by Nic Saint
Regular salesmen abided more strictly by the Thornton code of appearance, and kept their hair groomed to perfection, not all mussed up like this bozo.
Other fact her keen eyes detected: his nose stood a little to the left, as if it had been broken at one point and not set right. It gave him a slightly comical aspect that would have endeared him to her if he hadn’t been standing over two dead bodies.
And then there was his sturdy build. The man was huge, which did much to scare the bejeezus out of her. Her first day on the job, and already she came up against this he-man nut job.
“Step back slowly,” she ordered, trying to keep the tremor out of her voice and the tremble from her hands as she pointed her weapon at the perpetrator. “Now flat on the floor, hands behind your neck.”
“Come on!” he grunted, rolling his eyes in annoyance. “Look, I work here. Can’t you see?” He pointed at his sales costume, which didn’t fool her one bit.
She gestured with the gun. “I said hands up!” she yelled.
“This guy,” he explained, gesturing to one of the bodies, “hit that guy, all right? So I overpowered him, tied him up and waited for the cavalry to show up.” He nodded at her. “That’s you, right? So now that you’re here, can you just pick up the bad guy—and I assure you I’m not him—and get this other guy some medical assistance?”
“Talk all you want, buddy. You’re not getting off that easy. Down on the floor!”
With an exaggerated sigh, he slumped to his knees, then placed himself on the floor, as indicated. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with here, lady.”
“Oh, but I know exactly who I’m dealing with,” she countered, gratified now that he was down. She approached him wearily, and had almost reached him when a hand suddenly stole out from one of the dead guys and grabbed her ankle.
In her perturbation, she yelped and fired off one round. It tore through the counter directly in front of her, taking out the glass display case and crashing what looked like thousands of dollars worth of jewelry to the floor, then smashing the heavy counter on top of it with a sickening crunching sound.
The suspected killer yelled out “Don’t shoot! Fuck! Who the hell are you?”
She stared down at the hand that had touched her ankle and found one of the dead guys staring up at her. “There should be a law against those rich fuckers, don’t you agree, Miss?”
Then the second dead guy also stirred and came back to life. Sitting up abruptly, he stared around him, then focused his attention on the first ‘dead’ guy. Pointing a frantic finger, he screamed, “Get him, officer! He’s trying to kill me!”
Kelley, swinging her gun nervously from one to the other, had a hard time getting her nerves under control. And when she swung the gun accidentally at he-man, the latter grunted irritably, “For fuck’s sake, woman. Get a grip, will you, before you get us all killed!”
Just then, her supervisor came trotting up, a worried frown on his face.
“Jonas,” she breathed. “I’m so glad to see you. That guy over there—” She gestured with her gun to the big guy, who abruptly ducked and gave her a vicious glare. “—just attacked these two customers.”
Jonas stared at her dumbly, then let his gaze travel from the bloody-faced thin chap to the one on the floor, his hands tied with some strange contraption that looked a lot like an expensive necklace, then to the he-man and back to her. Then he planted his hands on his hips and gave her the stern gaze she had come to know all too well in her checkered career path.
“Are you seriously trying to tell me that William Thornton, son of Jack Thornton, owner of this department store and your employer I might add, is responsible for attacking two customers?”
A sickening sense of dread washed over her. Oh, God, no. Not again! She stared at the man she’d held at gunpoint for the better part of the last five minutes, and noticed he was staring right back at her, looking none too friendly.
Then, instead of accepting her fate meekly, as a smart person would have done, she started rambling. “How was I supposed to know he wasn’t the attacker? And what is Jack Thornton’s son doing here anyway?” She narrowed her eyes at the man. “Is this a trick? Is this some sort of corporate espionage thing? Are you spying on your own people? Is that it?”
With a look that could kill, Jonas snatched the gun from her hand, and directed his attention at he-man. “I’m very sorry, Mr. Thornton. I’ll see to it this will never happen again.” Without another word, he took a firm grip on Kelley’s shoulder and started escorting her away.
