Risk and Reward

Caught off Guard

"Myaaaaaa! Darling...another day..." Jonah, my right hand greeted me as I exited the elevator and immediately placed a coffee into my awaiting hand. I smiled lightly, throwing him a look as if I wasn't going to complete our daily morning ritual. He stared right back at me. " fine Jonah! Another slay." His serious face cracked open before he repeated "Another DAH-AYE mam!" And reached out his hand, grasping his own coffee out at me for a light clink.
"Another dollar." I grinned back at him.
Jonah was the man of my dreams in every way but romance.
6'5, muscular so he was great at carrying the byproducts of my busy life, an incredible way with words and so attractive any outfit on him would look spectacular but chose to dress to the nines damn near everyday regardless. He had been by my side since I started at the company and was there when I gained my shares and became the controlling partner and CEO. As I rose in the ranks I made sure to bring him with me.

In our line of work, you need three things in an assistant, loyalty, personality, and a keen eye for business or numbers. Unfortunately, most of people forget the first.

In a work place-no, an industry-of sharks, companions like Jonah are hard to come by. So even though he was my assistant, I often thought of him as family.

And he was the only one in this place who got the luxury.
As I walked down the bustling office, heels clacking against the tiles, I listened closely waiting for him to rattle off schedule for the day as usual moving awkwardly slow as to stay at my side even with his long frame.

" What's today looking like J" I narrow my eyes at his hesitations.
"Well the thing is..." he twiddles his fingers before my glare makes him drop his hands. " Ok, the board is actually here. Now. Someone called an emergency meeting. I just wanted to get your head right before tossing you in the deep end"
I sighed, rolling my eyes gently. " Jonah. If you know anything about me, know this-my head is always right. And I have never been afraid of deep waters. Just more to play in." I tossed him a final look and a wink before striding away from him towards the large conference room I knew our board would be waiting in.
But not before I heard him whisper to himself
"What. A. Woman."

The office in one of the most expensive buildings in the city was nearly entirely made of glass. Something about transparency.
Tuh. As if anything about this business is made to be 'transparent'. But it did give an air of openness that made the spaces seem even larger and more extravagant than they were. As I approached the glass room, my eyes began to dart back and forth taking in the board members who had arrived. Nearly all old or middle aged white men, with two white women, Maura Berkshire and Lilian O'Donoghue who I found just as pathetic lay out of touch and covertly racist as the rest of them. Some of these people led huge subsidiaries. Some were royalty or damn near it 'old money' with special interests in the work we did here. All of them thought they knew more about acquiring capital and production than people who had actually spent their lives studying business and economics.
Including me. Unfortunately for them, and not to be arrogant, I was smarter than every old fossil in this room put to fucking together.

Plastering on a cheerful smile I sauntered into the room confidently. " Hello Mr. Garrett, Mr. James, Mr. Saunders, Mr...." I continued around the room as I took a seat at the head of the long, mahogany table.

Finally my eyes drew to the man sitting at the opposite end of the table.

Gary Anderson was a fucking asshole. I mean there was really no other way to say it. None of these people were GOOD people per-say...but none quite so irritating and morally bankrupt as Gary "Angola" Anderson, as he was called in our world. The Angola referencing a business deal he had headed up early in the companies career which ended in a massive loss of jobs at a certain huge corporation, in order to manufacture in the less regulated nation where he could exploit the nationals without fear of labor union laws or federal interference. He had made the company some of its first billions with his shark behavior. He was praised for it, but I saw through him.

Underneath his arrogance, his controlled persona, Gary was just another racist little sociopath who cared more about a quick buck than the lives of anyone who got in his way.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not getting all high and mighty. What bothers me about Gary isn't his complete lack of ethics...it's the fact that I know if he could, he would sell me down the river in a second. He saw a young black woman in the position he'd coveted damn near his whole career...and I knew he hated me enough sabotage me, if it didn't mean sabotaging the company he had major shares in.

I'm not gonna lie. The work we do here isn't always clean. Making money in the US means getting your hands dirty whether you want to believe it or not. But if I did get my hands dirty, it wouldn't be in favor of old white fucks like Gary fucking Anderson.

I looked at him, greasy slicked hair and gray eyes. Ugh,  the man made me want to lose my none existent breakfast.

" Mya how lovely to see you" he said crossing his legs as he placed his hands clasped on the table, leaning forward into the table. " Oh...you know better than that Mr. Anderson. Call me Ms. Josephson." I drawled at him again as I mimicked his crossed legs and quirked my head to the side. " so what brings me before my favorite board at this hour?"

Eyes seemed to dash back and forth across the table. They were like rats in a maze. Gary cleared his throat, seemingly deciding he would be the one to speak. There was an aura about him as he smiled lightly at me. In this work, you never wanted an enemy to seem more in the know about what was going on than you.

This was bad. I was racking my mind for what this could be about but nothing emerged. Right now, I was playing blind. I had no idea what cards they could whip out on me, but I refused to sweat.

"Go on Gary. We both know I have a very successful company to run."

He slammed his fist into the table sharply and stood up.
Of course, the kind of outburst only a white dude could perform and still be perfectly employed and respected. But again, in my line of work, I had seen a lot worse.

"The company I built" His tone was low but it was as if the thin cap always covering his true feelings about my position had been peeled back. I laughed. Rising slowly I began to walk around the large table as the rest of the seated members watched my movements. I kept my eyes on Gary as I spoke. " Mr. Anderson. You and I both know the reason you will never be CEO of this company. You are unfit. Just be thankful Ghedari still wanted you to have your shares. Silently."

By now I was in front of him. Meeting eyes at our similar below 6' heights. He was sweating, steaming even. And i watched as he took another sharp inhale through his nostrils but continued to hold his gaze with a harder one of my own.

"Well. That may be. But I have been on the receiving end of some imminently crucial information about the future of this company!"

I raised my eyebrow, ushering him to continue with a wave of my hand. "Go on Mr. Anderson"

"No need!" A deep voice boomed from the door way and my head shot up to look.

Shit. It definitely had to be my lack of a current romantic life because no way did someone that interesting looking just walk into this room...and with a voice like that.

I was used to dealing with old white men and women. Not sexy long haired, olive skinned 30-somethings with delicious New Zealand accents.

My eyes narrowed immediately and I was on high alert. "Excuse me. This is a closed meeting."
"Not to him. Ms. Josephson...this is the son of the late Mr. Gheradi. The step son of the late Mrs. Gheradi. And he has decided to step up and claim his inheritance"

I was never shocked.
Quite literally never. My job was to measure risk and reward. To know how to predict outcomes and make sure my team was the winning team every time. And here I was being double teamed by an old fucking bat and a stranger who was apparently the son of the man who had damn near raised me as far as my career goes. A son who shouldn't even exist.
" so you're the one running this old ship now? I'm James. Louis James Gheradi. And I'm here to claim what's mine"