A Deal with the Bossy Devil by Kyra Parsi

1

It was everywhere.

All over social media, the TV, my group chats. The video of Waldo whacking Adrien Cloutier in the family jewels with a walking cane had—somewhat unsurprisingly—made national news faster than the results of our last federal election.

And people were here for it.

I scrolled through the comments of the latest post Jamie had sent me, feeling rather generous with my upvotes.

FaceSittersClub: This is the type of content I pay my internet bills for

FindingHimbo: Who is she?

imtheNPC: Anyone have irl Where’s Waldo on their 2020s bingo card? Cuz me neither

UnlawfulMotherGoose: Deranged Waldo running rampant around Toronto and hitting entitled billionaires in the balls with random costume props is my new kink.

And then there were the concerned citizens…

LickMyBallsack69: She’s gonna regret this real quick. I can smell Cloutier lawyering up from here. He’s gonna rip her life to shreds. RIP

MooMooMilkRoute39: Y’all if you know this girl you better be keeping your traps shut. We don’t know where Waldo is. Never even heard of her

The last user had just uploaded a new, shortened version of the clip and linked it to their comment. It was a three-second edit of the cane making hard contact with its target, the shocked gasp-cackle of the person recording, and Adrien’s low grunt as he folded onto his knees in front of me, face crumpled in pain.

Except the three-second clip was edited into a ten-hour loop, and the video had appropriately been titled, “ASMR | Soothing Meditation Sounds for Sleeping and Insomnia.”

I chortled and forwarded the link to Jamie just as the train started to slow to a stop. This had been the most entertaining commute to work I’d had in ages. Potentially ever.

And you’re probably going to pay for it in about ten minutes.

I brushed off the voice, refusing to let it drag me down. There was no point in stressing about something that hadn’t happened yet.

People didn’t know it was me in the video. The footage only showed the back of my head, and I’d been wearing a wig, a hat, and a pair of glasses. My disguise was solid, and the internet had a short attention span. Chances were good this whole thing would blow over and everyone would forget about it by the end of the week, tops.

I fished my keycard out of my bag and scanned my way up to the fifth floor of our office building, unable to keep the small, wicked smirk off my lips. Every time I so much as blinked, the image of Adrien’s scrunched-up face flashed in my mind, sending another shot of bubbly oxytocin straight through me.

LickMyBallsack69was wrong. The only thing I regretted was running out of the lobby as fast as I had without taking an extra second to really appreciate the justice I’d just served. Adrien deserved it for what he’d—

I jolted as a hand flew out of a door to my left, wrapped around my arm, and yanked me into a small meeting room just down the hall from my cubicle.

“Oh my god,” Alba hissed, nails digging into my arm as the door shut behind me. “Oh my god.”

I grinned. “I know, right?”

“No. Absolutely none of that,” she snapped back, her newly threaded brows drawing together. “This isn’t a joke, Ria. He’s on a fucking warpath. What the hell were you thinking?”

“He deserved it,” I argued smoothly as I wiggled my arm out of my sister’s death grip. “Guy’s an absolute prick. You know that better than anyone.”

“That’s your justification?” she hissed. The tip of her nose was starting to burn a telling red. “You smashed Adrien Cloutier’s dick in with a cane because you think he’s a prick?”

“No. I did it because he’s a gross trash goblin who smacked my butt without consent. The fact that he’s also a prick was an added bonus.”

She blinked back at me. “What?”

“Yeah. Bet you feel real dumb now, Alba. Yelling at me before you had all the facts.”

Her eyes narrowed slowly. “Hold on—start over. You’re saying he smacked your butt… in the middle of our flagship hotel lobby?”

Well, sure, when she said it like that it sounded ridiculous.

“Basically,” I confirmed. “Kind of.”

I could practically hear the gears spinning in her massive, overly analytical brain. “The CEO of the biggest hotel group in North America kind of sexually assaulted you in public?”

“Yes,” I said. “Maybe.”

She crossed her arms.

I shifted on my feet, bracing myself. “I mean, I guess there’s a small chance it wasn’t him.”

Her eyes thinned into sharp danger-slits. “What does that mean?”

This conversation wasn’t going to go well for me. “In my defense, I was very drunk.”

“Ria.”

“I was!” I took a step back. She looked like she was getting ready to implode—and not just because she was seven months pregnant with twins. “It was Halloween! We were all wasted.”

My excuse didn’t seem to help, judging by her expression.

“Explain what happened,” she demanded. “From start to finish.”

