Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 75373 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75373 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
I’d left all of that behind.
To come here.
Where everything and everyone was cold and distant, if not outright hostile. Where I was suddenly, unmistakably, horribly alone.
“Ugh,” I grumbled, rubbing at my tired eyes.
If I could just figure out the books, work out where the money was coming from and going to, then maybe find a little spare cash so I could spruce the place up a bit, get a computer, get everything automated, then maybe I could, you know, step away a bit. Let the place kind of run itself. Find something else to do that brought me a little more joy.
Really, I wasn’t sure what I’d been thinking when I’d decided to uproot my entire life without even, I don’t know, visiting this Navesink Bank place, seeing the garage, checking out the house I’d be living in.
Had I done so, maybe I would have seen what a stupid move this all would be before I made the mistake of quitting my job, giving up my apartment lease, and leaving everyone and everything I knew behind.
I could have just… sold the house and the garage. Got an entirely different house. Newer. Less musty. Not so full of junk that I tripped when I tried to do anything.
But no.
I’d gone and taken this whole situation like some sort of sign from the universe that it was time to try something new, to take a chance, to give something new a try.
I could still sell, I reminded myself as I grabbed another pile of handwritten receipts. I could get the house cleaned out and cleaned up while I got the shop’s books in order. That way, when I put them each on the market, they would sell for the best price.
That was motivation enough to get me through the next several hours of writing down everything I came across, putting them in columns, trying to get a better idea of what was jumping out at me as wrong.
Then, finally, around the time that I heard the guys heading out for the day, the garage doors grinding closed, I saw it.
There, in my columns, were glaring discrepancies.
“Am I locking you in here?” David asked, making me turn to look at him.
“How much is an oil change?” I asked.
David’s brows pinched at that. “Depends on the car. Low-end, fifty.”
“And on the high end?”
“Hundred or even more. Why?”
“Hm? Oh, no reason,” I said, giving him a smile. But not a real one; one of my customer service smiles. “But, yeah. Go ahead and lock me in. I want to get the rest of this pile done before I head out.”
“Suit yourself,” he said, turning and walking out.
If the most expensive oil change we charged was around a hundred bucks, even if you tacked on taxes or some other B.S. charges, why were there routinely charges for oil changes costing over three hundred dollars?
What the hell was going on around here?
Outside, I heard David’s car purr to life just as I found another handwritten note that had my spine straightening, that had me forgetting all about my grumbling stomach and aching head.
Sure, it was in Phil’s usual chicken scratch.
But there was one word that was painfully clear.
Grassi.
So, the new question I had to add was: who the hell was Santo Grassi… and why the hell were we paying him fifteen hundred dollars a month?
CHAPTER FOUR
Santo
“It’s short,” Luca said the next day, thumbing through the cash I’d handed him.
“Fifteen hundred, yeah.”
“Again?”
“Phil’s place was closed for a few months,” I explained.
“Why?”
“He died,” I told him.
“Oh. Shame. Is the shop being sold then?” he asked. I knew what he was actually asking: were we going to need to lean on a new owner in the near future?
“It was handed down to family,” I told him.
“That makes it easier. Why haven’t they paid yet though?”
“They just reopened. When I showed up, the new owner was trying to sort out the books. Phil didn’t exactly keep great records. I offered to come back next week.”
Luca’s brows knitted at that. But it was my brother Dante who asked the question the boss wouldn’t.
“So, how pretty was she?” he asked.
Luca looked at Dante, then back at me, a light in his eyes. “Is the new owner a woman?”
“Yeah,” I admitted. “Her name is Dasha.”
“Let me guess. Blond and curvy?” Dante asked. Sometimes, your siblings just knew you too damn well.
“Alright,” Luca said, leaning back in his chair, a ghost of a smile toying with his lips. “Look, I’m fine with you giving her a week to sort shit out. But don’t go letting your dick make Family decisions with this woman.”
“Got it,” I agreed. “It’s not gonna be a problem,” I assured him, even if another image of her flashed across my mind, dress hiked up, round ass out toward me, begging me to fuck her.