Fire & Brimstone (Neighbor from Hell #8) - R.L. Mathewson Page 0,6

back.

He couldn’t even say that he hadn’t seen this day coming. There had been plenty of clues along the way letting him know that one day he would have no choice but to dump her body into a tub of holy water and let the Devil have his protégé back.

There was the day that Rebecca Shaw had shown up twenty minutes late to her interview, wearing a Goonies t-shirt, flannel pajama pants, pink bunny slippers and carrying a resume that proudly informed anyone who had the misfortune of reading it about the five years she’d spent finding herself as she’d jumped from job to job…to job.

Normally he never would have hired someone who clearly didn’t have their shit together, but at the time he’d been short-staffed because he’d mistakenly hired waitresses who couldn’t handle a little fucking criticism without bursting into tears. When she hadn’t turned into a nervous wreck five minutes into the interview, the time it usually took someone to decide that working at Fire & Brimstone just wasn’t for them, he decided to hire her on a temporary basis.

With her work history he’d figured that it was only a matter of weeks before she’d quit and by the time that happened, he should have been able to find a reliable waitress who knew how to do her job without pissing him off. Unfortunately for his sanity and his blood pressure, things hadn’t worked out that way.

Like the first time that he’d tried to fire her and had somehow ended up with a new menu, two new waitresses that actually turned out to be pretty good, and renting the apartment across from his to her, her best friend and that fucking dog. He still wasn’t sure how she’d managed it, but every fucking time that he tried to tell her to stop fucking with his head, his life, and his restaurant, she somehow managed to change the subject and fuck with his head until he found himself doing exactly what she wanted just to shut her the fuck up, but no longer.

He was fucking done.

Absolutely fucking done.

Shooting one last glare at the uniforms that would make a lovely addition to a bonfire, he headed towards the back, giving customers a slight nod when they waved hello and ignoring the employees that were trying to derail him from his life’s purpose with petty bullshit. He didn’t stop until he found himself in the employee hallway and was forced to punch in the code to release the security door that lead upstairs to the apartments that he’d added shortly after he’d purchased the building.

As soon as the door clicked open, he was in the stairwell and heading upstairs where he would finally end the little demon’s reign of terror. This ended today, he promised himself, refusing to put up with her bullshit for one more day. Thirty seconds later, he was at her door and raising his hand as anticipation coursed through his body.

Finally, this nightmare was about to-

“Good morning, Christopher,” the little terror greeted him with a huge smile when she opened the door and spotted him, daring to call him the name that not even his mother used anymore, further fueling his determination to get rid of her. “Did you need something?”

“You’re fired,” he blurted out with absolutely no finesse, ruining what he’d been working on for years, but at the moment he really didn’t fucking care as long as the job got done. The only thing that mattered was finally ridding himself of the biggest mistake of his life.

Instead of crying, begging for her job or arguing with him like most sane people would have done, she simply nodded and mumbled a distracted, “I see,” as she glanced over her shoulder at something in her apartment, the move causing her curly black hair that he had to admit that he liked about her to slide off her shoulder.

“You’re fired,” he said a little louder, determined to make sure that there were no misunderstandings.

“Uh huh,” she mumbled, sounding even more distracted as she turned around, grabbed the door handle and ever so carefully, pulled the door closed behind her. She slowly backed away from the door. Licking her lips nervously, she shot a hopeful glance towards the stairwell door as though she was calculating the odds of making it there before-

“You little bitch!” came the feminine roar as the door was suddenly thrown open and Melanie, the normal one in this duo as far as he could tell,