Chapter 11 Giovanni
Tinted windows. Soundproof cabin. Encrypted Wi-Fi.
The limousine is excessive, but necessary. I need the space, the privacy, and most importantly, the mobile command center capabilities. My driver knows better than to make eye contact in the rearview. I pay him well for his selective blindness.
Four screens. Four different angles of Little Miss Take attempting to handle my Aventador. The leather briefcase sits open on the polished table between the seats, laptop angled precisely, tablet propped against it, phone in my hand cycling through the car’s internal cameras.
The beast is in Corsa mode. Race mode. I didn’t program that. She’s somehow activated it while fumbling with buttons, and now she’s using the paddle shifters like she’s qualifying for Monaco.
Amateur hour at 600 horsepower.
I snicker, watching Emmaleen frantically downshift at a stop sign, the engine roaring in protest. The car jerks forward like it’s being operated by a teenager learning stick shift. Didn’t that YouTube tutorial she watched explain automatic mode? Obviously not.
My fingers tighten slightly on the phone. The Aventador isn’t my child, but it’s a $500,000 investment currently being manhandled by someone whose driving experience likely peaks at a used Honda Civic.
“Slow down at the curve,” I mutter, knowing she can’t hear me. She doesn’t. The tires squeal slightly.
I switch camera angles to catch her expression—eyes wide, lips pressed together in concentration. Her knuckles are white on the steering wheel. The car growls like a caged predator, eager to run but restricted by her hesitant commands.
She’s not doing terribly, all things considered. But I’m wincing.
The limo follows at a discreet distance. Close enough to maintain strong signal reception, far enough that she won’t notice us. Not that she would—she’s too focused on not wrecking half a million dollars of Italian engineering.
When she reaches the gates, I switch to the exterior security feed. The wrought iron barriers swing open automatically, their silent welcome more ominous than inviting. Her face changes as they close behind her—a flash of unease quickly replaced by determination.
Then she spots the speed limit sign.
I lean forward slightly. This is the moment I’ve been waiting for.
Her expression shifts from confusion to understanding to anger in the span of three seconds. The realization dawns on her face like a sunrise—beautiful to watch, impossible to stop. She’s figured it out. The specific number. The arbitrary rule. The test within the test.
Six miles per hour exactly. Not five. Not ten.
She slows the car deliberately, eyes flicking to the digital speedometer. 6.0 mph precisely. Her jaw sets in defiance.
Interesting.
The car lurches up the drive in first gear, painfully restrained. The navigation system continues barking Italian questions she has no hope of answering. She ignores them, focused entirely on maintaining exactly six miles per hour.
When she reaches the circular drive, the parking sensors erupt in a cacophony of warnings as the front bumper comes dangerously close to my imported Japanese maple.
Finally, she stops the car at an angle that would make a valet weep.
Then something unexpected happens.
She exits the vehicle and walks directly into the woods.
I frown, cycling through camera feeds. Nothing. I have no surveillance in that section of the property. Why would I? It’s just trees.
What the hell is she doing?
I rewind the footage, studying her face before she disappeared into the foliage. Determination. Urgency. Something else I can’t quite identify.
I make a mental note to install motion sensors along the perimeter. Maybe those trail cameras hunters use. This is a blind spot I hadn’t anticipated.
Three minutes later, she emerges from the trees, smoothing her skirt with one hand. She looks... relieved? I still have no idea what just happened.
I’m not used to not knowing. It’s unsettling.
She retrieves her bag and the red Louboutins from the car, approaching the house with visible trepidation. The music from inside is audible even through the security feed.
I switch to the interior cameras just as she pushes open the front door. The scene inside freezes—Dom and Ricky with their rented entertainment, all of them staring at my disheveled assistant like she’s an alien who just crash-landed.
“Who the fuck are you?” Dom’s voice booms through my phone speaker.
Her response is immediate, delivered with surprising composure:
“Delulu new girl. Not my shoes. Not my car. Definitely not my scene. Point me to the suits, please.”
Dom’s confused face fills the screen, his expression worth every dollar I spent on those security gates. I can’t help the smile that forms on my lips.
