Instead—whoosh—the door launches upward with the hydraulic enthusiasm of a spacecraft airlock, narrowly missing my face.
I stumble backward, nearly dropping both the shoes and my dignity. My heart kicks against my ribs like it’s trying to escape.
“For fuck’s sake,” I gasp. “Who needs doors that dramatic? Was a normal hinge too pedestrian?”
The door hovers above me at an angle that feels more like a challenge than an invitation. I eye the opening warily, suddenly very aware that I have no idea how to close it once I’m inside. Or worse, what if it decides to slam shut while I’m climbing in?
I take a deep breath and lean forward, peering into the Lamborghini’s interior like I’m inspecting the mouth of a sedated shark. I was in this thing the other day, obviously, but Iwas too stunned and in shock to take notice of anything but how my life was imploding.
Now, I can’t stop looking. The leather seats are black—what other color would the Prince of Darkness choose for his chariot? They look butter-soft and the interior smells like money—that distinct blend of leather, cologne, and privilege that you can’t bottle but instantly recognize. It’s the olfactory equivalent of someone saying “my summer home” in casual conversation.
Then, I see them. Two leather notebooks placed dead center on the driver’s seat, looking simultaneously innocuous and deeply threatening. I glance around the empty parking lot. Is this another test? A trap? Did Giovanni expect me to find these, or am I about to commit some cardinal sin by touching his sacred texts?
Fifty-two thousand dollars, I remind myself. Fifty-two thousand.
For that kind of money, I’d read his grocery lists upside down in Aramaic if he asked.
I reach in and pick up the first notebook with the cautious reverence of someone handling an unexploded ordnance. It’s heavier than it looks—matte cover, cream pages that feel thick and expensive between my fingers. This isn’t your basic Moleskine knockoff from Target. This is bespoke stationery, probably handcrafted by Italian monks who’ve taken vows of silence and poverty.
I open to the first page and find immaculate handwriting. Flowing cursive that belongs in a calligraphy museum. Black ink. Fountain pen, obviously. Each letter is perfectly formed, like Giovanni attended some elite boarding school where they still teach penmanship as a core subject.
At the top of the page is what I assume to be a title:Sistema di Demerito.
Below it, a numbered list with formal-looking bullet points:
•Mancata puntualità
•Mancato rispetto del protocollo
•Comportamento non conforme
•Interruzioni non autorizzate
I stare at the words, trying to decipher them through sheer force of will. My four years of high school Spanish offer zero help. The Latin roots swim before my eyes, taunting me with their almost-familiarity. I catch what might be “punctuality” in the first line, which tracks with Giovanni’s obsession with timeliness. Non conforme is… breaking rules, maybe? The rest? Not sure.
I flip through a few more pages, each one more meticulously organized than the last. There are graphs. Charts. A scale that runs from one to ten. This isn’t just casual observation—it’s measurement. Scientific. Clinical. The kind of detailed analysis usually reserved for lab specimens or Olympic athletes.
I don’t need a translation app to understand what I’m looking at. This is a scoring system. A rubric. A methodical catalog of my failures, neatly categorized in a language I can’t understand—which feels like a metaphor so on the nose it would get rejected from a creative writing workshop.
“Man-cata pun-tual-ita,” I attempt, my tongue tripping over syllables it wasn’t built for. I sound like someone ordering at an Italian restaurant for the first time, determined to pronounce “bruschetta” correctly and failing spectacularly.
I snap the notebook shut, suddenly aware of the absurdity of my situation. I’m standing barefoot in a parking lot, holding stolen shoes, leaning into a car worth more than the building it’s parked next to, reading a performance evaluation I can’t understand, written by a man who’s probably watching me on camera right now.
For a job that involves fetching his dry cleaning.
And I still have to pee.
I pick up the second notebook. Same size. Same texture. Same expensive weight. The twin to its companion, yet somehow more ominous in its perfection. I hesitate before touching it, as if it might burn my fingers or trigger some invisible alarm.
But curiosity overwhelms caution. When I flip it open, the language barrier evaporates. This one’s in English. Crystal clear, devastatingly precise English that leaves no room for misinterpretation or plausible deniability.
Again, his penmanship... very surprising. The elegant script flows across the page with confident precision, each letter formed with the same meticulous care he seems to bring to everything else in his life. It’s not the hasty scrawl of a busy man, nor the utilitarian block letters I might have expected from someone so calculating. Instead, there’s an almost artistic quality to it—graceful loops and perfectly measured spacing that reveal yet another layer to the enigma that is Giovanni Bavga.
I find myself tracing the lines with my eyes, wondering if it’s another skill he cultivated to ensure absolute control over every aspect of his presentation. The contrast between the beautiful handwriting and the clinical system it describes only makes the whole thing more unsettling.
“Performance Incentives — Phase 1” stares back at me in elegant loops. The words sit centered on the page, perfectly aligned, the kind of visual that speaks of obsessive attention to detail.
I scan the contents, and my brain short-circuits like I’ve just stuck a fork in an electrical socket. The information refuses to process correctly the first time through.