Page 30 of Greed

“I’m still holding out hope you’ll turn into a boy and make the Major Leagues,” her dad teased as he nudged her shoulder.

“Dad!”

Minetta took a tissue out of her purse and wiped it under her eyes. How fast time sped up when she knew there was a limited amount of it left. What had seemed like forever in front of her was gone in a blink, and so was the man that taught her to be the best possible version of herself. She and her mom got through the worst of it together, each taking turns at the hospital so her dad would never be there alone, would never have to wonder if he was loved.

She sniffed and then blew her nose. Sucking in a ragged breath, she stood and walked to the nursing home's front door. She didn’t have anyone to sit with her and help her through things this time. But, a small smile graced her lips as she remembered her dad’s final words to her.

“Don’t ever let life beat you down, Minetta. Sometimes it will simply throw you the cutter when you were expecting the heater down the middle. Take what the pitcher throws you and hit it out of the park. You’re an all-star, my baby girl. You always have been.”

I leaned back in the leather chair and stared at the ornate solid gold frame that held an oil painting of myself. I wanted to make sure that everyone who walked into this office knew who sat in the big chair. The fire, although totally un-needed, crackled softly in the matching fireplace, casting dancing flames across the black leather furniture. I watched the flames that reminded me of Hell and zoned out on my conference call. The man on the other end of the speaker was a blowhard, and I was waiting for him to stop talking long enough to turn his offer down. I don’t think he’d taken a single breath the entire twenty minutes that he’d been blathering.

“As you can see, Mr. Rhodes, this is a perfect opportunity for both our companies to make a lot of money,” he finished.

“No, actually, I don’t. This is a fantastic opportunity for your company to ride the lucrative tailcoats of my company, but there is nothing appealing in this deal for me.”

“I don’t agree. I’m sure if you look again at the numbers—”

“Let me stop you right there.” I’d already reached out and touched this man’s soul. I knew what he wanted. I knew the greed that lay beneath the surface of the calm, kind exterior he portrayed, and he was not the grandfatherly sort. He might have everyone else fooled, but I was the sin. I tasted it on my tongue like fresh baked goods and swirled it around in my mouth like a fine wine. His essence was strong with the desire to be powerful, to have more and I was about to exploit that.

“I do not wish to waste your time or mine, so here is the deal. If you want to do business with me, your company will be absorbed into mine, and I’ll do what I wish with it. You will get a seat on the board and a raise in salary. This will increase according to my company’s yearly performance, which is what I know you want desperately. But the company becomes mine, you will no longer have anything to do with it other than at the fiscal board meetings, and if I decide to sell it, you will be paid out accordingly. Now you have forty-eight hours to make up your mind, but I have somewhere else to be this evening. Make an appointment for two days from now.”

With that, I pressed the end button and gathered up the folders on my desk. Although I had cameras hidden in the office, it was still better to ensure that anything I didn’t want prying eyes to see was securely locked away.

My phone rang, and I thought it was the man calling me back, but Neven’s name glowed on the display.

“Neven,” I said in greeting, but all I got was dead air. I looked at the phone to make sure it was still connected. “Neven, are you there?”

“Yeah, I just don’t want to tell you this, so I’m stalling.”

“At least you’re honest. Now, what’s going on?” There was a dramatic sigh on the other end of the line.

“So you know how we thought that the sales projection was low?”

I stood a little straighter. “Yes, of course, what of it?”

There was the audible sound of swallowing on the other end of the line. “Neven, I’m not going to punish the messenger. Just get on with it. I have something I want to do this evening.”

“The manager Nikolas Novak has been siphoning money from all the areas of the company and falsifying the projections to match what he’s been taking. To date, I have found over twenty million that has been stolen,” Neven said it so fast I wasn’t sure that I’d heard him correctly, but the rage that burned in my gut told me that I had.

“Find him and bring him to my office. I’ll be back in a couple of hours. I expect him to be here by then.” I hung up the phone before I crushed it in my palm and sent a mental message to Brill that I had a job for a couple of the warriors.

I took a steadying breath to calm myself before wings decided to sprout from my back and tear my good suit.

I’d planned on taking a trip out to see if the human female Minetta had returned, so tonight, I was making sure I made it to her place. Maybe if I saw her again and told her that nothing would ever happen between us under any circumstances, I could get the vixen out of my head. I was starting to wonder if she was part siren, and if that were the case, I’d have to kill her. The hairless human was trying to lure me into her snare, but I wouldn’t let that happen. She needed to be told to back off.

Shilo had already been sent home, and I had to admit I liked the quiet. No phones ringing off the hook, no one running down the hall waving papers for a deadline, no one interrupting me with a new crisis that had to be taken care of right away. I boarded the elevator as my phone rang, and I wanted to kick myself for even thinking about how blissful the quiet was.

“Skye, I wondered when I would hear from you. You have an uncanny way of knowing when I have returned from down under.”

“Why is it you don’t sound happy to hear from me? The last time we were together, I distinctly remember you being more than excited to see all of me.” Her voice was laced with lust as she practically purred into the phone.

She was trying her best to seduce me, the Asmodeus side of her personality showing. Both her and Neven had been born from a human female, but she had been seduced and raped by a demon that was under lusts influence. After they were born, they were unwanted by their human mother, so since they were half demon, they were cast out and became victims of the Pit of Despair. If you crawled into the wrong hole with the wrong demon, it was very easy to end up tossed in the pit. I liked plucking demons from the pit when they got stuck in the swirling mass of nothingness. They were loyal and worked hard not to end up back there again. I had more than one demon working for me that I’d found there. It was kind of like finding a pool of the best fish that no one else bothered to seek out.

“I’m heading out, was there something you needed?”

Skye sighed loudly. “Welllll, I was going to see if you wanted to get together, but obviously that isn’t going to happen,” she said. I heard the annoyance in her voice, and I picked up on a thread of jealousy.

I rubbed my face. Neven was right. Skye was more attached than I ever intended for her to become. “I thought you were going shopping in Europe for a few days?”