This is going to be fun.
Dom’s entertainment choices have descended to unprecedented depths of tastelessness.
Three women, their bodies literally encrusted with glitter, are sprawled across my imported Italian leather sectional like abandoned party decorations.
Each movement releases a fresh shower of sparkles that will remain stubbornly embedded in the grain for months, if not years.
Empty Veuve Clicquot bottles stand in formation like fallen soldiers after a particularly decadent battle.
Cigar ash—not mine, never mine—dusts the pristine Carrara marble tabletop in gray drifts.
The air is probably thick with a noxious blend of cheap perfume and expensive champagne—a scent that will linger in the fabrics and woodwork for weeks.
This precise scenario is why I relocated to the apartment above the restaurant.
Dom, dressed in nothing but a pair of boxer shorts that leave absolutely nothing to the imagination as far as his ten-inch dick is concerned, stares at Emmaleen as though she’s suddenly begun speaking fluent Mandarin.
His confusion would be comical if it weren’t so utterly predictable.
He reaches for his phone with the practiced motion of a man who knows exactly who to call when the unexpected appears on his doorstep.
My phone vibrates in my hand exactly on cue, as if choreographed.
“Let her in,” I say before he can even form words. “Point her in the wrong direction. I want to watch her face as she navigates the house.” A small test. A minor amusement. A way to observe Little Miss Take in an unfamiliar environment.
Dom doesn’t respond verbally. Just shakes his head and disconnects. He’s grown accustomed to my methods over the years. Doesn’t question them anymore. Doesn’t need to understand the why.
The security feed on my phone switches to the wide-angle camera in the foyer. Dom gestures vaguely down the first-floor hallway—deliberately away from the stairs, away from my bedroom suite.
Emmaleen hesitates, her expression clearly weighing his credibility against her instincts. Smart girl. But she proceeds anyway, apparently deciding that following directions, however suspicious, is safer than arguing with a half-naked man with a ten-inch hard on who reeks of whiskey and sex.
The limo slows as we approach the neighborhood, the driver navigating the winding private road with practiced precision. Two minutes out from arrival.
Emmaleen moves through the first floor with calculated caution, like someone navigating a minefield. She peers into the kitchen—professional Viking appliances that have never been used for anything more complex than coffee, marble countertops that have never been stained by actual cooking.
The dining room with its imposing twelve-person table where no one has ever dined or gathered.
My office—the public one, not the real one—with its carefully arranged props suggesting importance without revealing substance. Books positioned but never read. Awards displayed but meaningless.
She touches nothing. Just observes, catalogs, and continues her exploration. Her eyes miss nothing.
Then she finds the library.
I switch to that feed immediately, watching her face transform in real time. Her lips part slightly in unmistakable surprise. Her shoulders visibly lower from their defensive posture. The tension that has characterized her frame since arrival dissipates like smoke in a sudden breeze.
“Holy shit,” she whispers, her voice perfectly captured by the high-definition microphones embedded in the ceiling trim. “Look at all of you.”
The library is the only room in the entire house I didn’t renovate to match my minimalist aesthetic.
The original shelves remain intact—dark oak, floor to ceiling, with brass rolling ladders mounted on rails along each wall.
Edison bulbs in antique brass fixtures cast warm, amber pools of light across leather reading chairs I’ve never once sat in.
The mahogany tables hold leather-bound volumes whose pages I’ve never turned.
When I purchased the house, the shelves were filled with moldy, water-damaged books—worthless remnants of the previous owners.
I had them removed without a second thought, but later discovered several dozen boxes of additional volumes stored in the attic.
Rather than dispose of them as unnecessary clutter, I instructed my staff to unpack and arrange them throughout the library.
It made the room look complete. Inhabited.
Used. Like someone with substance and depth lived there.
It’s all theater, of course. Carefully constructed illusion. I don’t read fiction.
Emmaleen approaches the nearest shelf, her fingertip tracing along the spines with unexpected reverence, like she’s greeting old friends. She selects one volume, carefully, delicately, as if handling something infinitely precious and fragile.