As she was hurried along, she breathed, “I’m fired, aren’t I?”
“You can bet your sweet ass you’re fired,” Jonas growled. “And it wouldn’t surprise me if that’s only the least of your worries.”
A twinge of panic spread through her chest. “What do you mean?”
As they were riding the escalator down he gestured with his head to the sales floor they’d just left. “That display case you shot to pieces? I’m willing to bet that’ll come out of your paycheck.”
She shook her head frantically, the horror of the situation coming home to her. “But I don’t make that much. That stuff must be worth thousands.”
He scoffed, “Try millions. And trust me, the Thorntons may be filthy rich, they’ll make sure you pay every last cent.”
Chapter 3
“Look, we’re not cops,” explained Jonas tersely. “The only reason we carry a firearm is in case of absolute emergency.” Before she could speak, he went on. “Furthermore. We don’t arrest people. We don’t have that authority. We leave that to the real cops. Christ, didn’t I explain all this to you this morning?”
Kelley wrung her hands as she sat before the broad-shouldered security man, feeling more and more miserable as the minutes and reprimands ticked away. If it had been up to her, she’d have quietly left the store, her tail between her legs, trying very hard to forget all about what happened. But Jonas had insisted she stick around. He was waiting for the higher-ups to get back to him with the verdict.
“How was I supposed to know that guy was William Thornton?” she groaned. “What was he doing there in the first place, dressed like an employee?”
Jonas’s face worked as he wagged a finger in her face. “What did I tell about giving me lip, woman? It’s none of your business what the man was doing there. Store management has their reasons and they don’t concern the likes of you or me. Hell, if I know even half of what goes on here I praise myself lucky.”
He’d picked out her file from his desk and was eyeing her résumé askance. Uh-oh.
“Says here you used to work for Barneys, Bergdorf Goodman, Saks, Henry Bedel and Bloomingdale’s. I count—” He quickly did the math. “—at least ten years experience. Considering you’re twenty-three, that means you started working security out of middle school, correct?” He put the folder down and folded his hands on top of it. “Look, hon. I know the onus is on me for letting you join the team without proper scrutiny, but did you have to let it come this far? On your first day? Really?”
“I already told you I’m sorry, Uncle Jonas. How many more times do you want me to say it? I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”
He leaned back in his chair and shook his head sadly. “Worst thing? Your dad’s gonna pin this one me, isn’t he?”
She merely shrugged.
“Oh, yeah,” he went on. “Jonas, he’ll say, you fucked up big time now. You let my little girl get into trouble when I told you to look after her.”
“He won’t blame you,” she said quietly. “He knows his daughter is a fuck-up.”
Jonas’s face softened. “You’re nothing of the kind, hon. You just haven’t found your true calling yet is all. Hell, do you think I knew what I wanted to do at your age? Sometimes I still have trouble figuring out if this is what I really want. And I’m fifty-three!”
“You didn’t just almost shoot up the boss’s son and destroy millions worth of jewelry,” she let out hollowly. “Whatever my calling is?
It’ll have to wait until I pay off the damages.”
“Let’s just see what they come up with, shall we? Maybe it’s not as bad as all that.”
Five minutes later, she knew exactly how bad it was. A messenger had brought a memo from management. When Jonas opened the envelope and she saw the blood drain from his face, she knew it wasn’t good. Not good at all. He swallowed, and handed her the document. “Here. Better read for yourself.” He promptly got up and walked to a metal cabinet in the corner of his office. Taking out a small bottle of liquor, he took a swig, then set it on the table in front of her.
With shaking hands, she took the note and started to scan it. The first thing her eyes met was the number, and she almost dropped the paper. She gasped as she read it again. It wasn’t possible. Three point five million dollars. That’s how much the jewels she destroyed had been worth.
She looked up at her uncle, her lip shivering and her heart thumping in her chest. “This—this isn’t really happening. Right?”
He inclined his head. “Read on. It gets worse.”
