Killing Roses Book 1
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Ekridah
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906K
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64
1: Crashing Into You
VALERIE
Monday
18/08
9:15 a.m.
Mansions, cars, shares in a massive corporation. Guaranteed wealth for life, her every wish within reach, and a host of servants at her beck and call. She’d left it all behind for this.
And she regretted nothing.
“Shit!” Valerie screeched to a halt and snatched desperately at her scarf as it fell from her overloaded arms.
She was late again, and, this time, Janice would have her for breakfast. Evading her fingers, the fabric drifted mockingly to the floor.
With a huff, she carefully bent over and picked it up, ignoring the curls of hair that fell over her brow.
Straightening, she looked around at what had been her workplace for the past few months. The office was alive with the cheerful noise of printing court orders and telephones shrieking with calls from vengeful, abusive parents.
Being a social worker was fun. A lot more fun than being the heiress to her parents’ empire.
“Quinn!”
Valerie stiffened as Janice Holloway appeared in the hallway like a drill sergeant. Her graying brown hair was pulled back in a viciously tight bun, giving her that boarding school headmistress vibe.
“Uh…good morning, Janice!” Valerie chirped, injecting as much cheerfulness into her voice as possible.
The older woman wasn’t fooled. “What do you think you’re doing coming to work at this hour, Quinn? This isn’t your father’s factory.”
Valerie resisted the urge to roll her eyes. She was only fifteen minutes late. Also, it wasn’t a factory her father owned. He owned diamond jewelry stores. Nearly fifty of them. In different countries.
“Quinn?”
She blinked. “Yes, Janice. I’m so sorry, traffic was gruesome, Starbucks queues were dragging, and it just started raining! It won’t happen again.”
The older woman hardly managed to hide a scowl, her brown eyes darkening. “That right? Starbucks? What? Our office coffee not good enough for ya?”
Valerie bit her tongue and looked away. Damn right, it wasn’t. That coffee offered to even a donkey would be the ultimate cruelty. But she didn’t say that.
Instead, she rocked back on her heels, waiting for the usual morning drill sergeant talk to be over.
“Not as good as the premium stuff you get back at your rich daddy’s, is it?” continued Janice.
Valerie barely stifled her sigh. “I’m sorry, Janice. Excuse me, but I have work to do, so I’ll get going.”
“I get that you got this job for fun, but try to respect it enough to be here on time.”
She sighed, nodding once, biting down on the rebuttal at the tip of her tongue. It wasn’t worth it.
“Got it.”
Making her way around the woman, Valerie headed to her office. Or what was supposed to be her office.
Reaching the door to the tiny space, she pushed it open with her elbow and glanced into the room, where the file cabinets, her chair, and desk were crammed, leaving her with a generous space of about four feet square open to draw a breath.
With a sigh, she shuffled in and carefully set her Starbucks vanilla latte down before dumping the rest of her stuff on her office chair.
“I smell rich girl privilege,” drawled a sultry voice from her doorway.
Valerie looked up as her friend and coworker, Valentina Gomez, strolled in.
Valerie sighed. “Hey, Tina.”
The gorgeous woman quirked up an eyebrow. “You want to get on Crank’s good side, you really think bringing in a fancy coffee is gonna do that?”
“I’m not trying to get on her good side,” Valerie said, making a face as she slipped on a black headband to hold her hair back.
Valentina stapled her documents and set the stapler back down. “You’re not? Well, maybe you should try. You don’t get past this new rich girl title, she’ll never stop hitting you with the shitty cases, babe.”
Tina walked out, closing the door, and Valerie sighed, glancing at the stacks of brown folders that littered her desk.
Clenching her jaw, she grabbed one, ready to work.
This wasn’t about Janice’s prejudice or Valerie’s wealthy family. It was about Valerie. About her and all those children whom she could help as a social worker.
Sure, it did start as a genius plan to piss her father the hell off, but halfway through her degrees in social work and psychology, Valerie discovered that she was drawn into it.
