The confusion that crosses her face is delicious—brows pulling together, lips parting slightly as she processes what I’m asking. Her gaze fixes on the mansion perched on the hillsideoverlooking the town, then back to me, trying to understand the game.
“In the master bedroom,” I say, voice low, deliberate. “There’s a walk-in closet. Find me a suit. Dark, pressed, respectable.”
She blinks rapidly, processing. “Wait—you want me to go to yourhouse? By myself?”
I let a smile form—slow, cold, sharp-edged. The kind that doesn’t reach my eyes because it isn’t meant to comfort. It’s meant to unsettle.
“Take my car.” I toss the Lambo fob underhand across the room.
She fumbles but catches it, her fingers closing around the metal just before it hits the floor. A small victory for her. Her eyes drop to the key in her palm like it might be radioactive. The tiny metal Lamborghini emblem catches the light slashing across my loft floor.
The Lambo key fob is uninspiring so this one is custom made. Black Matte, like the car, with sterling silver accents.
That key fob costs more than she’ll make in a month. The car costs more than she’ll make in two decades.
The calculation is right there on her face—risk versus reward. Drive a $300,000 vehicle up a winding hill to a stranger’s mansion to retrieve a suit.
She’s wondering if it’s a trap.
It is.
“Go on,” I say, opening my laptop. “I’ve got a conference call in three minutes. The sooner you finish the errand, the quicker you can take a break.”
I turn away from her, dismissive, making it clear the conversation is over.
She shifts her weight in those ridiculous shoes, the soft scrape of leather against the hardwood floor.
Those heels must be killing her feet by now.
I look up, annoyed. “Why are you still here?”
She takes a step back, then another.
I return to my laptop screen, dismissing her a second time.
But I’m tracking every movement in my peripheral vision. The cardigan is awkwardly shrugged on. She hesitates at the door. That glance back as her fingers tremble, gripping the key fob.
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 loftin 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.