Page 6 of Left of the Slash
“Thanks, Eden,” I say. “Glad to be here.”
FIVE - Olivia
The smell of my father's cologne still lingers in the office, and there's something about it that grounds me. It’s like he is still here with me, hovering somewhere close by, watching as I go through all of this because he asked me to. He knows the challenges that lie in front of me, and he makes sure to stay close. When I'm in this office, he's here, too. Thank goodness, because since he died, I have never felt so alone.
I remember the day the police showed up on my doorstep. Dressed in their black uniforms with their walkies fastened to the shoulder of their shirts, they stood there like nothing was happening. I opened the door and saw frozen faces staring back at me. They were emotionless—trained to stay poised as they ruined the lives of the next of kin. To their credit, they did a fantastic job watching me have an emotional breakdown of biblical proportions. They informed me of my father's death,gave me their hollow condolences, and walked away as I closed the door and collapsed onto the floor. I've never cried like that before. It took me hours to pull myself together, because I just couldn't understand how he was here one minute, and then dead in a fiery car crash the next. It was so unexpected, because something like that canneverbe expected. We’d just talked on the phone the night before, and then he was gone—reduced to the lingering smell of cologne in his old office.
It only took a couple of weeks for the lawyers to inform me that he’d left everything he owned to me: his house, cars, money, belongings … and Obsidian. When they told me, I was adamant that I didn't want it, but then they slid a hand-written note across the table. It was Dad’s will that he’d written years prior, and took the time to have notarized to make it official. Just how I didn't want to take over Obsidian, I didn't want to read the letter, but the lawyers insisted. By the time I reached the second sentence, I was already crying my eyes out, dripping tears all over the cherry wood table in the lawyer’s office.
Dear Olivia, my little love
I don't know what convinced me to sit here and write this, but I just had a feeling that I should jot down my desires just in case anything were to ever happen to me. You have been the pride and joy of my life since the moment you were born, and even though you didn't know your mother due to her death during your birth, she would be so happy to see how close you and I are, and even prouder to see the woman you’ve become. You are a top executive at your bank, a financial advisor with the potential to be a CEO, and just thinking of you brings a smile to my face. You're the only one I trust in this world, and that’s why if tragedy were to strike or I simply succumb to old age, I want you to take over everything with my name attached to it.
Obviously, the house and everything in it is yours. You probably won't want to keep all of my junk, but if you do decideto throw anything out, just be sure to keep everything I saved from your mother and bury me with a picture of her in my casket. She was the love of my life, and it would be nice to know that we could be together again, even underground.
When she died, I have to admit that I replaced her with work. First, I threw myself into the company I was already working at. Then I started my own when you were a toddler, and it became the next love of my life. I spent my time raising you and Obsidian simultaneously, giving my all to both of you, so if I'm gone, then you have to be the one to take it. I can't imagine working all of this time, diving into this company until I can no longer breathe without it, just to have it go to somebody else. I built it for us, so it must succeed after me.
I hate to put all of this on you, my little love, but my heart won’t allow me to do anything but this. Obsidian is ours, and I know that my own success with building it is great, but you could do things with it that I never could. You are so much smarter than me. So, if I leave this world, everything of mine will be there waiting for you. You only have to decide to reach out and take it, and make it into something bigger than even I could've imagined. Only your focus, ambition, and drive can do that. I hope you do it, because you will be the only one left to cement our name in history. You, and you alone, can make us unforgettable. So I hope you take what I've made and combine it with your genius, to turn our company into the absolute best version of itself. Don't let anyone take it and run it into the ground. Focus on your excellence, my little love, and you will be unstoppable … and I will be looking down on you with so much pride.
You are my heart, Olivia, and I love you so very much. If you're reading this, just know that I am watching over you, smiling non-stop because nothing in this world has ever made me prouder than you. Go get ‘em, Mi amorcito.
Love, Dad.
Doing everything in my power to not repeat the day the cops left my house, I swallowed hard and shoved the note back into the folder it had come from, and even though it took some time to decide, I already knew I couldn't let Obsidian go. It meant too much to my father, which meant it was going to mean everything to me.
