Announcement Hello, lovelies!

  You can read up to 3 chapters ahead on this story, plus two ahead on Trade Paperback Romance, by becoming a paid subscriber to my Patreon!

  Helena Heissner's Patreon

  Don't forget you can buy my books here:

  Amazon.com: Love During Robot Fighting Time eBook : Stacy, Helena: Kindle Store

  Amazon.com: Magical Girl Exorcist Squad: Love Thy Enemy: 9798343324785: Heissner, Helena: Books

  And you can follow all my socials here:

  Helena Heissner | Instagram, TikTok | Linktree

  Without further adieu, here's this week's chapter.

  Briar Rose

  My soul resonated to the tune of a love song as I walked (nay, strutted (NAY, PRANCED)) into my office building in my skirt and heels. I hummed a ditty from Meet Me in Saint Louis as I walked over to the elevator and input the number for my floor. First things first, talk to Violetta. And also, apologize to her. And also, thank her for her considerable patience and support.

  Second, I’d ask about being on the road less. I’d been a loyal employee for five years, done more for the company than almost all my fellows. It wasn’t crazy to ask for a promotion at this point. Sure, that would probably come with more responsibilities, but it would also hopefully come with more normal hours and more time in Boston.

  And third, I’d ask how she knew when she and Carlos were a forever kind of thing. She seemed like a good person to talk to about this, as did Lisa.

  The elevator door opened, and I sensed something was wrong immediately.

  The office was silent. I’d arrived five minutes te- everyone else was usually hard at work by now, taking or making calls, hammering away at their keyboards, scanning and uploading documents. But everyone was just… Sitting there, in their cubicles, with stricken expressions.

  I walked over to the reception desk, where our secretary (sorry, ‘customer service representative,’ because that job title sounded so much less dehumanizing), a fresh-faced twenty-three year old named Avery, had her fingers steepled together and her eyes bulging wide with fear. She was a full-figured girl with caramel skin and long, wavy bck hair that flowed freely down her back, cd in a maroon blouse and a full face of makeup. Her pink manicure, the same shade as her lipstick, jutted out of her csped hands, and her head was pointed towards the conference room.

  “Hello,” I said, taking care to use my girl-voice.

  Avery balked and flinched, her spine going stiff as she stifled a yelp. “Hi! Sorry, uh… Welcome to Van Der Ahe Consolidated! How may I help you, Miss…?”

  In spite of the obvious tension, I smirked as I tossed my auburn hair back. Good to know I looked that different. Then again, given how rarely I was actually in the office, it was pusible that she’d have no idea who I was regardless.

  “O’Neil,” I said gently.

  “O’Neil!?” Avery gaped. “Oh, uh, very good, ma’am. I assume you’re here as part of the takeover- buyout! I meant buyout!”

  “The what-now?” I asked. “Avery, I work here. We’ve met.”

  She tilted her head to the side and squinted. “Oh my God, Brian?!”

  “Rose, now,” I said, suppressing the little spike of pain that went through my chest. “Rose O’Neil.”

  “Right! Gotcha, okay, I am so sorry for that-”

  “Avery! Girl, it’s fine!” I said, giving a light chuckle to try to ease her intense panic. Results were mixed, but I plowed forward regardless. “What exactly is going on? We’re a publicly owned company; everyone who works here is a shareholder; why and frankly how would someone even begin to buy us out?”

  “Oh, you really don’t know, do you?” Avery said.

  “I’ve been out of town for the better part of the st five months, so no, I really don’t.”

  “Um… Well, you see ma’am,” Avery said, wringing her hands together, “Some other people named O’Neil showed up this morning and… Uh….”

  My eyes narrowed. “Is one of them an older dy named Mallory, by any chance?”

  “Yes,” Avery squeaked.

  “Where is she?” I growled.

  Avery pointed towards the conference room.

  “Hold my calls,” I said as I marched over, heels smashing into the floor with every step.

  I tore the door open, nearly sending it flying off its hinges. My blood boiled with rage as my focus narrowed in on my mother and my eldest sister sitting in a boardroom meeting with Violetta and her bosses, Genevieve and Joe.

  Genevieve Duquesne, CFO and vice president, was a portly white dy in her te sixties, long silver hair worn up in a prim and proper bun, cd in an elegant tweed pantsuit accented by a golden neckce and matching golden bracelets. I’d met her a handful of times over the years, and had always been in awe of her subtle grace and natural, earthy charm.

