Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 77160 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77160 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
I went for the pasta in vodka sauce.
“Can I ask you something?” he asked once the server walked off.
“Sure,” I agreed, taking a sip of wine that was both sweet and tart at the same time.
“What do you think of your boss?”
“Frank?” I asked, wondering if this was a situation where I should be honest or not.
“I’m not trying to get you in trouble,” he clarified. “To be perfectly honest with you, I can’t stand the guy.”
“That’s the right instinct. He’s… slimy. Out for himself. Abuses his power.”
“Saw him almost grabbing ass last night.”
“He thinks that his employees belong to him. Especially the women.”
“Except he can’t have you. And that makes him want you more.”
“Yeah, something like that.”
“Alright. In that case, I have a proposition for you.”
“A proposition,” I repeated, my spine stiffening, the wine tasting sour on my tongue. “What kind of proposition?”
“I have… a plan to take Frank’s business out from under him.”
“Really? You want a crappy casino in a dying town?”
“Well, some of us think AC is going to make a comeback. It’s smart to get in before it does. When prices are reasonable.”
“Okay. Is that why I’m here?”
“Well, I wanted to ask you out before I even knew Frank,” he clarified. “But when I saw how… fond he was of you, I got an idea.”
“I’m not going to whore myself out for you,” I said, ready to storm out of the restaurant.
Sensing that impulse, his hand shot out, closing over mine on the table.
“I wouldn’t ask that of you. I’m asking for… intel.”
“Intel,” I repeated. “On what?”
“On anything about Frank you can get your hands on. Business files, information about shady deals, any enemies. Basically, I want to know every weak spot he has so I can exploit it.”
“How do you think I can get this information?”
“If I’m not mistaken, you can move around the innards of the casino without anyone looking at you twice.”
“Okay, yeah. I mean I’ve never been to his office. And I have no idea if I can get in it.”
“If there’s anyone who can find that out, I have a feeling it’s you.”
He wasn’t wrong.
Especially with how interested in me Frank was. He’d invited me to his office a few times in the past, in fact. And if I sat and thought about it, I was sure I could come up with a dozen excuses for wanting to be there. Needing time off, asking for a raise, the list went on and on.
That said, choosing to be closer to him, to be snooping around in his personal space, was dangerous. Just being there in general increased my chances of him trying something with me. But if he caught me doing things I wasn’t supposed to? That could get me jailed. Or worse.
“Why would I do that?” I asked.
Milo leaned back in his seat.
“Ten grand to start. Ten grand for information that is helpful.”
Twenty grand was a hell of a lot of money.
Maybe it wouldn’t have been to me a few years back. Back when modeling money was good. And pageant wins were better.
But that money was way in the past.
And most of it, well, I’d trusted my mom as my manager to handle it for me, invest it, set it up for my future. She sent me back what she thought I needed to live on.
But she hadn’t invested it, hadn’t set me up for my eventual retirement from modeling.
She’d used most of it to bail out her third husband’s business. By the time I started to get suspicious, there was hardly enough to pay off my car and credit card.
I’d committed to another two years of modeling, this time handling my own money. But the burnout was fast. Too much travel. Too many people analyzing and finding my body wanting. Too many crash diets. Too many people telling me to start getting filler and Botox because I was no longer prepubescent-looking. There was just too much criticism and uncertainty.
I finally just had to wrap it up.
Make a plan.
Move on.
With just enough money to get myself an apartment, some furniture, and a few nice dresses.
Ever since then, I hadn’t had more than a couple hundred spare bucks to my name at the end of each month when bills were paid.
Twenty grand could help me move to a bigger city. Or record an album. Get a degree so I could teach music. Something, anything different.
That said, this was my ass on the line.
And everything about Milo said he had a lot of money.
I had nothing to lose by demanding more.
“Twenty-five and twenty-five.”
“Ten and forty.”
He wasn’t quibbling about the amount, just how much I got if I didn’t produce anything. I had to respect that.
“Fifteen and thirty-five.”
“Done.”
“And protection if things go wrong.”
“Okay. What kind of protection?”
“Get me out of here if things go south. Frank is connected in this town. I don’t think I’d last an hour if he found out I was working against him.”