Five Years by Brooklyn Knight

Author:Brooklyn Knight [Knight, Brooklyn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-11-24T16:00:00+00:00

13

Maverick

~Eleven Months~

My secretary knocked on the door to my office and waited until I summoned her in. My nose was buried in a deep stack of files. Yesterday, she’d dropped them on my desk and the expectation was that they were reviewed in time for tomorrow afternoon’s meeting. Each file took thirty minutes to complete, despite the fact three of my staff members had gone through each with, what was supposed to be, a fine-tooth comb.

But they were incompetent, and now that I’d been elevated to partner, the incompetence grated on me more now than it ever had.

I raked my fingers through my hair and pinched the bridge of my nose. “What is it, Camille?”

“I’m sorry to disturb you sir. Buchanan delivered four more files for your review.”

My head jerked up and I pinned her with an agitated glare. “You’re fucking kidding me, right?”

Her chin dipped.

“Buchanan, Walters, and Marigold knew that the deadline was last Friday!” My voice ricocheted off the walls and my secretary startled.

“I know, sir, and I reminded him of that when he dropped them off five minutes ago.”

I hissed a curse and squeezed my eyes shut. I was trying to reduce my anger, trying to remember the things from my counseling sessions almost a year ago. I drew in a breath, but the only thing to fill my lungs was more toxic rage.

“Get him in here,” I muttered.

“Pardon me, sir?”

Slowly, I lifted my eyes until they arrested her on the spot. “Call Buchanan and tell him to come to my office. Immediately.”

“Right away, sir.” She hurried out of the room, tripping over the edge of the rug in the process. When the door sealed behind her, I jumped up from the desk and stomped over to the bar.

This was the shit I was talking about. The phrase teamwork makes the dream work only applied if the team was effective, and as it stood, I had a team that was more incompetent than was worth my time.

The dark liquid splashed against the glass and I swirled it a bit before taking it to the head. I tried not to do this at work, but I’d learned that this position required a certain level of inebriation.

And half-a-pack of cigarettes a day, but my smoke-break wasn’t for another fifteen minutes so I’d have to wait for the nicotine rush.

I looked at the stack of files on my desk and immediately, anger and frustration rattled my insides.

What are you really angry about?

Like the voice of an angel, Amaris’s words floated into my mind. It had been almost a year since I’d sat on anybody’s therapeutic couch, but the hell if I was going to engage in another round of counseling, especially if it wasn’t with her. And the hell if I was going to engage in counseling with her. It was a catch-22.

Five years had turned into four. If I was patient enough, four years would turn into three. All I needed to do was fight the good fight, remember the things we had talked about and apply them.

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