“Okay, but can we just, like, take a few deep, calming breaths first?” I tried, lowering my voice to a more soothing pitch. “I think the rest of this conversation might benefit from a little bit of Zen.”

She didn’t agree, judging by the prim way her lips clamped together. But I went ahead and took in a long, slow breath anyway, holding it until she reluctantly followed suit. And then we let it out.

Her exhale was short, forceful, and accompanied by an impatient tap of her foot. It was as good as it was going to get.

“All right, fine. Let’s just do this.” I glanced outside the meeting room window to make sure none of the office gossips were watching or listening in, then I lowered my voice again and said, “Okay, so, Arman, Jamie, and I went to the Halloween parade on Friday night—which was less of an actual parade, to be honest with you, and more of a massive street party with a ton of drinking and sloppy Dwight Schrutes making out with sloppier Harley Quinns. It was really gross, but also kind of awesome. I highly recommend it for next year.”

She did not look convinced.

“Anyways,” I went on, leaning a shoulder against the wall. “At one point, we passed by the hotel, and I needed to use the bathroom, so I ran in.”

Except it hadn’t exactly been easy. There’d been a whole bunch of security guards lined along the entrance, preventing random partygoers from entering the building—which made sense. I didn’t think any of the guests paying four figures a night for a hotel room were all that keen on sharing their space with a pack of drunk, rowdy idiots dressed in ridiculous costumes.

“They let you go in and use the washroom?” she asked skeptically. “Wasn’t building access restricted?”

“Um, yeah, I mean… I may have used your all-access employee pass to get in.” My voice trailed off into a cowardly whisper by the end of my confession as I watched my sister’s glare twist into something lethal.

“What.” I didn’t think it was possible for a word to come out so sharp.

“I know, I know! I screwed up,” I said, showing her my palms. “But I really had to go, Alba! It was an emergency!”

“So you used my all-access pass—the one that’s supposed to be restricted to me and me only—to get into the building, then hit my boss in the dick with your costume prop? Do you have any ideahow badly this could end for both of us?”

“Okay, two things. One, I didn’t actually know it was him. And two, he definitely doesn’t know it was me.”

The skin under Alba’s left eye feathered. “Explain.”

“I thought it was just some jackass in a really convincing costume at first,” I admitted. “He wasn’t the first Adrien Cloutier I ran into that night, he just happened to be the only real one. And, again, I wasreally drunk. Like… drunk enough that it was a straight-up miracle my aim even met its target.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“I mean… yeah, kind of.”

“Ria.” She said my name in that slow, drawn-out way that meant I needed to listen very carefully to every single word that followed it. “I’ve worked for the guy for four years and have never seen him this pissed. He’s going to murder you, and then he’s going to make me bury your idiot body.”

“That’s very dark, Alba. Very off-brand.”

“You know what else is dark? Coffins.”

“You know what’s even darker? You ignoring the fact that he assaulted me first.”

That shut her up for a solid five seconds.

“Sorry,” she eventually muttered, her voice softening with a touch of guilt. “Just… tell me what happened so we can figure out what to do.”

I let out a heavy breath. “Okay, so, long story short, when I came out of the washroom, some guy behind me squeezed my butt, smacked it really hard, then said something about a ‘tight, fuckable ass’ before walking away. It happened out in the hall and… honestly, I kind of froze from shock.”

Alba’s eyebrows had drawn together again. This time, though, her anger wasn’t directed at me.

“The problem is, because I froze for so long, I only saw the back of his head before he turned the corner and disappeared into the lobby. I knew he was tall with dark hair and was wearing a blue suit.”

I also remembered the invading, overpowering stench of his cologne. It smelled like he’d dipped his entire body in the musky stuff—clothes and all. It was revolting.

“Then what happened?” Alba pushed, her hands moving to her round stomach as she shifted on her feet.

I pulled out a chair from the small conference table and twisted it around, gesturing for her to sit. “Then the anger happened. I stormed out into the lobby and spotted him right away talking to a bunch of other guys—at least I thought it was him. Tall, dark hair, blue suit. And I remember thinking how much he resembled Adrien Cloutier… but the alcohol in my brain thought it was just some dickhead dressed up like him.”

If douchebags had their own magazine, “The Cloutier Look” would have been unironically voted as the costume most likely to get your date to spread her legs. Or something equally gag-inducing.

You could spot his fanboys from a mile away on Halloween. They were all suited up, their sleek hair perfectly swept to one side, and every single one of them was sporting a replica of those stupidly overpriced wristwatches he always wore.

