A Labor of Hate (Smitten in the Mitten #2)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

EIGHT-TWENTY-SEVEN on the morning of March eighth. That was the exact moment I knew I loathed Colt Dixon with every fiber of my being.

Not everyone is unfortunate enough to have an arch nemesis and even fewer have the origins of their rivalry memorized so thoroughly. But for me, it was impossible to forget. After all, March eighth was consistently the worst day of my life.

Normally, I could numb myself through working, reminiscing with my sister, or gorging myself on unholy amounts of spaghetti carbonara until I slipped into a carb-induced food coma.

Normally, I wouldn’t be living out of boxes and sleeping on the floor while the truck with my furniture was delayed another three days.

And, normally, I’d be close enough to Pittsburgh to bring the flowers to my brother’s grave in person.

But what really set me off was that freaking outlet.

“No. No no no no ,” I muttered, my voice thick with sleep and panic.

My eyelids scratched over my sleep-deprived eyes.

My joints ached. A suspicious amount of sunlight bled through the rickety blinds.

Birds chirped outside, nearly drowned out by the bustle of traffic.

And, worst of all, my phone wasn’t turning on.

Nothing but my haggard appearance reflected back to me in the phone’s black screen, no matter how desperately I punched the buttons.

Of all the days for my phone to die, this had to be the worst by far.

It took some impressive floundering and murderous stabs with the plug of my phone charger before I finally figured out what went wrong. Rather than reviving from its near-death experience last night, my phone had been abandoned in its hour of need.

Not by me, of course. I wasn’t a monster .

Nope. The murderer this time was the outlet. The faulty, non-functioning, only-good-for-a-practical-joke, outlet.

By the time I found one that actually worked, the clock on the stove had already prophesied my doom. I was mega screwed. Super ultra mega screwed. It was already eight o’clock, and I had to be at the field office in fifteen minutes.

The Detroit Field Office. My new home, if you could call it that.

Crap, crap, crap, crap. This was bad. Really bad.

I scrapped my plans for a shower, opting instead to spray enough perfume and deodorant to suffocate a horse, and begged my late Nonna to put in a good word for me with the Powers That Be. I’d need all the help I could get. Especially today.

My curls stuck up in a riotous mane, one semi-appealing bug away from singing Hakuna Matata .

I yanked out the first semi-professional clothes I could from my suitcase, nearly groaning in dismay at the wrinkles marring the fabric.

It would be fine, though. It wasn’t like anyone my age even owned a clothes iron anymore.

Skidding in my lucky cow socks, I pushed my coffee maker through its morning routine and brushed a scant amount of mascara over my lashes. A quick scrub with my toothbrush and a to-go mug of my budget-friendly caffeine fix, and I was out the door.

A goose hanging around the parking lot hissed at me as I scurried past. Hot coffee splashed onto my hand, and I bit back a four-letter contribution to my brother’s swear jar.

Since the goose didn’t pursue, I maintained some modicum of dignity as I scurried across the parking lot.

Gravel and salt crunched underfoot. I threw my things into my car and fired it up, cursing the early March frost coating the windshield.

That set me back another precious three minutes as I clawed at it like a madwoman with my dinky scraper.

Once I was able to finally program the address into my barely-alive phone’s GPS, an incoming message caught my eye.

Order to Jasper’s Floral unable to be fulfilled. Full refund issued.

The words blurred on the screen. This could not be happening. It had taken me a stupid amount of googling just to find a florist who could deliver my order to my sister, Dekker, and now the one I’d found was flaking on me?

I frantically peeled out of the parking lot, the online florist’s number already being dialed as I navigated through rush hour traffic.

It was a bit of a pipe dream that anyone would answer, considering they didn’t “open” until nine, but after the morning I was having, surely karma owed me this one thing, right?

Wrong.

It took white-knuckling the steering wheel to keep from pterodactyl screeching when the call went to voicemail. I even skipped the greeting like I was some CEO billionaire instead of a stressed FBI agent.

“This is Lex Piper,” I ground through clenched teeth, cycling through the different stages of grief. First came denial; “You’re joking, right? Please tell me this was some fluke with your system, because what self-respecting business cancels an order the morning of ? This has to be a mistake.”

