Page 14 of Bully's Second Chance
I’d fly out there, make some harsh decisions, gut the damn place and remodel it, then put all of the pieces back together the way it should have been done from the beginning. And in the process, I took anywhere between ten and forty-nine percent of the business indefinitely.
“Knock, knock,” Lily said.
I logged out of my computer and stood to my feet. “Come in, Miss DeMarcus.”
She opened the door and stood in the doorway. “Just wanted to run down a few things I found that don’t have to do with your schedule.”
I slid my hands into my pockets. “Take it away, then.”
Then, she drew in a deep breath. “The files in the room all the way down the hallway are all out of order, and with the way papers were thrown around in there, it looks like it’s been like that for a while. I got everything put back and organized not only alphabetically but by date, just in case you have to sort through either-or. I also reorganized my desk a bit to fit me and how I move, and I found a false bottom in the pencil drawer. I wouldn’t mention it, but I found an assortment of pills that had been stuck down there and jammed toward the back.”
I blinked. “Wait. What? Pills?”
She pulled the baggie out of her purse. “And it’s pretty full, too.”
I walked over to her and snatched it out of her hand. “That little, fucking—”
“If it were me, I’d randomly drug test the entire company. That looks like enough to sell off, and I don’t think I’m the only person in this room who thinks those belonged to your last secretary.”
I squeezed the bag in my palm. “Thank you for this information. Is there anything else?”
She slid her purse up to her shoulder. “There’s one more thing, yes.”
“Let me have it.”
“Trust me, I intend to. What you’ve done to me is nothing less than shameful. I don’t know how much you know about my childhood, but it wasn’t pleasant.”
“Neither was mine.”
“My father wasn’t a very nice man, and my mother was either too drunk or too high to care about what he did whenever he got too drunk or too high.”
That came as a shock. “Really? But, your mother was always so active i—”
“Church, school, sports. Yeah, I know. She was also a pill-popper. And a cocaine-snorter. And she occasionally got so black-out drunk with Dad that it would shock her whenever she had to go get an abortion because my father never wanted any more children.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Do I dare ask why?”
“Even if you did, I wouldn’t tell you.”
I sighed. “Listen, Lily, had I known any of that was—”
But, she put her hand up, silencing me in my tracks. “I wanted to give you a small overview of my childhood before I tell you that out of all the hurt and the pain my parents caused me, you hurt me more.”
My face fell. “Oh.”
“Out of all the pain I remember, yours is the one that haunts me the most.”
My stomach sank to my toes. “Ah.”
“But, we are adults, and I won’t let you treat me like a scared, skinny, little girl you can toss around any longer. So, either you hire me on full-time starting right now, or I walk out those doors and don’t come back. Your choice.”
I stared at her for a long time through a new set of eyes. I had no idea the torture she was enduring just a block down from my house, and my fists clenched deeply within my pockets. But, once I gathered my anger into a dark corner of my soul to fester, I drew in a sobering breath.
“Then, you’re hired,” I said.
She nodded. “Good, I was hoping you’d say that. Because if you decided not to, just know that I’d have no issues reporting you to the BBB or any other place for that matter.”
I chuckled. “I’ve always liked your guts.”
