As Kami set up, she glanced around at the inside of the busy establishment. The coffee shop was an eclectic little place where the tables all seemed to have been rescued from somewhere else and the chairs were an assortment of styles that even included a few refurbished park benches.
The clientele was as varied as the décor. It could even be suggested that they matched really well. From Kami’s usual seat she could see a little old couple who had accents that always reminded Kami of some old movie. It was difficult to tell by their accents where they were from, but they would often switch from English to something else in the blink of an eye. They spent every single morning reading the New York Times together as they both enjoyed their specialty coffee and a pastry. By the time Kami arrived each day the little couple was just finishing up and preparing to head to wherever they spent their afternoons.
To Kami’s right was a group of retired men—at least she had always assumed that they were retired. One had long fading red hair that reached almost to his waist. He often wore it tied back in a leather thong. His buddy was tall, thin, and nearly completely bald on top. He seemed to favor outdoorsy clothing and of course an array of ball caps to cover his head. Their third friend was a grizzled man with a full beard and glasses who walked with a limp and almost always wore the exact same khaki pants and striped blue polo shirt.
The men often spent hours argued about politics and the current state of things in a way that reminded Kami of her parents. Except these men continually reminded themselves of how good it used to be before all of the young people took over, and Kami’s parents went on and on about how much better the US was than Mexico. Sometimes it seemed like perception was the only thing that mattered.
The last person who always seemed to be at The Corner Shop did not seem to keep regular hours like everyone else. She was just there. With pale strawberry red hair and an intense kind of personal vibe, the woman sitting at a table not far from the retired guys was almost always banging away on a keyboard attached to her tablet. She would mutter to herself, call out questions to Shawn, the rest of the staff, and the retired guys. Then they would all argue together and her narrow face would become as animated as her bright blue eyes.
Kami found the woman rather fascinating. They were around the same age, but their life experience was probably completely different. At least that was the impression that Kami got. Since Kami wasn’t the kind of person to draw attention to herself, she tended to ignore the other woman as well as the rest of the regulars. She wasn’t at work to work right now. She was here to work on her online college courses.
Logging into the university website, Kami felt the same thrill of excitement each time she saw her name pop up on the class list. She had been waiting her whole life to attend school. It was Shawn who had first suggested taking online classes. He had pointed out that the coffee shop had free internet service so it wouldn’t matter that Kami’s family didn’t have Wi-Fi at home. She could work here at the shop after her janitor job.
So Kami had saved and scrimped her pennies to purchase a laptop for herself. The machine never went home. Her father would have been so very angry if he had thought that Kami wasted a single dime of family money on something as frivolous as a computer. Kami’s mother went to the library once a week to use the computers there to do any sort of family administrative work and to send emails to relatives in Mexico City.
As far as Kami’s family was concerned, she had already reached the pinnacle of everything she needed in life. There was only marriage and children left to accomplish. Their world held no need for higher education or careers that could not be achieved by the time one was in high school. The only purpose of Kami and her siblings was to earn money to send home to their extended family in Mexico City. Kami had no doubt that this was where the lion’s share of the family income went each month.
The funds supported grandparents that Kami had never and would never meet. It kept her elderly aunts from having to go find work themselves. And even more depressing, it paid for her uncle’s alcoholic binges. Kami didn’t understand why her father felt so determined to be the one to support his whole family. It wasn’t fair. He had eight children of his own. The family could barely afford to eat and purchase clothing for each member of the family that was here in the states. They had come to this country for opportunities and yet Papa and Mama would not hear of their children trying to gain a college education because it was a waste of time and money.
Kami pulled up her current assignment and began to work. She wanted to run her own business someday. She was getting her degree in accounting because she liked numbers and someday she wanted to be able to have options. To work for someone else and eventually to start her own business and be her own boss so that nobody could ever make decisions for her again in her life.
“Hey.”
Kami had no idea how long she had been working on her assignment when she was interrupted by someone who had planted themselves right by her table. Kami looked up and was surprised to see the redhead with the intense blue eyes standing there staring down at Kami as though she were some particularly interesting specimen.
“Hello?” Kami offered the word up but did not know exactly what to think about this interruption. So with that in mind she moved her gaze back to her laptop screen.
Unfortunately, her unwanted visitor did not seem inclined to just disappear. “So you work in the King building. Right?”
“Excuse me?”
The red-headed woman took a seat at Kami’s table. Kami glanced over and realized that the woman had left her tablet and the rest of her stuff at her own table, but seemed to be here because she had questions or some other nonsense to go through.
“I asked if you work at the King building.” The redhead stuck out her hand. “My name is Skye Kincaid. My husband is Jason King. I see you sometimes coming out of the King building and I just wondered if you worked there.”
Kami swallowed. This was Devon’s youngest brother’s wife. This was uncomfortable. “Yes. I, uh, work for the janitorial company.” Kami wondered if the woman named Skye Kincaid could not see that for herself considering Kami was still wearing her coveralls. What did Skye think? That Kami was a mechanic or something?
