Page 70 of Volatile Obsessions

? Never Be the Same - Camila Cabello ?

After my little chat with Suki and Ramsey regarding The Phantom Menace, I actually found myself ready to go to work on Monday morning.

I wanted to go to work.

It appeared that, my situation with Roman somehow trumped what Vic had done to me, and while I still wasn’t one-hundred percent—had no intention of seeing or speaking to him—that perpetual state of paranoia had vanished once more. The flashbacks had subsided to mild night terrors, too, ones I could handle and, overall, I hadn’t been dwelling on the sordid affair anymore, period.

That was new for me.

Really new for me.

I suffered years of trauma and PTSD after such harrowing occurrences,with no simple or instant fix along the way. Took several therapists, lots of medications, and overall time to even find a way to cope with it.

But this thing with Roman made it go away like nothing ever happened, which kept bringing me back to, were my girls right?

That’s exactly what I was dissecting to the final translucent thread when I pulled up to Black Widowand saw all my employees gathered outside.

It looked like damn riot.

What in the fuck?

All thoughts of Roman briskly fizzled away to the back of my mind as I eased into my usual spot and killed the engine, hopping out of the G Class at lightning speed.

“What the hell is going on?” I asked, throwing my door shut.

Dozens of heads snapped my way, a lot of them which proceeded to cower just from my tone alone.

“Power’s out,” said one of the packagers.

My brow quirked high in a perfect arch as I dragged my gaze his way. “The entire building?”

He nodded. “Every last room.”

“Did we check the breakers?” I hedged, turning my attention to the factory’s exterior for any clues.

“We flipped them three times,” he explained. “Nothing.”

Of course there was nothing.

Nothing, as usual, which meant one thing and one thing only.

Roman.

“I see. Thank you.” That was all I offered the man before stalking off to the front doors with anger swiftly bubbling in my gut.

I had it in my right mind to haul my ass over to Noir Coastand wring the bastard’s neck, give him a piece of my damn mind, but I’m sure that’s what he was he was expecting.

What he wanted.

And I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction this time.

Swiveling around on my toes, I cleared my throat and waited until I had the crowd’s undivided attention.

“Good morning.”

“Good morning,” they hummed.

“As you’re all fully aware already, the power is out, and it looks like this is something that’s going to take some time to resolve. Quite obviously that means some of you won’t be able to operate your usual stations, so I’m doubling you up to work on packaging. Once everything is packaged, you can go home—if the power hasn’t been restored by then, that is. Easy enough, yeah?”

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