I slammed on my brakes as the light turned red.

Anger was next; “Look, I went with you guys because you assured me you could fulfill my order. Do you have any idea how hard it was to find a florist who’d do a bouquet with daffodils?

” My voice pitched higher, bordering on hysteria.

Here came depression. “And the bouquet needs to have daffodils. They were his favorite, and this was supposed to be the one thing that went right today, and now it’s ruined! Everything is ruined!”

I missed my turn, cursed brightly enough to fill my brother’s swear jar to bursting, and whipped onto the next street as my GPS rerouted me.

Now came bargaining; “Is this a delivery issue? Because if you make the bouquet, I’ll organize different transportation for it.

All you need to do is make it.” The field office came into view just as acceptance set in; “You know what? It’s fine.

I’ll figure something out. Thanks for nothing. ”

I punched the “end call” button as I pulled up to the security booth, badge and ID at the ready.

The guard gave me a judgy look, and it took a significant amount of self-control to keep from making a snippy remark about his unibrow.

Instead, I flashed a smile that probably looked more psychotic than reassuring as I gripped the steering wheel so hard my wrists locked up.

With how my morning was going, he’d probably radio me in as a security threat.

I’d be surrounded by the SWAT team in minutes, and it wouldn’t matter whether my pants were wrinkled, since they’d be pressed into the slushy asphalt while SWAT members cuffed me.

Then I’d be shipped off to Guantanamo where I’d never see a daffodil ever again.

The catastrophized scenario made an unexpected laugh burst out of me.

Not an innocent giggle, either. This was a Harley-Quinn-level, she-knits-tiny-jackets-out-of-ramen-noodles-for-her-voodoo-dolls cackle.

If the security guard wasn’t worried before, he sure was now.

But, unluckily for him, he’d already returned my things and raised the gate.

Sucker.

I clawed desperately at my slipping composure as I finally found a parking spot at the back of the lot.

This wasn’t me. Not the typical me, anyway.

The me I’d meticulously curated since my first day in Quantico, he get-it-done workhorse who didn’t let anything shake her—visibly, at least. Work was the one place I felt I made a difference, the one place I could leave my day-to-day worries at the door while I focused on helping others with bigger problems.

But today was different.

I scrambled out of the car and ran to the doors.

Once my shoes touched the sidewalk, I slowed and forced myself to take deep breaths before I went swan diving off the rails.

I could do this. My late arrival might start me off on the wrong foot with my supervisory agent, but I’d earn their respect through my work ethic, just like I always had to.

I nodded curtly in greeting to the guard operating the security checkpoint, passing the necessary items onto the conveyor belt. Eight twenty-four. Only nine minutes late. Barring any serious delays getting through security and to my floor, I could salvage this morning. Easy peasy.

That optimistic belief was going swimmingly—until a pair of loud guys with serious BO problems jostled me in the elevator.

The coffee I’d managed to keep contained thus far slipped out of my hand.

As if in slow motion, it dropped like an anchor, only to burst open on the floor.

Hot coffee splashed up my slacks and soaked into my shoes.

I stared in shock, barely registering one guy’s snide remark about how I needed to watch where I was going, and the other guy’s instant apology on his colleague’s behalf.

This couldn’t be happening. This had to be a nightmare.

Surely I was still sleeping and this whole half hour from Hell was a byproduct of the asbestos in my apartment’s walls or something.

My smarting and squelchy shoes said otherwise.

Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry.

I sniffed back the sting behind my eyes and let it crystallize into volcanic malice.

My whole body shook, though whether it was from rage or the effort it took to keep from blowing a gasket on them, I couldn’t say.

Whatever the men saw, it must’ve been a pretty transparent reflection of my emotional state.

The guy who bumped me—the scrawnier of the two—backed away with wide eyes. “It was an accident, lady. Geez. Chill.”

His colleague, the one who actually had manners, elbowed him in the side. Hard. “What he meant to say is that he’s sorry, and will you pretty please not beat us up?” He elbowed his coworker again and bugged his eyes meaningfully in the direction of the coffee puddle. “Help her clean it up, man.”

“With what?”

“I don’t know, your shirt, maybe? Just pick something before she kills us!”