Page 1 of The Prices We Pay
1
Josephine
“Good luck tonight,” I say to my little brother through the speakerphone. Jasper is a professional bull rider and competing in a rodeo later today in our hometown of Billings, Montana.
“No luck needed, Joe Joe, not when you’re this good.” I huff out an incredulous laugh as I apply a coat of lip gloss in the bathroom mirror, but I know he’s right. Jasper is the best at what he does, and I know he’s going to kill it. However, a ball of nerves sits deep in my gut, the same as it does every time he competes. He may have more skill in his left pinky toe than his opponents have in their entirebody, but that doesn’t make him invincible, and he’s the only family I have left.
“Be careful, okay?”
“Always am. Good luck today.”
Standing up straight, I stare into the mirror, a ball of nerves settling for an entirely different reason now. I’ve got this, though. I know I do. So, I repeat his words back to him: “No luck needed, Jas.”
His deep laugh fills the bathroom, and I smile at the sound. “All right, I’ll let you finish getting ready. Go get ‘em, tiger. Love you.”
“Love you, too. Call me tonight?”
“Call you tonight.”
He hangs up the phone, and I take one last look in the mirror. Satisfied with my hair and makeup, I take a deep breath and head to my closet to find something to wear.
My eyes immediately land on one of my favorite pairs of straight, high-waisted emerald-green slacks. Knowing it’ll work perfectly with the pants, I grab a white button-up and slide it on over my white lace bra. I slightly cuff each sleeve, notbothering to hide the tattoos that cover my forearms. It’s 2024, and I refuse to accept the notion that tattoos make someone less competent or knowledgeable than the next person. If that’s the reason I don’t get hired, then it’s not a place I’d want to work anyway. Regardless of how much money it’s going to make me. After I button up the blouse, leaving the top three buttons undone, I slide the slacks on and tuck the shirt beneath the waistband.
I slide on the gold Rolex that Jasper bought me for my birthday last year and my trusty black closed-toe Louboutins. Sweeping my long black hair over my shoulders, I step back to look in the full-length mirror in my closet. I may be wearing slacks and a button-up blouse, but I look hot as hell. And what’s more… I look like a woman who’s about to land a multimillion-dollar contract.
Leaving my room, I grab my laptop off the kitchen counter and slide it into my black tote. I lock my apartment door and head down to the lobby to grab a cab, just like I do every other day. Except today isn’t any other day. Today istheday.
Today is the day I secure the biggest contract of my life. The day I’ve been working towards since I left Billings eight years ago. Today’s the day I prove to everyone and myself that I’ve finally made something of myself.
A cab pulls up almost the moment I hold my hand out, and I climb in the back seat. “Vittori Enterprises, please.”
2
Luca
“Need anything before your meeting?”
“Dante,” I answer incredulously. “You’re my head of security, not my personal assistant. You don’t need to be running errands for me. That’s what I have Clara for.” I nod toward the office door.
Looking slightly dejected, Dante scratches at his beard. “All right, all right. I just hate not feeling useful.”
I swear, if I wasn’t so sure he could crush me where I stand, I would smack him upside his giant ass head.
From the moment I met him six years ago, I knew he was someone I needed to have on my team. As a retired Navy SEAL, Dante has skills unlike anything I’ve ever seen, and those skills don’t just disappear. They’re not something that can be locked away in a box deep inside of him simply because he’s retired. No, they’re part of the very fiber of his being. They’re a constant itch he needs to scratch. The specific set of skills he was required to hone and perfect needed a purpose. Danteneedsa purpose.
I saw it in his eyes that day all those years ago, just as I see it in front of me now.
Which is exactly why I recruited him to join my team and hired him to be my security detail. He quickly proved to be an invaluable asset in both respects, and it only took a couple of months for me to make him my head of security. When I took over as CEO after my father, Pascal Vittori, retired, one of the first things I did was make Dante head of all security at Vittori Enterprises.
“Heads don’t have to roll every minute of every day for you to be useful.” A small smile pulls at his lips.“Culo testardo.”
The small smile he was sporting turns into an immediate glare. He’s also been around Enzo, my father, and myself long enough to pick up on some Italian. “Takes one to fucking know one.”
Huffing out a laugh, I straighten out the papers on my desk just as Clara’s voice rings through the intercom on my desk phone. “Josephine Jenkins is here for your ten o’clock meeting, Sir.”
“You can send her in. Thanks, Clara.”
She has to be the one, because if I have to fill out one more customs form or look up one more tariff code, I’m going to blow my fucking brains out. As a multibillion-dollar luxury goods conglomerate, Vittori Enterprises relies heavily on imports and exports of goods. Hell, without it, the entire company would crumble at my feet.