But Dad couldn't warn me about the type of people I’d be working with once I took over. He couldn't prepare me for the vultures who wanted to take Obsidian from him, even before he passed away. There was no time to give me prior knowledge of the lion’s den I would be walking into the second I assumed the title of CEO. Now, I'm fighting for control of this company every single day, and it feels like a losing battle. It is me versus the type of men I have always wanted to stay away from, and sometimes I wonder how Dad even hired these people. But then I think about how good people like Jon, Nick, and Stephen are at business. In America, assholes tend to be the best businessmen, because winning at all costs requires a certain level of savagery, and I know my father didn't have that in him, so he hired people who did. He just didn't know that he was hiring the people who would do anything to see his daughter thrown out of the position he built for her.
Well, I'm here now, Dad, putting on my armor every morning and coming to war every day. None of them respect me yet … well, except maybe one. I met a guy today named Quinn King. I think you'd like him. He isn't afraid to go against the grain and stand up for what he thinks is right, and I admire that. It doesn't hurt that he’s … never mind. I'm here doing this for us, and I can't allow myself to get distracted by things like attraction. Just know that you would like him, and maybe he’ll be the one to help me make Obsidian everything you wanted it to be. I think he has what it takes. But don't worry, I won't let him distract me.
“Hey, you okay?” Eden’s voice slices through my train of thought like a hot knife, making me jump as I realize I'm still sitting in my office. The computer screen has gone into sleep mode and I look like a crazy person just sitting here staring into nothingness.
I clear my throat and start shuffling papers around on my desk to look busy. “Umm, yeah I'm fine. Are you taking off?”
“Yeah, I'm going to get outta here. Unless you need something else from me,” says Eden, leaning against the door jamb.
“No, no. You go ahead and go,” I answer. “Thanks so much for all of your help, Eden. I'm so glad my dad hired you right after we graduated college together. You and I have been friends for a long time, and knowing you were here made it a lot easier to start work on my first day. I don't know how I’d do this if you weren't here.”
Eden’s smile is big. “Aww, thanks bestie. Admittedly, it hurts me to see you going through the shit you go through with the boys. I wish there was more I could do.”
“Oh, you’ve done so much already, and you did try to warn me before I took the job. I really appreciate you.”
“Thanks, Olivia. But, maybe Quinn is one of the good ones, huh?”
I watch Eden’s face change. One of her eyebrows lifts as she smirks just like the emoji on my phone, and I knowexactlywhat she means.
I pinch my lips together as I think about the way Quinn looked today: black blazer with gray buttons that matched his tie, broad shoulders that refused to be hidden by his clothes, a well-manicured beard shading a strong jawline, plump lips, a tapered fade haircut, caramel skin, and green eyes that seem unfair for him to have. And as if he wasn't good-looking enough, he's smart, and I'm not sure anything turns me on more than a truly smart man. He's a walking wet dream with an aura that standsout amongst the crowd of little boys in the executive wing, and I noticed him sitting at the conference room table before I ever spoke a word to him. His eyes seemed to pierce into my heart like an arrow from an annoying little cupid, but I had to act like I couldn't feel the direct hit as we spoke about the breach, because I don't have time to get into all of that, especially in front of Jon and his gang. Like I said, I can’t get caught up in attraction. Yes, Quinn is jaw-dropping, but it doesn't matter. It can't. So as a smile threatens to take over my face, I force myself to push it away.
“Have a good night, Eden,” I say.
Unlike my smile, her smirk doesn't evaporate. She holds onto it as she spins on her heel, clutches her purse, and looks at me one last time before walking away. “Goodnight, Olivia.”
SHADES OF DARKNESS
SIX - Quinn
“So your new boss is a thirty-five-year-old baddie? Are y’all hiring?”
“Oh my god. Hereyougo,” I reply to my good friend Marcus Bolden, who is on his womanizing game, per usual. He sits on the couch across from me, wearing a black graphic tee with black sweats, his dark skin glistening like he put on too much baby oil.
