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)
Inside, Bavga’s is everything the exterior promised: dark polished wood, red leather booths, ambient lighting that flatters everyone it touches. The kind of place where deals are made, secrets are kept, and the prices aren’t on the menu because if you have to ask, you can’t afford it.
It’s empty now, hours before dinner service. A man’s fortress, preparing for battle.
Mr. Bavga leads me to the back, past tables set with gleaming silverware and crystal. He opens a large, heavy door that looks like it could withstand a small explosion.
The office beyond is cold, perfect, hostile. No clutter. No personal touches. One desk, one chair behind it, one chair in front. One door. Two cameras in opposite corners, their red lights blinking steadily. The walls look thick. Soundproof, probably.
He gestures to the chair in front of the desk. Doesn’t speak. Pulls out his phone and types something, dismissing my existence temporarily.
I sit carefully, keeping my posture defensive, spine straight, feet planted. My hands are shaking, so I hide them in my lap, under the remnants of the Hendrickson wedding cake that are still clinging to my clothes.
Finally, he looks up. And wow, is his full stare something else. Those green eyes don’t just look at you—they dissect you, cataloging weaknesses, measuring resistance. It’s almost hypnotizing, like looking into the eyes of something that evolved to hunt things exactly your size.
“Giovanni Bavga,” he says, offering his name but not his hand.
“Emmaleen Rourke,” I reply automatically, then immediately regret giving him my full name, like I’ve just handed over a piece of myself I can never get back.
His expression doesn’t change as he places both hands flat on the desk, perfectly symmetrical, like he’s posing for a business magazine cover. “I’m offering you a job.”
Wait. What?
I blink at him, mentally rewinding the last five minutes to see if I missed something. Nope. Still covered in cake. Still unemployed. Still sitting in front of the local mob boss who apparently moonlights as a career counselor.
“A job,” I repeat, voice flat with disbelief.
“Personal assistant. Total availability. No questions.” He delivers this like he’s reading off a menu he’s already memorized.
“Total availability sounds like indentured servitude with extra steps,” I say before my survival instinct can tackle my sarcasm.
“Fifty-two thousand dollars a year.” He doesn’t even blink. “Plus benefits.”
My brain short-circuits. That’s a thousand dollars a week. That’s more than double what I was making at Sweet Dreams. That’s first and last month’s rent on an actual apartment with walls and a door that locks. That’s a security deposit and groceries that don’t come from the expired shelf at Save-A-Lot.
That’s freedom from the shelter in exactly twenty-three days.
The number bounces around my skull like a pinball machine hitting the jackpot. Fifty-two thousand. Fifty-two thousand. I can almost hear Sister Margaret’s voice: “Providence works in mysterious ways, Emmaleen.”
Yeah, and sometimes Providence wears Italian suits and drives cars that cost more than most people’s houses.
“Why?” I ask, because there has to be a catch. There’s always a catch.
“I saw what happened. Both times.” His eyes narrow slightly. “The champagne incident wasn’t your fault. Neither was the cake. I was waiting in the alley until the delivery van pulled out. I saw the whole thing.”
My stomach drops. “So you were... what? Stalking me?”
“Observing,” he corrects, like there’s a meaningful difference.
“So… you feel sorry for me.”
It wasn’t a question, so he doesn’t answer. He just lets me stew in my own indecision. I’m gonna say yes. Of course, I’m gonna say yes. But… “Why?”
One of his eyebrows quirks downward, drawing a menacing line to his piercing green eyes. “Why what?”
“Why offer me a job? You don’t know me.”
“No. But I know your type.”
My eyebrows shoot up to my forehead. “My type? And what exactly is that? A little too literate for her own good and allergic to uncomplicated men?”
He leans back slightly, studying me like a problem he already knows the solution to. The corner of his mouth lifts, but his eyes stay still. That contrast—the charm and the chill—tells me exactly what kind of man I’m sitting across from. “Allergic to uncomplicated men?”
Why can’t I ever just shut up? Why am I even pressing this man? Not only do I need the job—so there’s not a chance in hell I won’t take it—but I want the job. This… moment? This is… well, a moment. A pivot. A plot point, some might say. A turn in my own story.
And now we’re just staring at each other like two characters in Booktok’s most fucked-up meet cute.
His head tilts slightly, like he’s watching the gears turn in my brain. Whatever he sees there makes the corner of his mouth twitch—amusement, maybe. Or possession. Hard to tell with him.
“Because I need someone who notices things. Someone who stays composed when everything falls apart.” His gaze is clinical, assessing. “You do that.”