Her eyes darted back to the paper, but the letters seemed all scrambled and she had trouble focusing. Then a sentence jumped out at her, and she read it aloud. “Miss Casey will be required to work off her debt by entering the employ of W&T Enterprises. Refusal to comply will result in criminal charges leveled against her.” She looked up at her uncle, not comprehending what she’d just read.
“W&T Enterprises, that’s William’s company. Consultancy.”
“But at this rate it will take me a lifetime to pay off this money.”
“Several lifetimes more like.”
Suddenly she felt rage bubbling up inside at the injustice of it all. “But this is outrageous! This is preposterous! They can’t do this, right? I mean, aren’t they insured for this kind of thing?”
He sighed. “I don’t know. Look, I’ll talk to them, all right? I’ll see what I can do. Meanwhile?” He gestured at the letter. “I suggest you don’t piss em off. You better comply, honey.”
Miserably, she stared at the letter in her hand, the hopelessness of her predicament only now coming home to her. This wasn’t really happening. Not to her. This had to be some kind of nightmare. She was going to wake up any second now, and find herself in her crummy apartment, living her crappy life, but at least not the personal slave to some infernal billionaire crazy person.
“Kelley?” Jonas repeated. “You clear on this?” He tapped the letter for emphasis. “You better show up for work on Monday, or else it’s my ass as well as yours.”
She crumpled up the paper in a final act of defiance, then felt the will to fight leave her body as she aimed it at her uncle’s wastepaper basket. Yes, she would show up for work on Monday. She had no other choice, had she?
She took the bottle of liquor from the desk and took a swig. As the alcohol burned her throat and spread like liquid fire in her tummy, she felt the onset of a headache start in at her temples, and as she screwed the cap back on the bottle and handed it to her uncle, she vowed to be the worst employee William Thornton had ever laid eyes upon. The absolute very worst. That would show him.
Chapter 4
That night, as she lay in bed staring up at the ceiling of the small Brooklyn apartment she shared with Tatiana Lukanova, a Russian aspiring model, she cursed the fate that had brought William Thornton into her life. From an early age, her mother had taught her to be self-sufficient and not depend on other people, and now she would be completely dependent on this rich asshole.
She didn’t like it one bit. And all for a few jewels she’d allegedly destroyed. She hardly believed that to be the case. She hadn’t told her uncle, for she didn’t want to upset him any more than she already had, but she was fairly certain that when the cabinet came crashing down, the crunching sound she’d heard had been the glass, and not the jewels, who were all safely tucked away in boxes.
And anyway, how can a diamond necklace be destroyed? Isn’t diamond nature’s hardest material?
No, she didn’t buy that story at all. The way she figured it, William’s tender soul had been wounded by the manhandling she’d subjected him to, and this was his way of getting back at her. Well, she would show him she could give as well as take, and make sure he got what he deserved.
Her uncle had explained that the man she’d mistakenly seen as one of William’s victims had in fact been an anarchist, intent on ‘slaying the rich’ as he called it in the pamphlets they’d found on his person. Well, he hadn’t exactly slain any rich—the man he’d accosted had been a mere assistant and not rich at all, and instead of slaying him, he’d merely wounded his pride—but had nevertheless been taken into custody.
What her uncle hadn’t been able to explain was the junior Thornton’s presence on the scene. He did remember William’s brother Scott had spent some time working at the store last year, working his way up the family business by starting at the bottom, and so had their sister Chloe, but William had his own company to run—a subsidiary of Thornton Enterprises.
The rich and their secrets, her uncle had laughed, but Kelley had found little to laugh at. The rich and their stupid games, more like.
She abhorred the rich—did so with a vengeance, in fact. Whereas she had always had to struggle to go from one day to the next, as had her family, the William Thorntons of this world had it all handed to them on a silver platter.
Before she finally drifted off to sleep, she wondered briefly what kind of work William would let her handle. She sincerely hoped it wouldn’t involve a gun, for this time she might shoot him for real.
