Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 91489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
She reaches upward, fingers stretching toward the door’s edge, missing the pull strap entirely. Amateur mistake. Her lips move in what the mic feed translates as a string of creative profanities. “Holy mother of overpriced Italian bullshit” comes through with particular clarity.
Inventive, at least. I’ll give her that.
There’s something refreshing about her unfiltered reactions—so different from the calculated responses I typically encounter in my business operations.
The instrument cluster feed shows what she sees—a dashboard that might as well be written in hieroglyphics to someone who’s probably never driven anything more complicated than a ten-year-old Honda.
The carbon fiber finish gleams under the overhead lights, buttons and toggles arranged in a configuration that requires specialized knowledge. The red accents flash like warning signs she can’t interpret.
Each control surface represents another potential mistake, another opportunity to reveal her inadequacy.
She keeps glancing at the key fob in her hand like it might contain instructions. It doesn’t. The weight of it seems to surprise her—another detail she wasn’t prepared for. Everything about luxury is heavier, more substantial than its common counterparts. It’s a lesson she’s learning in real time.
Finally, her fingers find the interior pull strap. Recognition flashes across her face—a small victory in a morning of defeats. The freckles across her nose seem to darken as a flush of accomplishment colors her cheeks. She yanks it downward with excessive force, overcompensating for uncertainty.
The door slams shut with a mechanical thunk that’s embarrassingly loud in the empty parking lot. The mic picks up the sound with perfect clarity—the acoustic signature of someone who doesn’t belong in a car like mine. It’s the sound of an outsider trying to navigate a world built specifically to exclude them.
She flinches at the noise. Blinks twice. Settles back into the seat, trying to recalibrate her composure. I watch her swallow hard, the delicate movement of her throat betraying her anxiety. The leather seat dwarfs her slight frame, another reminder of her displacement.
The rearview cam captures her exhaling slowly, shoulders dropping a fraction of an inch. A failed attempt at self-regulation. Her hands hover above the steering wheel without touching it, as if it might burn her. The contrast between her worn secondhand cardigan and the hand-stitched leather interior creates a visual dissonance that’s almost artistic in its stark opposition.
This is the pattern with most people—paralysis in the face of unfamiliar power. They freeze when given access to something beyond their experience. They hesitate when they should act. They overthink when they should simply execute. It’s why the wealthy stay wealthy and the powerful remain in control. The barriers aren’t just financial—they’re psychological.
I take a sip of espresso, finally. It’s cold. Imperfect. I set it aside with a slight grimace as the laptop feed continues its silent broadcast of her incompetence. She hasn’t even attempted to start the engine yet. Her fingers have moved to the steering wheel now, tracing the embossed bull logo with something like reverence. At this rate, she’ll be late returning with my suit—another demerit to add to her growing collection in the Sistema di Demerito.
Not that it matters. The demerits are simply a mechanism to maintain control, to establish boundaries. The real purpose of this exercise isn’t to test her ability to drive an exotic car or retrieve a suit.
It’s more fundamental than that. It’s to observe how she handles failure. And so far, she’s failing beautifully.
But there’s an authenticity to her struggle that I find unexpectedly compelling.
Most people try to mask their inadequacy. Little Miss Take wears hers openly, and there’s a strange power in that honesty—one that I’m not entirely immune to.
Emmaleen checks the console.
Two pedals. No gear shift. Paddle shifters behind the wheel like insect mandibles. I watch her confusion bloom across the cabin cam feed. Her fingers trace the edge of one paddle, then retreat as if burned, uncertain and hesitant. The overhead camera captures the slight tremble in her hand—a detail I hadn’t anticipated.
Again she looks down at the key fob in her hand like it’s written in a language she’s never seen. And it is, in a way—the language of wealth and power that’s always been foreign to her.
The custom fob is a masterpiece of minimalist design—matte Nero Nemesis to match the car’s exterior, with flush buttons that offer no guidance, no labels, no concessions to those uninitiated in luxury. The Lamborghini emblem is barely visible, subtly embossed rather than prominently displayed, a whispered secret rather than a shout. The edges are precisely beveled, giving it the feel of something dangerous rather than utilitarian. No keyring attachment, no concession to practicality. Just pure exclusivity designed to make outsiders feel precisely as she does now: lost.
“There’s minimalist, and then there’s... weaponized ambiguity,” she mutters to the cabin mic, her voice echoing through my speakers with surprising clarity.
I smirk. Not an inaccurate assessment. She has a way with words—finding the exact phrase to capture the deliberate inaccessibility built into everything I own.