneously being bothered that she was not well liked.

“Actually,” Cisco murmured, “she really doesn’t talk badly about you. She doesn’t talk about you much at all. If she does, it’s simply work related. I’m the one who thinks you’re a terrible manager. You treat your employees like trash. You’re obviously power tripping and getting some perverse sort of enjoyment from making your employees work bizarre schedules that prevent them from having any sort of social life.” Cisco should have stopped, but he could not seem to make his mouth stop moving. “You’re one of those manager types who wants the power but not the responsibility. So, you do your level best to pass on the responsibility of being a manager—like having to work extra hours to cover shifts when people don’t show up, or staying late because something went wrong. On the other hand, if there is success, you are the first person to claim the accolades.”

“You’re blunt,” Janice grunted. “I would say I like that, except I think you’ve got a few more problems than I can handle.”

“Is that right?” Cisco murmured. “I suppose you’re more than happy to explain my problems to me?”

“I got a rather interesting visit from Vittoria Velasquez this morning.” Janice leaned back in her seat, and the corner of her mouth turned up in a smile. “The lady has set her cap for you. Or at least that’s how they would put it in one of those old novels.”

“Meaning?” Cisco gave her a verbal nudge because he sensed this was probably the best way to get Janice to just move on with it, but he was very afraid that he didn’t need her explanation to understand what was going on.

“Ms. Velasquez is very upset with one of my employees. I’m sure you can guess who.” Janice’s eyes were positively sparkling now. “She would appreciate it if I would do my level best not to schedule the said employee when she would have a chance of running into you. In fact, Ms. Velasquez went so far as to suggest that there would be a reward of some kind for just firing Melody outright.”

“But you aren’t going to do that?” Cisco guessed. What was this woman’s angle? What did she want? What was she trying to do? And why did she seem as though she most definitely had an angle?

“I don’t dislike Melody,” Janice admitted. “It’s really difficult to dislike someone who will pretty much kill herself just to keep the shop going during business hours. She’s game for just about anything.” Janice suddenly pegged Cisco with a very hard look. It was long, and it was assessing, and he could tell that she was angry. “But truthfully, Melody hasn’t been herself lately. She’s been really pushy and forward. She spouts off all kinds of nonsense about not working the hours that I want her to. It’s all really irritating.” Now Janice pointed at Cisco outright with one long index finger. “I think you’re the reason Melody is being such a bitch.”

“I’m the reason?” Cisco felt his ire rising. He managed to sip his coffee in order to cover up his irritation. He also managed not to spit the coffee right at Janice, which he felt was a real accomplishment all things considered. “And how is it that you’ve come up with that assumption?”

“Because you’ve put all of these ridiculous labor law ideas in her head!” Janice burst out suddenly. “You don’t get to tell her that she should be able to have breaks or that she can’t work sixty hours a week without overtime pay. Those are things that each business gets to decide for itself. She signed an employee agreement!”

“You realize that your business is still subject to state labor laws, right?” Cisco lifted an eyebrow. “You can’t work people without breaks and for excessive consecutive hours without a break. It’s illegal.”

“See, this is the crap I’m talking about!” Janice burst out. “You don’t get to just say stuff like that!”

“Well, I’m saying it.” Cisco was starting to think that Janice was a little unbalanced. “And you do realize that you’ve just told me that Vittoria Velasquez made an implied agreement with you to compensate or”—he used air quotes—“reward you if Melody gets fired. That’s pretty serious.” Cisco raised an eyebrow. “It also means that if you fire Melody and you cannot show just cause, then she has the right to file a legal complaint against you for wrongful termination.” Cisco felt a bit of a shock at where his mind went next. “She would be able to file a complaint against Ms. Velasquez as well.”

Janice’s face went blank. Her expression looked so carefully smooth that Cisco was pretty certain that she hadn’t expected him to come back at her with something of this nature. She’d thought she was free and clear.

“But thank you,” Cisco continued quietly. He picked up his coffee and sipped away. “Thank you for letting me know what’s going on. I appreciate that. I’ll make sure and keep Melody informed as she goes through this legal mess with her grandparents’ estate.”

“Huh?”

“You don’t think very much of your employees, do you?” Cisco knew he was being self-righteous. He just couldn’t make himself care. “You think that they are static. They never change. They never have incidents in their lives that render them unable to perform their jobs to regular standards. You treat them like robots, Janice. And this is something that will eventually be your downfall as a successful manager.”

“You’re awfully pompous, you know that?” Janice leaped to her feet. “I don’t care what Melody and Allie are going through right now. They’re nothing more than monkeys in my cage.”

“Then, you’d better watch out,” Cisco warned her. “Your monkeys will all escape and leave you standing in a cage full of shit.”

With those final words, he got up and left. There was nothing to be gained from this right now. He didn’t know where Melody was, but he knew that she wasn’t here. There was nothing else to be gained by sitting around.

Cisco headed down the sidewalk away from his office. He didn’t want to go back there either. Vittoria Velasquez was becoming a serious issue. She was interfering in his personal life, and that wasn’t right. She was being pushy, and she was attempting to influence and affect the people he cared about. She had attempted to insinuate herself into his family life, and this had to stop. Cisco had enough problems with his father without throwing her into the mix.