People were weirdly obsessed with that dude. I really didn’t get it.

“So, when I stomped up to where he was standing, I didn’t really think twice. I just called him a braindead trash goblin and went for the jewels. I realized, like, two seconds after he went down that he was the real deal.”

Yes, Adrien Cloutier had a reputation for being an overly privileged, ruthless dick. Yes, he made Alba’s life a living hell. But he was also terrifyingly wealthy and influential, and no amount of alcohol would have prevented me from immediately realizing that attacking him had been a terrible mistake with potentially life-ruining consequences.

Which was why I’d run.

“How the hell did security not follow you?” Alba asked, continuing to rub her stomach. I wasn’t sure whether she was doing it to soothe the babies or herself.

“They did follow me. But I disappeared into the parade right away and they must have lost track.” Mostly because Arman had been smart and sober enough to get me to remove my hat, wig, and glasses before giving me his jacket. We left quickly after that.

The whole thing was a lot funnier this morning, especially since the video had gone so viral. Because as luck would have it, someone had been taking a video of the famous Cloutier fountain and the grand chandelier that crowned it when everything went down.

It had been an elegant, luxurious scene, enhanced by the soft piano music playing in the background… until Waldo stomped right through the frame with a “highly deranged energy,” per the internet, and started screaming nonsensical insults at Adrien Cloutier himself. Next thing you know, bam! Man down, fugitive fictional character on the run.

It was awesome.

“Stop smiling!” Alba snapped at me, lightly kicking my shin. “It’s not funny, Ria! How many times do I have to repeat myself? Adrien’s lost his fucking mind over this whole thing. He’s been here since four in the morning in like a rage-fueled productivity episode. I had forty-three emails in my inbox from him before the sun was up.”

Honestly, that only made it funnier.

“Stop.” Kick. “Laughing.” Kick.

“Ow!” I hissed, rubbing at my shin. “Relax! Nobody knows it was me!”

“Yet!” she retorted. “They don’t know it’s you yet. A pair of round glasses and a wig isn’t the convincing disguise you seem to think it is.”

“Well, that’s just not true. The glasses alone would have been enough according to every movie ever made,” I argued. “Ever heard of Clark Kent? Now, I’m not saying I’m a hero to the people like Superman per se—ouch! Stop kicking me!”

“This isn’t a joke!”

“Well, it was going to be once I got to the punchline about Adrien Cloutier being Lex Luther, but you ruined it,” I said, tempted to kick her back. “And I ambeing serious. He wouldn’t have recognized me without the costume. That dude has no idea who I am, period.”

“You can’t know that for sure,” she argued, though I could see her shoulders relax just a touch.

“Alba, I’ve been working here for two years and have run into him exactly once. That’s it.” We’d shared an elevator with two other people last year and he hadn’t so much as glanced in my general direction.

“Yes, but you’re also my sister.”

I gave her a skeptical look. “Does he even know you have a sister? Has he ever asked?”

She rolled her lips and looked away from me, which was answer enough. Of course he’d never asked. Why would he need to know whether his overworked assistant of four years had any siblings? Why would he need to know anything about her at all? Why would he care about anyone but himself?

Worst boss on the fucking planet.

“Okay, well then we don’t really have anything to worry about, do we?” I said.

Albaopened her mouth—presumably to argue with me again—but was interrupted by a string of light dings fluttering out of her phone in rapid succession.

“Oh god,” she groaned down at her screen. “I’m being summoned again.”

I gave her hand a comforting squeeze as I helped her up. “Stop stressing so much,” I said, gently poking her swollen belly. “It’s not good for the baking process.”

“I’ll stop stressing if you start taking life a little more seriously,” she said, keeping a hold of my fingers. Her features were scrunched with less irritation now, more worry. “This is… Ria, he could press charges. Do you understand how—”

The door burst open before she could finish the thought, making us both jump.

“Oh my god, there you are!” Hassan exclaimed. He was clutching his phone so tight his knuckles were white. “Why aren’t you answering your phone? Adrien’s got people looking for you.”

The guy had zero fucking patience. It hadn’t even been thirty seconds since he’d texted her.

“Sorry. I’ll go back up now.” Alba dropped my hand with a deep sigh, but not before shooting me a look that said she wasn’t done lecturing me about this.

“Not you,” Hassan said, nudging a chin in my direction. “He wants Ria. His security guys are looking everywhere for her.”

I swear I could see my sister’s soul drift right out of her stiffening body when his words registered.

Well… shit.