Page 42 of His Puppet
“You can’t go to sleep, Emily. You’re going to the main house.”
She groans and snuggles her cheek into the pillow. “I was wrong,” she says on an exhale. “I didn’t need to fake it.”
“Emily.”
She doesn’t respond, but her lips part slightly as her breaths deepen.
She’s already asleep.
I run my hand through my hair and sit down on the bed, eyeing my knife. I sigh, get up, grab the knife and take it to my closet to lock it in the safe I keep beside my dresser. I’ll put my phone in here next.
Once again, the vixen wins.
13
Emily
Franco tosses another money-filled bag in front of me, and I blow my cheeks up before letting out a slow breath. There are two piles on the table where we're counting money. One is the money we’ve counted, all grouped together. The other pile is a mountain of bags, all containing cash from a different dealer. We’ve been in the barn counting money all morning. It’s almost noon.
“Jesus, how long does this normally take?”
Franco chuckles and pulls a stack of bills from another blue, zippered pouch. “This is a full-time job, dollface. There’s a whole lot of people out there who are willing to pay for a good fix.”
“Okay, but seriously?” I wave to the mound of cash. “This is what you make in aday?”
“WhatImake?” Franco smiles. I’m coming to learn that he always smiles. And always calls me dollface, which at first was annoying, but after spending four hours with this guy, it no longer comes off as demeaning. Mr. New York Accent is actually not that bad.
I roll my eyes while pulling the rubber band off the stack I’m holding. “You know what I mean.”
Franco shrugs. “Nah, we only count twice a week. This is the Monday through Thursday batch. Just wait until Monday’s count. The weekend earnings are double this.”
“And they were pissed I lifted a fanny pack.” I huff and start counting out the bills.
“Hey, dollface, now don’t be sour about that. You can’t even imagine how lucky you got.”
I stack up three hundred in front of me on the table before pausing and looking up at Franco. “The whore house? Yeah, I can imagine it,” I deadpan.
“That’s what having a vagina will get you, sure.” He points to the metal door leading to the bunker. “You think a lot of dudes get thrown in there? Or even bitches over thirty?”
I narrow my eyes at Franco. “You really have a way with words, you know that?”
He shrugs. “I’m just sayin’.”
I go back to counting, and when I finish with this bag, I run the cash through the machine that also counts money. Little redundant, isn’t it?
“Speaking of vaginas…” Franco takes the money from the machine and writes the amount in a notebook next to someone’s name. “Couldn’t help but notice you spent the night at the boss’s place.”
“You couldn’t help but notice?” I grab the next bag. “You’re the one who picked me up.”
Franco grins but doesn’t look up at me. He pencils something in the notebook. “So, you and boss man…? You know, a thing?”
I scoff and flick a new rubber band at him. “Yeah right.”
“What were you staying the night for then?”
“Does it matter?”
“Nope.” Franco gives me a knowing look then glances around the room. People bustle around, their loud conversations drowning out ours. Everyone has a job in here, and everyone seems to get along fine for a bunch of criminals.