“Hey!”

Cisco turned at the last second and saw one of the young men from the coffee shop waving him down. Cisco stopped walking and turned to face the young man. He recognized this kid. It was the same one that had laughed at Cisco the other evening and made a comment about Melody having such a strange life or something to that effect.

“I need to talk to you.” The young man took hold of Cisco’s arm and half dragged him into the alley beside the coffee shop. “Sorry, but if Janice knows I’m talking to you, she’ll probably fire me.”

“What the hell is going on with that?” Cisco growled. He was so sick and tired of the coffee shop tyrant yanking everyone’s chain. “She can’t just fire all of you for no reason.”

“Actually, she can. There’s no law to have a reason to fire someone in this state. You can just cite a personality conflict if you want.” The young man put his hand on his chest. “My name is Chris. I don’t know if you remember me?”

“I do. From the other night.”

“Exactly.” Chris bobbed his head. “I was there the first time that strange Velasquez woman came in and threatened Melody. It was super weird. Right? She accused Melody of coming on to you. She said you’re her boyfriend, and there was a lot more girl drama crap, if you know what I mean. But it was extremely high school.”

“High school?” Cisco raised his eyebrows. He was standing in an alleyway outside a coffee shop having a chat with a young man in a knit beanie about Cisco’s psycho possessive and strangely romantically inclined coworker. “You realize that Vittoria Velasquez is pushing thirty-five. She’s a senior partner in my law firm.”

“Don’t you wonder how she made senior partner so fast?” Chris pointed out. “I’ve worked here for two years. I hear a lot of you lawyer types talk.”

That was something Cisco had not even considered until right now. He swallowed back the sour taste in his mouth. “And what do you hear?”

“I hear that a lot of people have run afoul of your friend. She’s a barracuda. And when she sets her sights on something she wants, she doesn’t give up until that item”—Chris’s gaze slid over Cisco—“or whatever she wants, belongs to her. And she will lay waste to pretty much anything that gets in her way. That’s what happened to your Mr. Aquilar. The guy whose name is on your law firm? He’s her bitch. Trust me.”

Cisco would have liked to have argued with the young barista, but what was the point? Cisco had felt like that since meeting Vittoria. She had decided at their first meeting that she wanted him and his connections to help her career. From that moment on, it did not matter what Cisco wanted. His goals, his preferences, his desire to separate himself from his family were all inconsequential.

“All right.” Cisco put his hands on his hips and took a deep breath. “Let me think about this for a minute.” It went back to Melody. It had to. Cisco didn’t care what Vittoria tried to do to him. He could hold his own. Losing this job was not the end of his world. Melody’s life was different. Cisco had to focus on that. He pursed his lips and jerked his chin at Chris. “Tell me what Vittoria told Janice about Melody. Did she actually tell Janice to fire her?”

“Yes.” Chris confirmed this with a hard nod. His words were getting faster, and he sounded almost out of breath. “Vittoria Velasquez told Janice that she did not want Melody working here anymore. Janice, of course, gushed about how Melody is a star employee and how that would cost Janice a ton of money.”

“And?” Cisco prompted. He had a bad feeling it did not end there. “Janice agreed on a price, didn’t she?”

“Yes. They settled on a thousand dollars.”

“That’s it?”

Chris drew back in surprise. “Dude, that’s a lot of money!”

“Right. But you’re talking about ending someone’s career and ability to financially care for themselves. That’s a bigger deal than a thousand dollars cash.” Then Cisco had a thought. “Was Janice actually trying to get me to pay her more? Like this was a one-up situation where I could have bought Melody’s job back?”

The notion was staggering, but Chris was already nodding. It was highly tempting to march back into the shop, find Janice, and throw eleven hundred dollars in cash at her face in front of pretty much anyone who wanted to watch. What kind of woman could be bought like that? Actually, it was debatable who the worst one was between the two. Janice or Vittoria? They were both medusas that needed to have their heads lopped off.

“What are you going to do?” Chris asked hesitantly. “It’s kind of bad. Right? I mean, there’s not a lot you can do.”

“There’s more than you think,” Cisco muttered. “Vittoria Velasquez has never tried to screw over a Hernandez before. That’s going to bite her in the ass. When you grab the bull, sometimes you don’t just get the horns. You get the whole damn herd coming down on your ass.”

Now Chris was smiling. Apparently, this was what he wanted to hear. He slapped Cisco on the shoulder. “I knew you weren’t a loser. She really likes you, you know? I don’t think Melody would say it out loud, but she does. She doesn’t usually latch onto people. She’s pretty tough. I think she’s had to be. But you’re different.”

“I’m different, hmm?” Cisco struggled not to let that inflate his ego. That was about the last thing he needed. “So, you think if I manage to find her she won’t cut my balls off?”

“Actually, I would wear protection.” Chris’s voice was filled with mock severity. “She’s probably going to try because that’s just how Melody is. Remember, the bark is worse than the bite, but the reason she barks is that so many people have bitten her first.”

“That’s good advice,” Cisco told the young barista. “I’m sure I’ll see you around. Thank you. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your help.”

“Just help Melody,” Chris said emphatically. “And maybe that will help you help all of us.”