Page 19 of Property of Indiana

“Hell, heading to West Texas is gonna be a fucking vacation compared to the impending shitshow I foresee,” Rip adds.

“I don’t think it’s going to be as bad as you think,” I convey. “The crematorium is in a separate building, we don’t bring up any of our extras except under the cover of darkness, and Zoey will be working normal business hours. This will pull Ozzie off the bookwork, which he absolutely hates and it’ll mean that Sketch doesn’t have to continually fix his fuck-ups.”

“That may be the only bright side to this epic fuckup,” Rip mumbles.

“I’ll train her myself and make sure she knows certain things are off-limits,” I inform him. “Ride safe, brother.” I pat him on his shoulder knowing when it’s time to let him wrap his head around shit before pushing things further.

“You better!” he shouts at me as I keep trekking along. I wave over my shoulder to let him know I heard his command but don’tsay anything in response. I know when to let a lying dog rest and this is without any doubts, one of those times.

CHAPTER

TEN

ZOEY

I’m nervous as fuck.Today is the first day I have an adult job instead of a mundane one where my competition was teenagers. Finding jobs that paid underneath the table was harder to find than one would think. I did a lot of landscaping and maid work, but the teens that I was coworkers with ran circles around me. And it was belittling that they had more money tucked in their weekly envelopes than me. They spent theirs at the mall and I spent mine on taking care of Elodie and my grandparents.

Sometimes, life can be so darn unfair. Something I’ve been trying to pass down to my daughter but those are hard lessons to demonstrate because life teaches that better than I can as her mother. Plus, she’s hardheaded, so many of the things she thinks she should try, when I caution her against it, she does it anyway and finds out the consequences are not what she wanted at all.

Still, despite being a bit scared over what I’m going to have to learn, there’s a little bit of excitement as well. For the first time in my life, I’ll be able to take care of myself and Elodie withouthaving to stress over stretching every single penny. I’ll still use a budget since I grew up using one, and coupons are a fact of my life as well, but not having to worry over whether I have enough to pay a bill versus buying groceries is definitely freeing.

“You ready for this?” Harrison asks as he opens the door of my car. He’s apparently going to be training me, which is kind of funny to me since I always think of secretarial work as being done by a woman.

“Maybe?” I reply, taking his hand and getting out, my purse already slung over my shoulder with the keys resting inside.

I’m not naive enough to think this business is completely on the up-and-up by any means, and I’m also positive that whatever I’ll be doing will be nowhere near any of the gray areas. Hopefully, I’m able to convey that to him so he doesn’t worry. Besides, if Idosee anything that’s suspect, I’m sure as hell not going to say anything because Harrison and his club put us under their protection.

“You’ve got this, Zoey. Outside of answering phones and doing some data entry, all you’ll be doing is filing and stamping envelopes that have payments inside,” he tells me in an encouraging voice.

“If it’s so simple, why do you need to hire anyone?” I ask, hoping this isn’t a pity job.

“Because it’s time consuming,” he excuses. “And we have other things we need to be taking care of. This will help Ozzie and Sketch not have to work well past nighttime. They’re excited about passing the torch to you so they can grab more than four hours of sleep per night. Besides, Ozzie always somehowmanages to fuck up the paperwork. This will prevent fights between him and Sketch.”

“So it’s not a pity job then?” I probe.

“Absolutely not. Believe it or not, you’re doing us a favor, not the other way around,” he chides, peering down at me. “We don’t do pity and we only hire within. Since you’re now one of us, we had no qualms about letting you take over these tasks.”

“It’s good to be a King,” I giggle. “The perks are already amazing.”

“It’ll only get better from here,” he promises.

“Lead the way,” I say, butterflies taking flight in my belly.

“Right this way, ma’am,” he states, removing my hand from his and placing it at his elbow. “I always wanted to escort a lady like this.”

“Liar,” I accuse.

“You’re right,” he laughs. “I’d only do this for you.”

“You were right about one thing,” I tell Harrison as we lock up for the day.

“What’s that?” he inquires.

“The filing gets repetitive and it’s boring. No wonder the guys fought over who had to do that job,” I tease.

The sound of a revving engine catches our attention and we both swivel in that direction and I freeze at what greets us.

“Okay, now that shit is funny as fuck,” Harrison laughs, clutching his stomach as tears well in his eyes.

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