Madame

Chapter 15

Karina's POV

"You wanna die, huh!" Tomma comes at me with his fist flying dangerously close to my face, "Hey, what gives? I was taking a break!" I yell back, dodging as best as possible, leaping over the couch in the main room.

"You could've called puta! We all were having a hard time cause of you, ya know! A simple text would've been fine too!" He jumps over the couch and grabs the collar of my sweater, "I'm sorry!" I choke as he rips my sweatshirt backward, the collar pressing against my throat. What's with people and choking me?

"You can't just take an 8-month break in this business; it doesn't work like that!" I land backward on the couch, bouncing a bit. He leaps over the couch and bends down so that our faces are parallel to each other, "I got hurt; that's why I was out." I tell him, seeing that Elizabeth was too ashamed to do it.

He backs up, his face tense, "Really? Where? Don't joke about that." He scolds, going to slap my head, but I block him with my arm, "Look," I pull down the now stretched-out collar of my sweater, revealing the scar on my shoulder. "Got lodged in there, and I needed rehabilitation for a bit. My uncle put me on hold to ensure I fully recover." I finish explaining to him, and he nods.

"Alright then, who did it? You gonna go after them, get even?" I chuckle, and he gets confused, "Why are you laughing?" He groans.

I shake my head and push off the couch, "You don't need to know. It's been taken care of." I tell him, my hand running through my hair to get rid of my tenseness, "Oh, alright. Well, how long are you staying for?" He asks, propping himself onto the couch, his leg coming into his chest.

I shrug; I don't want to tell him I'm leaving at the end of the week, "If I'm called back, I'll go. Until then I go where I please, I guess."

As Tomma's about to respond to my question, Elizabeth walks into the main room, her phone in her hand and her eyes darting all over the screen. Her eyebrows are pulled together and she has her bottom lip trapped between her teeth.

From what I heard this morning, she seems to have lost her little stress reliever over a silly little assumption. Florence made it her goal for the whole manor to hear, and seeing the face that Tomma is pulling beside me, he knows exactly what happened.

"Good afternoon, Madame." He calls her. She looks over her shoulder, giving him a small wave and quickly looking back to her phone.

She does a double take and musters me, her lips pulling into a line as she notices the smirk I'm proudly wearing, "Tomma, could you watch Lili tonight? Dev is out with her friends and I have some business to tend to." She smiles at the boy who quickly nods his head, "Of course, Madame." He's so whipped, I'm getting second-hand embarrassment.

Her eyes meet mine and I raise my eyebrows at her, "Meet me in my office at 8 o'clock, do not be late." She leaves no room to argue because she leaves as soon as she says that, "What did you do?" Tomma asks, making me chuckle.

"I'm not sure but I can't wait to find out."

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I knock lazily on her door, my brain completely fried from having to play Rummikub with Lili and Tomma for the past hour. I swear that game looks easy but after the 4th round I couldn't even match my numbers correctly let alone get enough points to actually play the game.

I hear her muffled voice from within the room and take it upon myself to open the door, unsure of whether she told me to come in or not.

She seems heavily uninterested in my presence, her eyes glued once again to her phone screen but this time a pen in her hand, papers full of her writing in front of her. Thank God I don't run a business. I wouldn't be able to write that much even if I wanted to, my hand would cramp up.