Page 11 of Second Chances

“Tomorrow!” I tell her with a smirk.

“Better or you’re on surveillance duty.”

I groan—surveillance is a vital piece of our work, but the most boring thing to spend hours doing.

“Good to have you back.” She winks before looking down at her work again.

Matthew emerges from my boss’ office and strides quickly over to my desk.

“I better get going. That traffic warden will only be scared for so long. You ok?”

“I’m fine.” I just want to get back to living my life, and this is an essential part of it.

“See you later. I suspect everyone will be at your house when you get home, wanting a debrief on how your day went.” Matthew laughs.

“Great.” I roll my eyes.

“You’re stuck with us now.” My brother’s bodyguard turns away but then stops and spins back around. The grin on his face, and his next words are enough to freeze my blood.

“By the way, about the cage. You and I have a grudge match booked in a couple of weeks. You shot me, and you don’t get away with that lightly.”

“Shit!” I exclaim as he disappears back into the elevator.

Gemma looks up at me and laughs.

“You know anything about that?”

She nods.

“It’s going to be the MI5 highlight of the year.”

I’m so screwed.

Chapter Five

Elena

“For god’s sake, just work.” I bash the computer with my fist. Thankfully, it doesn’t break. “Just do what I want you to do,please.” I drop my head into my hands and let out a long string of expletives.

“Something wrong?” Amy, who’s sitting next to me, tentatively asks.

“Technology hates me. That’s all. Oh, for Fuck’s sake. What have you done with my class lists!” I curse again, and Amy gets out of her chair, where she's been looking over the weekly finances, and comes to stand behind me at my computer. “If you’ve deleted it, I swear I’ll throw you out of the window,” I threaten.

“What’s the computer done to annoy you?” Amy laughs, but I don’t find it funny. I turn around and scowl at her. Amy straightens her face. “Ok, not in a joking mood. I get that. Tell me what’s wrong?”

“I’m supposed to press this button.” I move the mouse and hover it over an icon saying ‘print on the screen’. “It should send the class lists for tomorrow to the printer, but it seems to be deleting them instead because this machine is a fucking pain in the ass that’s been sent to wind me up and make me crazy.”

“Riiight,” Amy draws out the word, sensing that my temper is about to blow and not wanting to antagonize it anymore.

“It’s a stupid fucking software package. It’d be easier if I just wrote them all out by hand.”

I bang my fist down on the desk.

“You know what? Why don’t I have a look at it. I’ve just finished the finance report, so I’ve time before I have to collect the kids. You could go work out in the gym for a bit, maybe punch your frustrations out on the boxing bag?”

I snort a kind of growl out of my nose.

Amy holds her hands up.

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