The next morning, she awoke bright and early, and discovered to her dismay that Tatiana had managed to wolf down all the cereal and fail to replenish the stock. She wondered not for the first time how that girl managed to stay so thin and yet eat like a bear.
She groaned as she picked a moldy piece of bread from the pantry and quickly dumped it in the trash, finally settling for an omelette made from the last egg she could find after delving through the fridge.
With Tatiana being supported by her mom and dad until her modeling career took off and Kelley hopping from job to job like a mountain goat skipping from crag to crag the tin they kept for collective grocery shopping was surprisingly devoid of cold hard cash at most times of the month.
She took a quick shower, then stepped from the apartment dressed in her usual pair of torn jeans, KoRn tee and black leather jacket, her short dark hair tousled and unkempt, her nose piercing firmly in place and her eyes hardly visible beneath the eyeliner. Oh, yes. She had the raccoon style down pat and wasn’t making any compromises for some asshole billionaire with a penchant for punishing young women merely doing their job.
Taking the subway to work, she pressed the earbuds of her mp3-player firmly in her ears and cranked the volume of ‘Freak On a Leash’ way up, then bobbed her head to the ear-splitting guitar riffs as she clung to the grab rail, squished between a sullen teenager with an afro and too much face fungus for her taste and an elderly lady in a burgundy tweed costume. Talk about extremes, she thought with a grin. Meet every kind of people, huh?
She arrived at the metro stop and climbed the stairs to the street level, surrounded by hundreds, nay thousands of other wage slaves on their way to work—the living dead, right here in New York City. They have arrived!
She hitched her ratty bag higher on her shoulder and slouched on until she reached the corner of Fifth Avenue and East 56th Street and then she was lost for a moment. She checked the piece of paper her uncle had picked out of the trash and unfolded for her and frowned. She checked her watch. Dang. Late already. She suddenly spotted a hot dog vendor across the street and became keenly aware of the rumbling sensation in the pit of her stomach.
For a moment, she hesitated, then figured she was late anyway, she might as well be fashionably late and get fired on her first day. So she lit a cigarette and crossed the street.
And she was devouring her hot dog when a gruff voice alerted her o
f the presence of another human being beside her.
“Aren’t you supposed to be at work, young lady?”
She looked up, flabbergasted, and was surprised to find a young man of clean-shaven aspect, dressed in a business suit and staring at her with unconcealed disapproval. She almost dropped her hot dog in consternation when she recognized in him the sales clerk she’d held at gunpoint the day before.
“Damn,” she muttered, and then effectively did drop the hot dog, and found it landed exactly on one of his nicely polished Italian leather shoes. And then, through no fault of her own, a nice chunk of ashes dropped from her cigarette and landed in a dusting of sparkles on his other shoe.
Ever so slowly, she looked up, afraid to meet his gaze, and when she saw the stone cold look, she knew she was in trouble even before he’d opened his mouth.
“Oops?” she offered with a hesitant grin.
“My office,” he grunted. “Now!”
Chapter 5
Will wasn’t used to waiting around for a mere employee to show up at the appointed time, so when the girl was a clear no-show, he decided to give up on her and go out for coffee and a bagel. He hadn’t had breakfast that morning, and his stomach reminded him of the fact with the indignation and insistence only an empty stomach can muster.
He was actually relieved the wench had gotten cold feet, for now he could leave the matter with the legal department of Thornton Enterprises, knowing they’d sort out this mess.
Unfortunately for the young woman this would mean a lot more trouble than she’d ever bargained for. Thornton’s wasn’t a charity, and though he’d decided not to press charges against the bumbling security guard, the store did. Apparently the jewelry display she’d shot to pieces had contained some priceless gems, who were now all but total loss, the stones having to be reset.
When he heard about her predicament, he’d decided it was a punishment too harsh for a mere guard, who would probably never be able to pay it off even if she worked a lifetime for the kind of stipend a security guard receives, so he’d offered to employ her at his own company and deduct a big chunk out of her paycheck as a token payment, certain that the insurance company would cover the bulk of the sum.