Shattered By Control

Chapter 1

Mirella

I haven’t spoken to my father in ten years and now he wants to get me a job.

I almost didn’t show up to this interview. I sit in my beat-up Camry with the AC blasting outside of a strip mall in sunny Phoenix, AZ, home of shoe-melting heat and too many cacti and palm trees, and watch the front of a quiet little coffee shop tucked between a shoe repair place and a UPS drop-off location. It looks innocent enough, but inside is either my doom or my salvation.

And a whole lot of extremely dangerous men.

If Dad had contacted me directly, none of this would be happening. Instead, he went through Mom, like the coward he is, and the guilt trip I felt when she told me about the opportunity was like being shoved under freezing cold water and held there. I had to agree to show up—what was I going to do? Tell my mom no, when I have no other prospects and about seven years of higher education debt to pay off? When she has worked like six jobs at a time to feed and clothe me my entire life? Seems like there’s no alternative here.

She’s got no love for my father, but she sounded so darn excited and said it could be huge for me—she used those words, it could be huge, sweetie, which only made it way harder. I kept thinking about all the years she raised me as a single mom working her ass off, slaving away at multiple jobs just to afford crappy daycare, crappy school supplies, crappy second-hand clothing, but she did it, she raised me right, and I can’t refuse this even if I want to.

So here I am, at a job interview for a position I don’t know anything about, working for people I don’t want to know anything about, except that they’re rich and in need of a discreet and honest physical therapist, which I am, at least according to my estranged asshole father. And if that same asshole father set this whole thing up, I can be very sure that whoever employs me will have deep, dark connections to the Phoenix underworld, and most likely this will be an extremely dangerous job.

This is not an ideal situation.

But here I am. I take a deep breath, check myself in the mirror, and get out of the car. I’m in business casual clothes, a simple skirt and blouse with my hair pinned up, and I carry a black folder tucked under my arm with my resume (padded to hell) and some blank stationary for taking notes (ornamental), and try to calm my rapidly beating heart. I’m nervous, but not for the interview.

I’m nervous for whoever I’m about to see through that door.

I don’t hesitate. Standing outside in the heat’s only going to make it worse and get me all drenched with sweat, so I plunge on inside, into a surprisingly comfortable interior. Lots of leather, metal, exposed wood, and hanging green plants all over. The ambiance is post-industrial chic mixed with comfy homestyle coziness. It smells like coffee beans and vanilla.

The sitting area is empty except for a bored-looking barista behind the counter and one table with three men sitting around it, all of them facing the door, all of them staring at me with deep frowns.