She blushes and thanks me. And she smiles.
Choosing her lunch for her every day is strangely satisfying even if it does make Lachlan laugh his ass off. I consider killing him, but he's one of the few people I trust, so I ignore his misplaced humor.
Connor thinks he's the shit because he's not doing all the grunt work anymore. He asks again about becoming an enforcer, so I tell Lachlan to loop him in on the move we're making against the Kicks Bandidos.
That's going down tonight. We're taking out every street dealer we've identified in our territory. We'll bash and grab and then interrogate before sending them back to their gang beat up, and every fucking one of them will lose a finger tonight. Maybe more than one if they piss me off.
It will send a message the Kicks Bandidos had better listen to. The only payment for encroaching on my territory is pain and loss.
The Murphys are doing the same. We've agreed to share intel. Quinn Murphy will offer whatever information doesn't compromise his own clan. I don't blame him. I'll do the same.
Even allies don't show all their cards to each other.
In between answering Lachlan's texts and answering emails from the men who run our mob-owned businesses, I watch Anna on the camera I installed near her desk. Seeing her sitting there, her delicate brow wrinkled in thought while she works sooths me. She's so damn innocent.
The angle of the camera lets me see her face, but it's far enough away that I can see her body too. She has nice, big tits, which I want to see without the clothes hiding them from my eyes. My fingers itch with the need to touch. Are her nipples the same pretty pink as her lips? Anna doesn't wear makeup, not even lip gloss. I never realized how much I prefer that.
She likes working here and smiles often, but when she smiles at me, something happens to her eyes. The violet orbs calm, and she'll stand staring at me until someone interrupts her. I nearly strangled Connor this morning for being the one to do that.
When Anna realizes she's been staring at me, she blushes and turns away. I don't want her turning away. I want her attention on me.
I told Connor never to do that shit again. I said it holding him against the wall with one hand and my knife to his throat with the other. I think he knows I'm serious.
Her desk is still in my cousin's office and that irritates me. I want her in here with me.
I told Lachlan this.
His reply: "Get your shit together or you are going to scare her into quitting."
I don't want her to quit, so I haven't moved her desk. Yet.
I have installed the cameras in her apartment though. I didn't tell my underboss about that, and he doesn't know about the camera feed I'm watching now. He doesn't need to know.
Anna is mine.
I wonder how she'd react if she knew about the cameras. Maybe they'd make her feel safe. They should. I'm watching over her. Unlike her fucking useless family. Anna lost her parents when she was just a kid and the aunt and uncle that raised her after that kicked her out as soon as she turned 18.
I'm thinking about what I'm going to do about that. Anna deserved better.
The only places Anna goes besides work and her apartment are to the bookstore, grocery store and to visit an old woman who lives two floors down. The old woman never leaves her place so installing cameras there is going to be tricky. I've already tapped into the grocer's and bookstore's security feed.
ANNA
Ini is off today because she switched shifts with another one of the cashiers at the pet store who wanted my friend's usual dayshift instead of her own evening one. It means Ini can come by for lunch and I’m excited, but I'm nervous too. She's never been to my work.
Will she notice the crush I've developed on my boss?
She already teases me that I talk about him all the time. I don't. Do I? Maybe. But I talk about Shea too. I really like her. Her family is protective, and she's sheltered, but she thinks she knows all about the world. I'm glad she doesn't. It's not a kind place sometimes.
Anyway, I also talk about Lachlan. Cian told me not to call him Mr. Farrar. Lachlan didn't say anything, so I try not to use his name at all, but I think of him as Lachlan in my mind now. Because Cian told me to. He's the big boss after all. I talk about Connor and Jimmy too, though not as much.
Lachlan gives me a lot of weird looks. Especially when Cian is around. I think he's noticed my crush, but he hasn't said anything. And I’m grateful for that.
"Hey, girl, this place is the bomb." Ini's confident voice interrupts my thoughts.
I jump up from my desk to give her a quick hug before stepping back. "You were supposed to call me from the lobby. How did you get up here?"
Security is pretty tight in the building and it takes an elevator pass card to access this floor.