  Joe Constantine, president, CEO, and founder, meanwhile, was a rail-thin older man, olive-skinned and bereft of hair but heavily bearded. He fell somewhere between Kyle and Carlos in terms of height. I didn’t know his exact age, but my best guess would put him in his early-mid seventies. I’d only met him once, at the Christmas party years ago where Kyle and I had acted like chuckling idiots drunkenly re-enacting hockey fights. I was hazy on the whole thing, but I vaguely remember his face warring between expressions of amusement and disdain.

  Admittedly, doing this right now was probably not going to help that level of ambivalence. But fuck it.

  “I’m sorry, miss, but who are you?” Joe asked.

  “My son,” Mom sneered.

  “One of our best employees,” Violetta replied. “Rose O’Neil.”

  “That’s not his name,” Sarah said.

  “That’s beside the point,” Genevieve said. “The real question is why she’s barging in on us right now.”

  “Because I think I deserve to know what’s going on here,” I said, walking up the side of the long, rectangur table and running my crimson manicure over the mahogany surface. I pulled out a seat and situated myself in it in the most demure, dy-like way possible, taking care to cross my legs elegantly. “Mother. What are you doing here?”

  “This is really your… Surely that’s a conflict of interest, then?” Genevieve said, leaning forward, hope shining in her eyes.

  “I don’t see any reason why it should be,” Sarah said. “That my brother works here didn’t come into consideration when Mrs. O’Neil opted to begin purchasing shares in your company.”

  “Stop misgendering her,” Violetta said, fists clenched on the table. I sat next to her and put a hand on her shoulder. She had my back. And I loved her for that. She’d been more of a mother to me in the past five years than the horrible woman across the table from me had been in three decades.

  “I see no reason why the mental illness of a single employee should be a point of discussion right now,” Sarah said with that smug, condescending smirk on her face. She’d learned it from Mallory, copied it from her, but honed it and perfected it, brought it to greater heights of assholery than mommy dearest had ever accomplished.

  “And I see no reason why this wouldn’t be a conflict of interest,” Genevieve said, leaning forward while Joe simply scanned the room with his eyes. The old man clearly had his mental gears turning, but I had no idea what they were working towards. “You clearly disagree with your… Child’s lifestyle, and given the current climate regarding her… Demographic-”

  “Perverted little boys who want to intrude upon women’s only spaces, you mean?” Mo… Mallory, it was Mallory, this was not my mother, this woman didn’t deserve to call herself one, said. MALLORY said. My real mother was sitting right next to me, looking ready to go to war on my behalf.

  Genevieve continued, “This somewhat transparently comes across as an attempt at controlling… One of our employees.”

  “Oh please,” Mallory said, “like anyone would ever do something so petunt with their company’s money. You really think we bought up ten percent of the shares in your company just so I can punish an unruly tranny?”

  I growled, ready to start screaming then and there, but now it was Violetta’s turn to put a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t take the bait. It’s how she wins.”

  “I do think that,” Genevieve said. “Why else would the CEO of a company in an entirely different industry initiate a hostile takeover?”

  “I can think of quite a few reasons,” Mallory said.

  “Such as?” Violetta said.

  “As my son here has mentioned to me in the past, Van Der Ahe Consolidated works in a variety of fields. I see no reason they can’t expand into pharmaceuticals. And if nothing else, you have some of the best contract negotiators on the east coast. It would be a shame to let such potential go to waste,” Mallory said, staring straight at me.

  “And how do you intend to do that with only a ten percent share?” Genevieve said.

  “Never said I’m going to stop there,” Mallory said. “And I’m not doing this on my own dime. It’s my company’s money I’m using here. And my son in w’s company just completed a very successful merger with us, so we have lots to go around.”

  “You’re forgetting something,” Joe finally spoke. “In order to do what you’re describing, you would need to become the majority shareholder. And given I own fifty-one percent, even if you bought everyone else’s share, you’d still come up short.”

  Now it was Mallory’s turn to do that infuriating smirk. God, I wanted to tear it off with a pair of pliers. “Then I guess I’ll just have to make a good enough offer.”

  “Well, ma’am, it’s going to have to be astronomical. I built this company from the ground up,” Joe said. “Started with a credit card and a dream, and turned it into an empire. My blood, sweat, and tears are in this very building. The amount of money you’d have to offer me to take it… I’m not going to say it doesn’t exist, but it’s more than you can afford.”

