Chapter 2 #2
“Indeed, they are. I am fairly sure I am about to be fired or found in an alleyway murdered by them.”
“What? What did you do?” she squeaks out nervously, glancing at the now-closed foyer elevator they have disappeared into.
“First of all, I cut them off on the way here and gave them the finger when they honked their horn. Then I stopped their elevator, and they heard me on the phone to you.” I facepalm myself, internally cringing. “I told… I think Cyrus Troy was his name, that he had nice contact lenses.”
“Contact lenses?” Bella chuckles, her green eyes sparkling with humor.
“Yeah, he must be wearing contacts. No one has red eyes. I swear I saw them change, or am I losing it?”
“Red eyes?” Bella says, shaking her head, and I nod, knowing I am right about them being contacts. There can be no other explanation.
“So, what sort of flowers do you like?” Bella asks, making me look at her. Huh?
“For your grave, you better hope they don’t recognize you for cutting them off. They will destroy you,” she says.
At first, I thought she was joking, but the nervous look on her face scares the crap out of me.
“You wouldn’t be the first girl to go running from their wrath out of this building,” she adds, making my stomach drop. Great, just great.
The morning goes by quickly in a blur of answering phones and taking messages. Troy suddenly waltzes over to the desk with a huge triumphant grin. He leans on the desk, looking down at me before reaching down and taking the phone from my ear and hanging it up.
“You are so screwed,” he says in a sing-song voice.
“Why is that, Troy?” I ask, bored of his annoying little games. How does he even have a job here? I am yet to see him do anything that resembles work.
“Grab your stuff,” he says, not giving me any indication of what is going on.
I pick up the phone, only for him to take it from me again and hang it up.
“I am busy, Troy. Go annoy someone else,” I tell him, jotting down a message I’ve been listening to on the voicemail before he hangs the phone up on me.
“You don’t work here anymore,” he says with a big Cheshire-cat grin on his face, his beady eyes sparkling with mischief.
“What?” I ask worriedly. I can’t lose this job. I have my twin sister’s daughter to help raise. My mother would kill me if I got fired right now, especially with my sister doing a runner from the rehab clinic and dumping her kid on us.
“I said grab your stuff. You are moving upstairs,” he repeats.
“Upstairs?” I ask. Wouldn’t that be a promotion, then? I think to myself, but the sly grin on his face makes me nervous. I have a bad feeling that whatever is happening, I won’t like it.
“Oh, you think I am an asshole? Wait till you see who your new bosses are,” he drawls.
Oh no, I pushed the old fool too far. What has he gone and done now?
“Who?” I ask, and Bella stands up, also looking at him worriedly as she chews on the end of her pen, trying to figure out what is going on.
“Grab your stuff now, or I will fire that tight little ass of yours for good,” he says, looking around the corner of my desk and staring at my bubble butt. Eww, gross.
“And I will have your ass for sexual harassment,” I spit at him, grossed out as he licks his old dried-out lips. God, this old creeper infuriates me. Bella is glaring daggers at him.
I grab my bag and step around the desk, following him to the elevator. The doors close, and he stands silently, smiling. I want to wipe that smug grin off his face. He hits the twelfth-floor button, and my stomach drops, plummeting somewhere deep inside me.
Twelfth floor? My heart starts racing, and I feel like I am about to have a panic attack. He can’t be serious. Troy smiles brighter at my panic while I feel on the verge of throwing up.
“Yep, that’s right. You are now Cyrus and Eli’s new bitch,” Troy announces.
My stomach drops.
You hardly saw them, but I heard the whispers.
No one wanted to work for them; they were a nightmare apparently, explosively angry, and just overall strange.
Today was the first time I had ever come across them here; their presence was rare at the building.
Was this punishment for cutting them off? Did they recognize me?
Their last secretary left crying hysterically. Bella told me she had apparently ended up in a psych ward muttering about demons and monsters, and she hadn’t returned since.
The doors open, and Troy shoves me out, nearly making me stumble. I turn, trying to get back in the elevator, the doors closing in my face.
“Adeline Paisley?” I hear a deep husky voice behind me.
My body tenses, fear running through me, and I gulp, goosebumps rising on my flesh. Troy’s really fucked me over this time.
