Raine (Gods of the Fifth Floor #2) - M.V. Ellis Page 0,54

put a gun to their heads and threaten to pull the trigger—or in this case, to walk away from our partnership—to get them to come to the party.

“It’s early days, Raine, and ultimately, the ‘wisdom’ of that decision still remains to be seen. There’s still plenty of time for you to totally screw this up.” Nate’s features hardened as he spoke.

“Thanks for your vote of confidence, ‘partner’.”

“Don’t try that faux indignant bullshit on me, dude. It won’t work. They say that the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior, and your track record stinks like rotten eggs, so excuse me if I don’t pull out the Cristal to celebrate her appointment just yet.”

He narrowed his eyes, appraisingly me harshly. “Speaking of your track record, please tell me that you didn’t go in there coked off your tits?”

“What? No. Just how reckless and stupid do you fucking think I am?”

“I’m going to plead the fifth on that one.”

“Well, if you don’t trust my word, look into my eyes. Look at my pupils.”

“I don’t have to. I take your word for it.”

“The hell you do. You’ve already accused me, you can’t try to back out now.”

“You can’t really blame me given the way you’ve been hitting it so hard lately. Even by your own already incredibly low standards, you’ve been pushing the limits of what’s acceptable. Any further and you’ll be in danger of staring down the barrel of rehab.”

What the fuck was he even talking about?

“Are you serious? I don’t need rehab. I’m the first to admit that I love booze, blunts and blow, so the fuck what?”

Nate put his hands up in mock surrender. “There’s nothing wrong with all of those things in moderation. Hell, we all indulge from time to time. But when you’re practically living in your office, not sleeping, surviving on coke to keep you functioning, and weed to take the edge off the coke, then we’re not talking about moderation.”

“Seriously, Bumble, you really want to stage a fucking intervention? Now, when I’ve worked my ass off this week to pull this out of the bag?”

“It’s not an intervention, more an observation. I’m just calling it like I see it. Speaking of what I can see, there’s the small matter of the trail of blood trickling out of your right nostril as we speak.”

“What?” I sat up straight in the seat and reached for my face. When I pulled my hand away and looked down, sure enough my fingertips were covered in blood.

Nate handed me his pocket square. “Fix yourself up.”

I took it from him feeling like I was moving in slow motion. What the actual fuck?

Chapter 21

Noa

* * *

“Good afternoon, this is Noa. How may I help you?”

“Hi, Noa, this is Melinda from HR. How are you?”

“I’m well, thank you. Is everything okay?” I was sure the worry was obvious in my voice. Maybe someone had found out about Raine and me and made a complaint, and I was about to be marched from the premises. How humiliating.

Not only that, but they’d probably use it as a reason not to pay me the money I’d been promised, so I would have the worst of both worlds—I’d have burned my bridges with the agency, I’d be unemployed and unemployable, with nothing to show for it but a heap of mounting bills and a tarnished reputation.

“Don’t sound so worried. Now that we have your signed employment contract, there are just a few final formalities we need to take care of before we make it official. Mostly tax and healthcare related. Are you able to get a moment to come down to the third floor and get that all squared away? It’s great timing, with today being Friday, as it means you spring into next week with a sparkling new job. Congratulations.”

“Thank you.” I tried my best to sound pleased, and rang off as quickly as was polite. I was so angry I couldn’t even think straight. Scrap that, I couldn’t even see straight, let alone think. I slipped out of my seat and hurried to the ladies’ room. I didn’t know whether I wanted to cry, or tear shit up, but I knew that whatever it was, I didn’t want to do it at my desk. I went into a cubicle and locked it behind me. That asshole. I couldn’t believe he’d done this to me.

Actually, I could believe it, and that was worse. Raine was one of the most complicated people I’d ever met, let alone