  “We’ll see about that,” Mallory said. Then, her smart phone pinged, and she looked down at it. “Oh look at that. I now own eleven percent of the company. One more step up the corporate dder.” “What do we have to do to get you to stop this nonsense?” Genevieve asked pinly.

  Mallory pointed at me, while Sarah pointedly refused to look at me. “Fire him. And the travesty sitting next to him, to sweeten the pot. And I’ll stop. I’ll even sell you back the shares I bought at almost the same price.”

  Genevieve and Joe looked at each other, then at me, then at Violetta, then at each other again. They exchanged silent nods.

  “Not happening,” Genevieve said. “Mrs. Diaz is one of our best managers, and… Ms. O’Neil one of our best closers. We’d have to be insane to want to get rid of them.”

  “You’d have to be insane to want anything to do with them,” Sarah snarled.

  “Oh Jesus Christ, would you just give it a rest for a minute,” I rolled my eyes.

  “You shouldn’t take the Lord’s name in vain, Brian,” was all she said.

  You also weren’t supposed to murder, but I’d be lying if I said the thought didn’t cross my mind right then and there.

  Mallory rose. “We’ll be in touch. Hopefully you’ll see reason soon.”

  I didn’t take my eyes off of them as they marched away, hearing war-drums in my mind to the beat of each step. As the door closed behind them with a deafening thud, we four all sat there in the boardroom.

  “Well,” Joe said, “They’ve certainly given us a lot to think about.”

  “No, they haven’t,” I said. “Do not trust them. They’ll give you an offer and make you think you’re out of options, but that’s only because they manipute and maneuver people into doing what they want.”

  “I’ll admit, they seem like the types who would betray me with nary an excuse,” Joe said, fingers parsing his beard.

  “They seem like the type who would run this company into the ground out of spite,” Violetta said.

  Genevieve chimed in with, “I’ll admit, that is a concern, but I’m an old woman and if they offered me enough money to retire on it would be hard to say no.”

  “That had crossed my mind as well,” Joe said. “Even if it would break my heart to see my baby scrapped and sold for parts.”

  I grimaced, holding back a storm of vitriol. I could not afford to lose my cool right now. I had to think, think, think of a solution, something that would safeguard the company- and by extension, myself- from this takeover.

  A proverbial lightbulb dinged overhead. Joe and Genevieve spoke the nguage of money first and foremost. They made overtures towards humanity and legacy, but at the end of the day they were both in the twilight of their careers and an offer to ride out their autumn years in comfort and style might be too good to pass up. There would need to be a greater amount of levies in pce against that. Levies like Violetta and myself.

  “Actually, sir, ma’am, this dovetails nicely into what I came in to discuss with you,” I said with my sweetest smile and highest voice.

  “Does it, now?” Joe said, clearly amused.

  “I’d like to discuss a promotion,” I said, steepling my fingers together. “I think, after five years and the astronomical amounts of money I’ve made you, I deserve it.”

  “I second that idea,” Violetta said. “Rose has closed more deals for us than anyone else in company history. She’s given at least as much to VDAC as anyone else in this room. She’s proven time and time again she’ll go above and beyond for us.”

  “Excellent point,” Joe said, crooking a smile.

  “Ms. O’Neil, your service is not remotely in question,” Genevieve said. “However, you are aware that for you to do so, you’d have to buy a greater share in the company, right?”

  I reached into my purse and pulled out my checkbook and a pink ballpoint pen. “Oh, I’m well aware. Give me a number, and I’ll see if we can’t negotiate something.”

  And that was how I walked out of the boardroom with a promotion and a five percent share in the company, up four percent from before. It wasn’t much, but Joe and probably Genevieve wouldn’t be willing to sell their shares unless all or at least most of the others were already in Mallory’s pocket.

  In spite of my trembling hands and rapid-fire heartbeat, I felt confident… Right up until I found myself in the lobby and saw Kyle waiting there with pain and terror pin to see on his face. I ran up and hugged him tight, looked into his eyes.

  “How bad is it?” I asked.

  “It’s bad,” was all he had to say.

  I told Avery to email me the paperwork I’d need to sign as part of my promotion and increased share, then informed Violetta I’d work on it from home that day. She gave me a hug of her own and whispered to me, “We will get through this.”

  “I know,” I said. And I almost believed it. But Mallory’s voice echoed in the hallways of the byrinth, and would not quiet the entire drive home.