Quadruple Duty

“I mean maybe I could save the rosettes,” he allowed. “But that’s about all I could—”

“And what if I had you remove everything,” I countered, “and I did the restoration myself?”

At this he outright laughed. It wasn’t a good laugh at all.

“Look, honey this isn’t the type of thing you can just—”

“Madsen,” I interrupted harshly. “Ms. Madsen. Definitely not ‘honey’.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine. Continue.”

“Well I was saying, restoration work on these types of finishes? Might as well forget it. You’d spend so much money on it you could probably buy a whole new house!”

I sighed, thinking about how much work it would actually be. Who, outside of myself, I could get to do it. How long it would take…

At least I didn’t have to worry about cost. The jet black credit card I’d been given to pay for everything had no limitations. And Kyle had made it crystal clear I wasn’t to worry about the cost of anything, no matter what.

“See that spandrel?” I pointed. “It’s not even close to—”

“Here,” the man said. “Come over here and see what I’m saying.”

He reached for me, and I instinctively shied away. I followed him around to the back of the house anyway.

“See those?” he said, putting a hand on my shoulder and pointing. “Those aren’t even original. Someone added them. So if you’re looking to just re-create the look of the original fixtures, I know this great fabricator who could help out.”

He smiled. It wasn’t a good smile.

“I— I don’t know,” I said. “I was kind of hoping—”

“We all hope for things,” he smirked, his eyes dropping downward. “But unfortunately, not everything always pans out in the end.”

His arm dropped… and his hand slid straight onto my ass. He squeezed.

“Know what I mean?” he grinned.

Asshole!

Pulling quickly away I went to slap him. I even reared my arm back..

“No,” the man said abruptly. His eyes went dramatically wide. “Wait I—”

All at once there was a blur of motion, and I heard the man cry out. Someone zipped between us. Someone who grabbed the man’s arm, whipped it behind his back, and pulled on it so hard that he yelled out.

“ARGHHHH!”

My mouth dropped open. It was Ryan.

CRACK!

The sub-contractor screamed in pain as Ryan yanked his arm up and backward. There was the dull snap of bones breaking, and then Ryan was shoving the man downward and into the grass.

“Ummmmph!”

He rolled sideways before finally coming to a stop. The man looked up miserably from his knees, clutching his arm in pain. “You ASSHOLE!” he yelled. “I—I think you broke my—”

“SHUT UP!”