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Out of all the brothers, Josh was the one who gave me the most slack. Not because he was benevolent or kind, but because he remembered how it used to be. He grew up with me. Oh, he would hurt me if he had to, but time and time again, he tried to help me out of tough situations.
It made it hard to hate him.
I held back my head and walked toward Ted’s office. I’m sure he’d give me my paycheck early. It was just a few hours until my shift was over. I had nothing to worry about.
“Knock. Knock,” I called out, instead of tapping on the door with my fists.
Ted looked up from his stack of papers and pulled his glasses off his face. “What can I do for you, Sloane?” He frowned.
Oh, yeah. He still wasn’t over me being late the other day. He was disappointed because I was usually the dependable one. What could I say? I couldn’t tell him I’d been out all night fucking a mysterious lover. Or that I’d had to do the walk of shame, and then my car wouldn’t start.
Instead, I answered his question. “Do you think you could cash my check now?” I threw a glance over my shoulder looking to see if Josh was hovering. He wasn’t. Still, I nibbled my lip in worry.
Ted sighed and massaged his temples. “Not this again. What did I tell you last time?”
“You told me to keep trouble out of your restaurant.” I tried to defend myself. “I’m not causing any trouble. I just need my pay a couple hours early is all.”
Ted nodded, gravely. “Then how do you explain them?” He spun his monitor around and pointed at the front door camera feed.
I gasped at the sight. Josh had brought backup. Six brothers wearing their cuts had come in and sat down in my section.
I chuckled, nervously. “You know I have no say in that.”
“Sloane,” Ted sighed. “If this keeps going on, I’m going to have to let you go. You understand that right?”
“You can’t!” I cried.
“I said if it kept going on, I would. And what do you mean I can’t? This is my establishment. I think I’m able to say whether I want an employee here or not.”
Tears filled my eyes. “If you let me go, I won’t have any other place to go. No one will hire me. You know this.”
“Which is why I’m not doing it yet. But this is a family establishment. I can’t keep having your troubles coming to my doorstep.” He rolled his chair over to the safe. “I figured this might happen since they’ve done this multiple times in the past few weeks, so I went to the bank a day early.”
A sigh of relief graced my lips. “Thank you, Ted. You truly are the best boss.”
“Just think about what I said. Yeah?”
A pit settled in the bottom of my stomach. I gulped back more angry words. “I will.”
I took the envelope and rushed out of his office. I couldn’t believe he’d threatened to fire me. I’d been there for so long I thought I was untouchable. I guessed not.
Finding Josh, I handed him his cut out of my envelope. He counted it twice, then glared at me without saying anything.
“What?” I croaked, my throat drying up from his displeased look.
“You’re short.”
“What? No I’m not! That’s fifteen hundred like usual.” This couldn’t be happening. He had to be playing some kind of sick joke on me.
“It went up. Boss wants two thousand now.”
“No,” I denied. “I can’t afford that. I still have to pay rent and eat just like the rest of you.”
Josh shrugged, no sympathy on his face whatsoever. “Like I said, that ain’t my problem.” He plucked the rest of the cash out of my envelope. Then he smirked and stomped his boots on the side of the counter, leaving a tiny mound of dirt there. "Always good doing business with you, Sloane.”
I hid my disgust with a fake smile. “You, too.”
Josh walked by and wrapped an arm around my shoulder. “Between you and me, the boss is getting more and more fed up with you, Sloane. You might want to change your attitude before he really hurts you.”