“Okay.” Skye was nodding. “Is that a pretty good job?”
“Why are you asking this stuff?” Kami was done playing games with this woman.
Skye leaned forward suddenly as though she were about to pop because she had so much she wanted to say. “Okay, so here’s what’s going on.”
Kami waited. Apparently Skye had to gather her thoughts. It was really no surprise considering the woman appeared to think at such a horrendously fast rate that the thoughts and emotions whirling across her face and behind her eyes were making Kami dizzy.
“The company is having some financial issues, but it’s not because they aren’t making money.” Skye’s eyes were absolutely dancing with excitement. Did she somehow think that this was a good thing? “There’s a person inside the company—ahem—we won’t actually say who it is even though I have a really good idea who it is because I’ve had some conversations. Well, nevermind. That’s not important. So what’s important is that I wanted to know if you’ve had any issues with your paychecks.”
There was a long pause as though Skye was now waiting for Kami to give her some long-winded explanation of what had been going on. But the truth was that Kami had possessed not one hint that anything like this was happening. She swallowed and frowned. “So you’re saying that the employees at King Security Systems, Incorporated haven’t been getting paid because there is someone in the company—corporate, I assume—who has been taking that money for themselves or just deliberately causing trouble. Is that what you’re saying?”
“Yes!” Skye was actually bouncing in her seat. “So have you gotten paid?”
“Yes.” Kami sat back in her seat and took a long drink of her coffee. She had been so involved in her work that it was getting cold. “See the janitorial
services are contracted to an outside service. My boss owns a janitorial company. He doesn’t work for King Security Services. So if that contract isn’t getting paid, then I suppose there might be a problem. But at the same time that’s not a payroll issue. It’s actually a building maintenance issue because the janitorial and maintenance services for the building don’t fall under human resources. My boss does his own human resources. Our benefits and things are not controlled by King Security. They’re controlled by our parent company, which is called Casa-Clean.”
Why was Skye looking at her that way? It wasn’t like Kami had dropped some enormous bombshell on her. Kami had simply informed the young woman that she wasn’t an employee of King Security Services, Incorporated even though she worked in the King building. It was actually one of the things that made the relationship between Kami and Devon possible. Or at least not illegal by company-policy standards. Thanks to Devon’s fastidious nature, he had made sure that was the case long before he had ever spent more than five seconds talking to Kami. Now though, maybe none of it mattered anymore.
“You’re a lot smarter than I gave you credit for,” Skye said baldly.
Kami blinked in surprise. She felt her temper beginning to heat up. She did not like it when people assumed she was stupid or somehow less than they were just because she was a minority woman working in a service industry. At least Kami wasn’t a red-headed twiggy girl with skin so pale it looked like she would go up in flames if she allowed a UV ray anywhere near her skin.
“I’m sorry.” Skye chuffed out a sigh and made a face. “I do that all the time. Stick my foot in my mouth? I was not trying to imply that because you work for a janitor service that makes you stupid. I was just really surprised to hear you shoot my theory of the water with such a—I don’t know—concise theory.”
“I’m not sure if that’s actually a compliment or an insult.” Kami watched the icon on her screen inform her that the system was signing her out. Great. It wasn’t like she had lost her work so far today or anything, but she did have other things she needed to get done before it was time to go back home to the apartment in Vickery Meadow. “I don’t even know if I care. Can we just be done with this conversation?”
“I’m sorry.” Skye looked surprised. “I guess I’m just so concerned about the state of things in that company that I sort of assumed that anyone who works there would be too.”
“I don’t work for the company. It’s one of our contracts. Surely it would suck if the company itself went under because then I’d have to start working in another building somewhere, but I wouldn’t be out of a job.”
“Oh. Right.” Skye looked thoughtful. “Do you know any of the King family members? I suppose I can’t help but wonder if you hear things when you’re cleaning because people talk in front of you and don’t even realize that you’re there and listening.”
“Are you asking me for insider information?” Kami snorted. “Lady, I don’t know what your deal is or what you’re trying to prove to the Kings, but I think you’re barking up the wrong tree here.”
“Okay. That’s fair.” Skye got up from the table. She started to walk away, but then after a moment or two she swung around and marched back to the table. She plunked a business card down on the tabletop right beside Kami’s computer. “If you change your mind or you think of something or hear anything, please call me. All right?”
“Sure. Whatever.” Kami had no intention of doing any such thing. But she took the card and slipped it into her messenger bag all the same. Skye Kincaid. Journalist. Hmm. Interesting. So was she trying to expose the King family for personal reasons or because she felt like there was something going on that needed exposing?
With another smile, Skye headed back to her table. Kami went back to her computer. But she was very distracted from her math homework. It was hard to think about credits and debits when each and every time she thought about money she realized that there could be some really serious problems going on in Devon’s family and in his company. She might tell herself that this did not matter and it did not affect her, but that wasn’t really true. Was it?
Chapter Eight
“Where have you been?”
