Free Glorious Sunset by Ava Bleu

leaving. I’ll be showing my cousin around town today.”
    Carol muttered under her breath, “Must be nice.”
    â€œWhat was that?”
    Carol did not respond but Taka said, “Your assistant is insolent. In my day that would be rewarded with a missing digit on the hand or foot.”
    Carol looked at him with eyes no longer clouded by lust. “What are you, some kind of freak?”
    â€œTime out, you two,” Violet said. “Taka, please, in my office. Carol, no calls.” She closed the door behind them. “You’re supposed to blend in, genie. No more remarks like that.”
    â€œI’ve been watching her,” he said in a low voice, peering out through the blinds at Carol under hooded eyes, nearly invisible in a squint. “She slips little pads of paper into her purse. She took two doughnuts from that plate when everyone else takes one. She switches behind you and mocks your conversation when you are turned.”
    Violet smiled. Darned if the genie wasn’t showing a decent amount of concern for her. No one ever stuck up for her or watched her back; she’d had to watch her own for most of her life. She almost didn’t know what to do about the warm flush of affection she suddenly felt for the big man.
    â€œIt’s okay, genie, I know she filches office supplies. Everyone does. And I know she makes fun of me behind my back,” Violet said, cutting off eye contact as a flash of hurt from her experience walking in on her own staff doing an overblown impression of her reemerged. They had her right down to her fast walk and hair flip. But they also caught her nervous facial itch, her shrill tone, her paranoia over being outplayed by Brenda, and a mini hyperventilating jag she’d thought she had in the privacy of her office with the door closed after Gary told her if she called again he would file a restraining order. She laughed it off at the time but it hurt more than she cared to admit. “It’s no big deal, really.”
    â€œNo big deal?” The big man looked offended as he began to pace, alternately looking at the floor and back out the glass window to Carol, his source of ire. “Treachery is a big deal. Betrayal, disrespect, those are all big deals. If a person betrays you once they will betray you again.”
    â€œNot always.”
    â€œAlways and a day. A snake is a snake is a snake. And if ever I’ve seen a snake it is that woman out there.” He finally stopped pacing to face Violet again, arms folded obstinately and his face fierce with his conviction.
    Violet envied his certainty. She wished things were so cut and dried but she knew the truth; love hurt and loyalty faltered. She looked down to shuffle some papers on her desk into a neat pile.
    â€œNot always,” she said again. “And if it happens, so what? No one cares anyway. In the large scheme of things you should know better than to rely on anyone or anything other than yourself. It’s your own fault if you forget that.”
    Taka barely heard her mumble, but felt her pain from across the room. She’d been hurt, somehow, by something or someone. He would bet it was Carol, the snake. “She does not like you. Not only does she not like you, she would like to do you harm.”
    â€œWhat, are you a psychic, now?”
    â€œIt doesn’t take a psychic to feel the negative vibrations she puts off. You are a perceptive person; you must feel it.”
    â€œSo what? She’s a secretary. It’s hard to find one who’s not disgruntled these days.”
    â€œA secretary, an assistant, a right-hand man: they all have the power to do serious damage, from the inside out.”
    â€œAnd what should I do? Get rid of her? The next one won’t be any better. I know; Carol’s my fifth in four years.”
    â€œTry a sixth.”
    â€œMy, my, so protective. How very warrior-like of you. Primitive and all that.”
    â€œI am