His Human Assistant (Monsters Love Curvy Girls #3) - Michele Mills

1

Avery

Sweat drips down my forehead as I sprint across the main square in Singapore. Parked vehicles and stacked crates are everywhere. I dodge past these obstacles, then stumble over a hissing pet, which manages to wrap its long sticky tail around my legs.

People, get the hell out of my way.

Ugh, why is everyone and their mother outside today?

I free myself and run faster. It’s midday and sweltering outside, and all this running is super difficult to accomplish considering, a) I hate running; it’s my least favorite exercise, and b) I’m wearing high heels and a tight black skirt.

I’m trying to escape the assholes who want me dead—which is pretty much the only reason I’d ever be seen in public making a spectacle of myself in this way.

I pause, kick off my new pair of chunky heels that are slowing me down, grab them in my hands and keep running.

This morning I found out, quite by accident, that corporate had discovered I’m the whistleblower who’s been making their life hell. Two women were chatting in the hall, outside my open office door, about the odd military-looking vehicles that were parked out front. And since I’m the one who’d secretly initiated a series of indictments that are going to bring down the Teron corporation’s whole web of fucked up accounting, I was all “oh hell, they know.” And I got right to work transferring and scrubbing data.

Teron was originally named “New Earth’s Most Innovative Company,” by Financial Media three planetary rotations in a row. But in reality, I discovered they’ve been using mark-to-market accounting to make the company appear many times more profitable than it actually is while at the same time hiding losses in shell companies. These assholes are hoodwinking stockholders, employees, vendors and customers. Beings are going to lose everything because of these frauds and the greedy executives who are perpetuating these crimes. The consequences could be Galactic prison for the top executives as well as the crooks at the accounting firm the corporation hired to do their dirty work. I feel terrible for all the employees because this place is faking its solvency and is going to implode within the next few moon cycles and everyone will lose their jobs. And this corporation is so big, it’ll mess up New Earth’s entire economy for years to come.

This place looks on the outside like it’s a major currency-making corporation, but it’s actually a ticking time bomb about to bring everyone down except the men and women at the top, who of course will walk away from this with more currency than ever, free and clear. My job is to make sure these beings pay for their crimes.

How did they find out it was me? I have no idea. And I didn’t even have time to contact the Intergalactic Business Bureau for backup before I left. I slammed out of my office and rushed out the back door. And now I’m on the streets, trying to figure out where to hide.

I can’t go back to my apartment, that’s the first place they’ll look. I know the executives and the accounting firm aren’t messing around, they’re out to kill me. If they can get rid of me, as well as the evidence I’ve compiled, there’s no case. It will all go away, and they can return to their crooked business as usual. When this place goes bankrupt in a matter of months and closes due to insolvency and the stockholders lose billions of credits, no one will know it was orchestrated to happen that way by the top executives—unless I expose them.

But if I can make it out of this alive, I can bring down every smug asshole on the Board of Directors, as well as the CEO and CFO. They will go to prison and lose all the currency they think they’ve carefully hidden. This also means I’m as good as dead, unless I can find a way out.

Yes, it’s stupid of me to not have had a better bug-out plan, just in case my cover was blown, but…I guess I thought I was doing such a great job of hiding behind my alias? I’m the bubbly, joke-telling, young human intern they were underestimating and never suspected. Until they did. People tend to like me and think I’m easy to get along with—they never peg me for an infiltrator from the Intergalactic Business Bureau rooting out corporate espionage, which is why I’m usually so effective at what I do.

I’m panting as I