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)
The sound of the door closing behind her is soft, almost apologetic.
I wait until her footsteps fade down the hallway before I allow myself to smile.
Then I grab my phone and pull up the app.
I’ve wired that car with more cameras than the Pentagon.
It’s pathological.
And I don’t want to miss a single moment.
8
I exit Giovanni’s loft in what can only be described as a full physical and existential collapse. The pain radiating from my left arch isn’t just pain—it’s a philosophical argument about poor life choices. My nerve endings have written a dissertation called “Why You Shouldn’t Trust Men Who Give You Other Women’s Shoes.”
Every step is a negotiation between dignity and survival. These heels—these ridiculous, overpriced torture devices—wobble like they’re drunk on their own status. They’re too big by at least a whole size, which means my feet slide forward with each step, cramming my toes into the pointy hell-tip designed by someone who clearly hates women but loves money.
On top of that, I’m a walking Pantone disaster. Lemon cardigan. Oatmeal tank. Sage skirt. Blood-red stilettos. I look like I got dressed by spinning a color wheel and let a sadist pick my footwear. If “trying too hard while simultaneously not trying at all” were a look, I’d be its reluctant poster child.
“Fuck these shoes. Fuck this day,” I mutter, each word punctuated by the clack-clack-betrayal of the red shoes against the hallway tile. The sound echoes like gunshots in a cathedral. Subtle, I am not.
I catch my reflection in a wall mirror and nearly flinch. My hair has achieved that special kind of frizz that only comes from stress-sweating while alphabetizing invoices for four hours. My face is flushed in patches like I’m allergic to humiliation. My cardigan hangs askew, as if even my clothing is trying to distance itself from my decisions.
And beneath all this—beneath the throbbing feet and wounded pride—lurks a more primal problem: my bladder is staging a revolution. I have to pee with the urgent desperation of someone who’s been trapped in a six-hour Marvel movie after drinking a Big Gulp. The kind of have-to-pee where you start calculating distances to the nearest bathroom in terms of “how many seconds before catastrophe.”
I hadn’t dared use Giovanni’s bathroom. The man probably has a toilet that requires retinal scanning and plays the Godfather theme while you wash your hands.
My original plan—the one where I was a functional human with agency—involved stopping at the café across from the restaurant for lunch. Bathroom. Food. Maybe five minutes where someone wasn’t watching me struggle like a fish in designer quicksand. That plan now seems as distant and unlikely as my life ever being normal again.
I stare down at my feet like they’re traitors to the revolution. My right pinky toe has gone from “uncomfortable” to “considering legal action.” It throbs with such specific hatred that I wonder if toes can file restraining orders against shoes.
What’s the demerit count for ditching these hellish status symbols? One point for each bare foot? Two for failing to maintain professional appearance? Do I get bonus points if I manage not to pee myself on the way to his mansion?
With a decisive ‘fuck it,’ I kick off both shoes, demerits be damned.” The relief is so immediate and intense it borders on inappropriate.
My bare feet meet the cold tile, instantly collecting the fine grit of hallway dust. Because nothing says “professional assistant” like dirty feet and stolen shoes.
“Perfect,” I mutter, eyeing the security camera tucked into the corner above the stairwell. The red light blinks with judgment, a tiny mechanical eye recording my descent into footwear anarchy.
I square my shoulders, take a breath deep enough to fuel whatever terrible decision comes next, then grab the shoes by their stiletto heels like I’m wielding the world’s most expensive nun chucks. I have no plan, but I’m moving anyway. Because that’s what prey does when the predator is watching.
I push through the door and hit the stairs, clutching the ridiculous red stilettos in one hand and Giovanni’s key fob in the other, possibly the world’s most mismatched set of weapons.
The metal stairs creak beneath my bare feet, each step a little symphony of tetanus waiting to happen. My toes curl instinctively away from the rusty edges and mysterious sticky patches. If my immune system could talk, it would be screaming.
At the bottom of the stairs, I freeze, staring at what can only be described as automotive sociopathy given physical form.
The Lamborghini sits in the empty parking lot like a predator that’s evolved beyond the need for camouflage. It doesn’t hide, it dares you to look at it. Matte black with undertones that shift between graphite and gunmetal depending on how the light hits it. The surface doesn’t reflect so much as it absorbs—light, dignity, financial stability—it’s the aesthetic equivalent of a black hole with wheels.