THE BET (Manhattan Nights #2)

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Violet

PRESENT

I have never been more f****d in my life.

A thousand footsteps beat a rhythm across my skin, the faint smell of window cleaner and coffee shifting for position under my nose. The tile beneath my shoes is slippery, and I stumble—in heels, no less—from the confines of a single-file line, the chrome metal detector overhead letting me through without as much as a whine.

My heart is humming. My fingers are tightened into a fist around the handle of my overstuffed bag.

The watch on my left wrist reads 7:01. The time on my ticket reads 7:10. And with a tug to my bloated luggage and briefcase, I barrel past the bright blue shirts of airplane security, the edges of my red-bottoms clicking furiously across the floor.

Shit. s**t. s**t. s**t. There has to be a faster way to my gate.

But the signs along the ceiling all read “No.”

I can’t believe this…

I’ve never missed a flight before. And somehow in the most important twenty-four hours of my life, everything seemed to go wrong. Traffic was thicker than oatmeal. My second carry-on broke, forcing me to shove everything into the first. And the security line…

It’s like they put every rambunctious toddler in front of me on purpose, just to see how much pressure I could handle. I wanted to cry, rage and scream like I’d seen the two-year old in baggage check do.

But I was a twenty-eight year old woman. In the span of half a mile of white tile and busy travelers, I’d aged eighty more years, and each additional footstep towards my gate is another hurdle that my already tired body can’t handle.

I’m no longer walking at this point; I’m practically running.

The wheels on my luggage squeak, barely able to keep up. I’ve clutched my purse so tightly to my side that it’s left an imprint.

Gates flash overhead in a rush of letters and numbers.

D27…26…25.

D06 seems so far away, and as my hand starts to hurt from the exertion, my legs and lungs burning from the run, I rush up to the gate. Just as it begins to close.

I know I look as horrible as I feel.

The airport attendant shoots me a look of shock, and with little fanfare, lets me through to the bridge of the plane. With as much dignity as I can muster, I throw my head back, pulling my shoulders straight.

I slip quietly into my first class seat, surprised to find the one beside it empty. Raking shaky fingers through my mussed red hair, I try desperately to fix the mess that is me. I’m still smoothing my hair back into a barrette when I feel a light caress along the line of my navy trench coat-covered shoulder.

I jump as a low voice rumbles overhead.

“Ma’am…” The flight attendant gazes down at me, her blonde brow furrowed. “Is everything alright?”

I don’t know how to answer that question. So, I don’t.

The plane takes off without affording us a minute to breathe, and I exhale as soon as we’re in the air. Takeoff is smooth, our ascent effortless. So unlike my never-calming nerves which jump even now, even as we fly thirty thousand feet towards the city I love and hate most.

A city that’s become so much a part of me. A city I haven’t seen in two entire weeks.

I glance at my watch again, willing time to slow down. I left whatever calm I had left back on that Chicagoan tarmac. I know it. Barely out of a Midwestern winter storm, my day turns as gray as my early morning, each passing mile adding a sheet of shadow to the blue slate that was the sky.

There’s no turning back now, no way to stop the two-hour flight. I try desperately to settle into my first class seat but the message in my coat is burning a hole in my pocket. Sneaking my cell phone from the heavy wool, I read the first few emails, none as daunting as the first two that pop up on the screen.

I open the first:

Violet,

Thank you for keeping me abreast of your schedule. We are so happy to bring you in to your new role at King & Sparrow. As you know, we have a lot of work ahead of us, and I am confident you will fit neatly in to your new role as Junior Partner.

With sincerest regards,

Anna Paleto

I read the last line of her short message:

Human Resources Business Support.

But opening the second e-mail gives me more heart palpitations than the first, and I swipe across the screen with my thumb’s sweaty pad, reading as my finger traces the words, disbelieving every one. My heart skips a beat and threatens to stop.

Vi,

I tried to call you. But I think you’re on DND.

It’s Marilyn.

There’s been an accident.

Come when you can.

She needs us.

Love you,

Elsie

I close my inbox, tapping the button to turn the screen on my phone black, my heart sinking as I re-read the words for the seventeenth time. My nerves are more than shot; they’ve been garroted, hung and left out to die.

But as soon as my fingers touch the glass, the phone goes flying, a sudden bout of plane turbulence making the whole cabin drop at a moment’s notice, my insides sinking with it as my nails clutch into the seat. I gasp.

“Whoa there,” the man an aisle away from me hisses from his seat, seemingly as startled as I am. “I thought we left the storm back in Chicago,” he whispers over the hand-rest.

I thought we did, too. But the sky doesn’t seem to think so.

In fact, I think the storm may just be starting.

The “Fasten Your Seatbelts” sign blinks ominously, and as my fingers fumble to tighten my safety belt, the plane lurches again, this time dipping faster than the last, the ice cubes of a nearby flier’s finished drink bouncing over the edge of the glass and into my lap.

I brush them quickly away, as the cold starts to seep into the fabric over my thighs. The cold is like a lightning bolt, awakening my senses, but then the plane tumbles a few feet, rotating with a sudden twist. The captain comes over the loud speakers as the excited passengers fill the quiet aisles with their sounds of shock, and with a reassuring, calm voice, he makes an effort to quell the rising calamity, his soothing voice doing little to appease my frayed senses.

Senses that were singed the moment I received Elsie’s message. My nerves are quickly seeping through an emotional shredder.

The plane dances for several more minutes, high winds pushing it to and fro. The yelps from the nearby customers finally settle into relieved sighs by the time we hit smooth air, and less than an hour and a half later, we land—at last—on La Guardia’s relatively peaceful runway, each of us worse for wear, a flurry of the winter season’s first snowfall there to greet us as we exit.

I breathe in the New York air the second I step foot on the bridge leading us to our exit gate.

The weather report warning of snow above our heads on the screens is a sign of things to come. I walk through the gate’s dark double doors, praying I don’t receive another message from Elsie—this one more ominous than the last.

I grab my rental car—a far cry from the car I left behind years ago in Chicago, speeding away from the airport, hoping I make it in time. My heart beats hard the entire way.