I hesitantly turn around to find Cyrus directly behind me with the other man, Eli, who is just as equally imposing.
I step back, both their eyes on me, and I suddenly feel tiny, like a mouse being watched by a lion, and I am about to become their new toy to torture.
I actually would have preferred it if they fired me.
“We met in the elevator,” he says, raising an eyebrow at me. I feel the blood rush to my face at the memory. Wait, has he removed his contacts? His eyes are no longer red but a caramel, almost amber color.
“About that, I am so sorry. I am just going to go,” I tell them, about to hit the button on the elevator and run for my life.
“Did I say you could leave?” Eli says, making me jump before I turn around.
He is definitely more terrifying. His impenetrable gaze is watching me, and I feel the blood leave my face.
“You belong to us now,” he says.
Belong to them? What a weird choice of wording, I think to myself.
“You mean, I work here now?” I ask.
“Yes, you belong to us now,” he says simply, and I watch his eyes flicker.
I shake my head, a shiver running up my spine. Stress, it has to be. The only thing I can think of. Or the lighting.
I stand there awkwardly, rubbing my sweaty hands on my black slacks, my feet killing me as they continue to stare. Cyrus steps to the side, pointing at the desk. Eli is now sitting on the end. How did he move so fast? My feet feel like they are glued to the floor and weigh a ton as I stand frozen.
“I’m sure someone else would be better suited to work for you. I will go find them,” I offer, about to make a run for it.
Cyrus folds his arms over his chest. “No, we have already decided. We need a personal assistant, and you are it.”
I shake my head when he suddenly grabs my arm, pulling me toward the desk. He pulls the chair out, dumping me in it.
“Oh, and don’t be late,” he says over his shoulder as he walks off down the corridor to his office.
Eli turns around, perched on the end of the desk, and faces me. “Now, for the rules.”
“Rules?” I ask, confused.
He stares at me like I am mentally challenged, and I lean back as he leans closer.
His eyes darken under the light. He sniffs the air slightly, and I feel my heart rate pick up at his closeness, feel his breath fan my lips.
He is that close as he towers over me even while sitting.
He smells good, manly like sandalwood and pine needles, and I find myself involuntarily leaning in.
“Yes, rules. You know what they are?”
I nod, snapping out of my strange trance, and he leans back with a smirk on his lips like he knows how much his being this close affects me.
“Always knock before entering our offices, no personal phone calls, no drama, and no snooping. You will also have to sign a non-disclosure agreement and fill out an employee questionnaire,” he says in a rush, my mind reeling at his words.
“A non-disclosure agreement?”
“Are you hard of hearing? Do I need to repeat everything again?” he asks.
I shake my head, pressing my lips in a line.
“Good. I will bring the paperwork out. Also, we will need your contact details and banking information.”
“HR has all that,” I blurt. He glares at me, and I quickly nod, shutting my mouth.
“As I was saying, I will need your banking information so I can organize your salary. There are also some other documents that need to be filled in. You will be our personal assistant, not just here but outside of work as well. You won’t be paid by the company but by us personally.
Like I said earlier, you belong to us now,” he says, his lips tugging up deviously.
His words ring in my head on repeat. My mother is going to kill me. I can’t be someone’s on-call bitch. Who will get Maya to and from school? This is a nightmare. But if I say no, won’t my mother still kill me for getting fired?
Eli brings out the documents, dumping them on the desk in front of me. The pile looks daunting; exactly what they are hiding or worried about getting leaked makes me nervous. Maybe that is why the other woman ended up going nuts. What if they are secretly up to something sinister?
By the time I finish filling out the never-ending pile of documents, my hand is cramping. Like seriously, why they need to know how many sexual partners I’ve had, or my allergies and medical history is beyond me. There seem to be a lot of personal questions to be asked of an assistant.
Eli comes out, retrieving them before stalking off back to his office, and thankfully I don’t see either of them for the rest of the day. Today is my mother’s turn to pick up Maya from school, as today is her day off, meaning I don’t have to take my lunch break at her pick-up time.
When it hits five o’clock, I pack up my bag before darting to the elevator. What a day it has been, and I can’t wait to get home and sink into a hot bath.