For her entire childhood, she’d been exposed to classy and pricey, and every child she’d known had had the same. The best private school, all the clothes she wanted, and a huge allowance.
She’d never lacked for anything. Well, obviously her parents worked every single day, flying around the world, but that was what the big allowance was for, wasn’t it? To replace parental care. Duh.
Then Valerie came across social work, and it opened up a whole new world for her.
For the first time, she realized that not every child had the life she had. Some children were living in a hell they couldn’t escape, tortured by toxic monsters who called themselves parents. That’s why she’d stuck to social work.
The original plan had been to start studying social work, frighten Dad enough to get him to hand over her shares in the company, plus a new apartment, and then, with mission accomplished, drop the social work issue.
Yeah, that didn’t work out.
Firstly, her father had threatened to cut her off immediately if she didn’t go into business and commerce as he’d ordered, and then, secondly…he had.
The one time she’d decided to be a bit of a rebel, it blew up in her face.
But she was making it work, so if Janice wanted to hand her the shitty cases, so be it! She was going to be the new Wonder Woman in New York for those kids.
She turned on her computer and got to work, reviewing cases and creating to-do lists for every outstanding thing.
Her eyes narrowed in interest when she saw that in a week, she would have to become involved in the readjustment of a child’s life back with her parents.
Shit.
Pushing away from her desk, she dashed out of her office to find out what Valentina could tell her about the child’s parents and nearly collided with Tina.
“Woah!” Valerie nearly toppled over in her heels, barely managing to grab the wall. “What’s wrong?”
Valentina spun around with a sigh. “I am tired of these little bastards messing with my car!” she complained, pushing her hair back.
Valerie made a face. “The tire slashers? They’re back?”
“Yes! I almost caught one just now. A blonde-headed little devil! I saw him with my own eyes, playing around my driver’s door! Little shits!”
Tina’s anger was justified. A group of boys had started a habit of wandering the department’s parking lots and slashing the tires of cars at random.
A car was even stolen in one case, and that was when everyone panicked. Two more security guards were hired, but that didn’t seem to be helping.
Valerie bit her lip. “Crap. That means none of our cars are safe.” Thoughts of her Chevy came to mind, and she gasped. “My baby! I have to move my car to a safer spot, I can’t risk it!”
“Are you kidding me? You’re a Quinn, you can afford a hundred Chevrolets. And if not, any man out there will beg to drive you to work with your sexy body and that gorgeous skin!”
Valerie made a face. “Firstly, I’m a disowned Quinn. I can’t afford anything except breathing for now. Secondly, men…ew.”
Valentina raised a brow. “Ew? Just yesterday you were telling me how you want a fireman to tie you to his pole—”
“A fictional pole! A fictional fireman!” Val hissed, looking nervously over her shoulder. “Specifically, the one from the book I’m reading.”
Her friend snorted. “You wouldn’t say no if a real one came up to you, though, would you?”
“Of course, I would!” She put her nose in the air, resembling her elegant mother. “I possess far too much decorum to—”
“Your car, babe.”
“Oh, right!” Anxiously, Valerie rushed away to check on her vehicle, hoping and praying it was untouched.
The click-clack of her heels sounded through the lot as she approached her car. It was at the end of a row of about fifteen cars, and Valerie sighed in relief when she saw it.
It shone a cherry red, glistening from the morning rain.
She raised her arm to unlock it, but paused, frowning as she narrowed her eyes at the car.
A hooded figure was ducking behind her car.
Valerie turned to ice, her stomach clenching as she stared in horror.
“Oh, no…,” she whispered. The tire slashers. One of them was trying to steal her car!
With a trembling hand, she desperately fumbled inside her jacket for her phone to dial nine-one-one. She wasn’t letting him get away.
She was going to have his tire-slashing, red Chevy-stealing ass locked up! She ducked so he wouldn’t see her, holding the phone to her ear.
“Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?”
“Hello?” she pitifully wailed in a whisper. “Help! Some…bandit is trying to steal my car!”
