Page 1 of Brutal Prince

ONE

Gretta

“Can I help you?” Benson Vanderbilt asked, without looking up from his laptop. I was told to meet him inside the Benedictine Athenaeum a place that had become his office for organizing the filthy jobs.

“I need a job,” I told him.

“I’m sorry, I don’t run an employment agency.”

I was confused. “But I spoke to you on the phone and you said you might have something.”

“Who told you that I find jobs for people?”

“Someone you gave a job to who wishes to remain anonymous.”

Still, without looking up from his laptop, he shook his head. “I’m sorry there’s been a misunderstanding, I don’t find jobs for students. Perhaps you should try the Student Job Search office.”

“Please I’d do anything. Anything.” Yeah, that’s me playing the game of the desperate damsel.

“Don’t you already have a job?” This time he glanced up to look at me. “Aren’t you the manager of that awful burger restaurant?”

“Yes, I am.”

“So, why do you need another job?”

“The hourly rate is not so high and my mom-”

“-Yes,” suddenly he seemed interested.

“My mom has a condition where she can’t work.”

“Which is?”

I swallowed back my shame. “Morbid obesity.”

“Oh, so it’s a self inflicted condition.”

“No, her thyroid is severely underactive which makes losing weight very difficult.”

I get so tired explaining it to people. My mom doesn’t eat any more or any less than anyone else. In fact, since she struggled to move about the place, she’d stay put and eat nothing for the majority of the day, until I got home from work or school. She wore adult diapers and battled continuously with bed sores and rashes and various other conditions that caused great discomfort. She had a heart of gold and a profoundly positive considering how difficult life is for us. Yet no one ever saw that side, because they were too busy making judgments of her appearance.

“Just out of curiosity, what problem do you need resolved?”

“I need money to pay for my school fees. I had to take out a student loan and I just want that paid. I have thousands of dollars of debt and I still have my senior year to go.”

He frowned. “I’m sorry I can’t help you,” he said disingenuously and held up his phone to take a pic of me. “For security reasons.”

“Why?”

“Just in case you’re not who you claim to be.”

“I’ve already told you that I’m Gretta Nelson…”

“Yes, but are you the Gretta Nelson who needs debt paid off or the Gretta Nelson member of the Worm and Mug Society who would do anything to quash the Snake and Chalice for good. In fact, if you degenerates had it your way, you’d make us open our exclusive society up for females. Now, we can’t have that, can we? Us guys need some place to go without the nags and hags of the female variety of sex.”

I wanted to punch this guy in the face badly. I mean, his self-inflated arrogance was astounding. I could see now why Cody Harrington called him the weasel. However, I was on a mission and I needed to break into this little coven of entitled fuckwits and burn it all down.

Someone give me a damn match.

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