Kami’s mother’s tone was somewhere between a hiss and a desperate plea. As Kami took off her boots and placed them right beside the front door, she wondered what had happened to make her mother so upset. Kami never came back to the apartment before five. It wasn’t like Papa got home anywhere near then.
“I was at the coffee shop,” Kami said by way of explanation. Her parents knew that she worked weekends at the shop. Whether they realized that she hung out there in the afternoons without getting paid was not her problem. It wasn’t like Kami was misrepresenting herself on purpose. “What happened?”
There was shredded pork sizzling in a pan on the stove. The other kids were quietly gathered around the family’s tiny television. There was no fighting and no arguing. That in and of itself was a telling thing. Kami bit her lip. This was not good.
Her mother shoved the pork around the pan. It didn’t look like enough to feed the whole family. That meant the kids were going to be eating beans and tortillas again while their mother and father enjoyed meat with their meal. That was yet another thing that made Kami angry about how hard she had to work to put food on the table in this house. It wasn’t like she ever got to eat any of it. She knew that this was the traditional way of things. To respect and care for your elders and for the young to go without until they were old enough to support themselves.
“Is that Kami?” Her father’s voice drifted into the kitchen, but it wasn’t coming from her parents’ bedroom. It was coming from the general direction of Kami’s little closet. “Tell her to get in here, Martha!”
Kami’s mother bit her lower lip. “You had better go. He’s very angry that you’ve been lying to us.”
“Excuse me?” Kami was absolutely confused now. “Lying? About what?”
Martha actually pushed Kami toward her tiny room. “Just go.”
Kami swallowed the lump that had appeared in her throat. This was bad. Very bad. She could not believe that her father was inside her personal private space digging around as though he had a right. She was a grown woman. She was twenty-six years old. She had been working her ass off since she had turned sixteen and giving most of her earnings to the family as any good girl would if her family needed the help. Now her father was what? What was he going to call her out for?
“Papa, what are you doing in my room?” Kami pushed her way into the space and tried not to cry out loud at what she saw.
Everything she owned was strewn about as though some child had been in here digging for treasure. Kami had so few clothes. They were all hanging in that modified refrigerator box that her father had told her to use for a closet. Now they were in a pile near the door where he had apparently thrown them so that he could dig into the corners of the makeshift closet where Kami kept her nice shoes.
Her bedding was tossed about and her cot had been upended. Her father was currently digging in a small purse that she had saved months to buy. It was her only going out purse and now it was trash because her father was taking a knife to the lining as though he were actually searching for drugs.
“What are you doing?” Kami could not help it. Her voice grew shrill and she reached for the purse to snatch it out of his hands.
As she reached, her father turned. Orlando’s knife slashed right across Kami’s hand and opened a huge cut on her palm. She sucked back a gasp and yanked her hand away. Blood dripped onto the pile of her nice clothes in the doorway.
Reaching for a towel from her private stash, Kami wrapped it around her hand and cursed in Spanish as the pain of her injury ripped through her arm. Her papa didn’t even flinch. He did not apologize. He did not even seem to notice that he had hurt her. He threw down her purse on the pile and reached for something else. A throw pillow she had purchased on clearance in order to brighten up her dull windowless room.
> “Papa no!” Kami moaned, but it was too late. He slashed open the pillow and pulled all of the stuffing out onto the floor.
“You are a liar!” Orlando snarled at her. “You have lied to me. I want to know where the money went!”
“What money?” Kami stilled. This was not good. “I don’t have any money in here. I don’t keep money in my room, Papa. I keep it in the bank.”
“Pah! Banks!” He shook his head and growled. “You waste your money in the bank when you should be giving it to your family.”
“I know you don’t bother to pay taxes,” Kami told him angrily. “But I do. I have to. I’m an American citizen. I was born here. I live here. This is my country and my home and I have to follow the laws or I will get audited and then I’ll really be in trouble!”
“You waste your money on that social security and paying for health insurance!” Papa accused. He pointed at her. “I want my money.”
“What money are you talking about?”
He was so angry he was practically vibrating with it. “I looked at the numbers. I looked back at what you’ve been giving to your mother. You’ve been keeping too much! You’re not giving us enough!”
“I have to pay the right amount of taxes, Papa. And the cost of my health insurance went up. I can’t just not pay that.” Did he really not get it? Or was he honestly just that angry about those kinds of forced expenditures that were not in his personal plan?
“Health insurance,” he muttered. “Then you will pay for that out of your share of your paycheck. The rest will come to me. Do you understand?”
“No.” She kept her tone even and firm, but not disrespectful. Unfortunately, it wasn’t going to matter.
This was not going to be good. But if her father started taking her entire paycheck after taxes and the cost of her benefits, she would not be able to pay for school anymore. Her income would dry up. She would never have enough money to get out of here and out on her own. She would have no choice but to marry that gangbanging-wannabe loser that her father had picked out for her. Except she couldn’t even do that because she was already married.
Billion Dollar Wolves: Boxset Bks 1-5 Page 77
