Page 18 of Craving Demons
“I’m your niece, Ana, remember?”
“Nice niece. Naughty niece? Knobby-kneed niece. Naturally nice, knobby-kneed niece, not knowing… something…?”
“I don’t know where the money is!”
“Money?”
God, I wasn’t getting through to him, as I’d suspected I wouldn’t.
“Chocolate Cosmos!” Donny announced. “I’m thirsty.”
I blinked. “What?” Did he want a drink? A cosmopolitan? But there was no such thing as a chocolate cosmo. There were chocolate martinis but I didn’t think Donny drank either cosmos or martinis.
Donny rose and headed toward the basement door. “Time for a bath.” There was no bath in the basement. There was a shower stall in the guest room down there, but…
I ran to get him and redirected him up the stairs. Hopefully, he’d find his own bathroom eventually. Then I sat on the couch he’d been sleeping on and put my head in my hands.
I’d thought I had problems before! But now, Reia not wanting to go to prom seemed rather trivial. I had a mob boss breathing down my neck for money I couldn’t get, and I really didn’t want to think about what he’d do if he didn’t get it.
I could try looking through Uncle Don’s computer, but he had so much security on that thing I was certain I wouldn’t get far. He forgot everything else, but he remembered the seven passwords to get into his laptop, of course.
The trouble was, Donny did have a ton of money, exceptIcouldn’t access any of it. It was tied up in special accounts with automated payments and such.
As soon as Don had realized his deteriorating condition, he’d made sure we’d all be set, just in case anything happened to him. The girls all had money for college, and there was an account for the house, which paid taxes and utilities, an account for groceries, and an account for everything we needed. But beyond that… we had to fend for ourselves.
And Donny had left me out of all of that planning. He’d never trusted me with money and frankly, I didn’t blame him. I’d never much proven I could handle such things. I had no head for money or long-term planning.
“I’m so screwed,” I murmured.
ANAIS
I was stilla mess when I went to my first shift at Elysium the next night. I had six days to come up with aquarter of abilliondollars. Yeah, sure, no problem!
The bar manager, a woman named Harmonia, had called me to ask if I could come in early to “go over a few things.” I’d said sure and was there promptly at five, even though my shift didn’t start until seven.
I wore one of my new dresses, a burgundy number with spaghetti straps that looped over the shoulders, leaving my back bare while the neckline plunged to mid-stomach, showing a good expanse of my prime real estate. It was snug over the hips and eased into waves as it fell to roughly mid-calf. On shorter women, it would have been a floor-length dress, but on me, not so much. To finish the look, I’d worn my hair up in a bit of a messy ponytail with a few loose strands framing my face.
I was shown to Harmonia’s office and sat in one of the comfy chairs in front of her desk.
“Tell me, Ms. Baker, did you read the manual Maria sent you home with?” Her voice was beautiful and melodic.
Aaaand… Fuck!
“Ah… no, I’m sorry, my life has been a bit crazy these last few days and I ah… I missed that. I swear I’ll read it before my shift tonight and—”
“No need,” Harmonia said. She sighed then, and even that long exhalation sounded beautiful coming from her. She looked at me for a long moment, lips pursed, eyes hard.
Fuck, I really needed this job. Not that it was going to make me two hundred and fifty million in a week. But now, for some reason, I felt like I was about to get fired even before I’d started my first shift!
“How to say this?” Harmonia said softly.
Yup, I was so fired.
“Do you find you have a certain effect… on men?”
Ah… what?
“Sorry?” I asked, a little confused.