Читать книгу The Game Never Ends - Zaire Crown - Страница 13

Chapter Six

Early the next morning Tuesday was back at work simply because she couldn’t skip a second day. The headquarters for Abel Incorporated sat in downtown Los Angeles, occupying a gleaming glass high-rise that resembled a twisted piece of art-deco sculpture. For fourteen years, Abel had grown exponentially until it had become a Fortune 500 company employing over twenty-seven hundred with assets approaching six billion dollars.

While Brandon lauded their record earnings, Marcus was most proud of its outreach within the urban community. Abel donated heavily each year to numerous causes that provided entrepreneurial opportunities or scholarships for minorities nationwide. Marcus was very passionate about them giving back. Many times Tuesday had heard him lecture on how it was their civic responsibility as a black-owned company. Her husband and stepfather disagreed on exactly how much responsibility.

While she knew Marcus’s intentions were sincere, Tuesday secretly felt that his generosity was motivated by guilt. For years he had flooded those very same communities with drugs, contributing to the crime, poverty and overall destruction.

This was his way of paying restitution. Years back, she peeped the biblical connection between a man who had done so much evil under the name Caine trying to do good using the name Abel.

Tuesday always tried to downplay her sexy at work. She wore a navy-blue custom Dior pant-suit that didn’t draw too much attention to her curves. She complemented the look with a white blouse and heels appropriate for the office. Insecurity still made her feel like all the white faces stared at her.

The CEO’s office was on the seventieth floor. It was a massive space with plush carpeting and ultra-modern decor. The walls consisted of wooden tiles in a layered herringbone pattern, except for the rear, which was a floor-to-ceiling picture window. Its sliding door led to a narrow balcony, but the potential seven-hundred-foot drop made Tuesday enjoy her scenic view of the Pacific coast from behind the tempered glass.

Tuesday was relieved when her secretary told her she had a light agenda with no tedious meetings; however, that quickly changed when she found a mountain of paperwork waiting on the desk. Brandon’s office had delivered thirty different reports from twelve departments that needed to be read and signed by the day’s end.

When she first took her new identity as Tabitha Green, Marcus had given her a driver’s license, birth certificate, social security card, medical records, along with detailed work and credit histories. Later he added a Master’s in Business Administration once he decided to make her CEO. The forged degree from Wharton hung on the wall.

Tuesday had never stepped on a college campus and feared those working under her could sense it.

In their presence she knew to tone down the slang, to speak proper English. She knew so many others within the company were more qualified. The woman she sent on Starbucks runs actually had more education than she.

All these concerns were voiced to Marcus from the start, but as usual, he had convinced her she could handle it by running some smooth shit on her. He explained that a conductor doesn’t know how to play every instrument in his orchestra. It’s only his job to delegate, to make sure the wind, string, and percussion sections played together in harmony. Like a conductor, it would be her job to oversee the whole.

At the time, that analogy made sense to Tuesday but she soon found a huge flaw in it. They didn’t hand a baton to any random bitch off the street who walked into Carnegie Hall.

Over the past fifteen years, rappers and every nigga on the street had screamed “I’m a Boss!” until the word had lost all credibility. Even Tuesday was guilty of this, because back when she was hitting licks, she had the nerve to call herself Boss Lady, as if owning a rundown strip club earned her the right. Being at Abel made her realize that she had no idea of what it meant to be a real boss. Thousands of people were depending on her for their livelihood. Any poor decision on her part could sink the company, costing them their homes, cars, and savings.

Hours later, Tuesday was developing a migraine and was only halfway through the second report. Some division was asking her to allocate nine million dollars for some type of fuel research for their international cargo freighters. At least that’s what she got from it because the language barely made sense to her.

At lunch time, Tuesday exploded out of her office, eager to get away from the reading. Her tired eyes were starting to string the words together in an endless run-on sentence of nonsense. She needed a sandwich, a 5-Hour Energy, and a little cardio to recharge. After a cold cut combo from Subway, Tuesday was down in the company gym wearing yoga pants and a sports bra, working on an elliptical.

Tuesday had hardly built up a light sweat when she looked over to see Shaun walk in. Shaun was dressed in yellow Spandex and selected a machine only several away from hers. They always tried to keep things low-key at work but Tuesday didn’t know how Shaun would respond after their blow-up last night.

First the mixed-breed beauty did some stretching that advertised her flexibility to every straight male in the gym. Then she took a swallow of Gatorade, pulled out her iPod, and stuffed her ears with music. She started going hard on a stair-climber as if oblivious to all the eyes and erections pointed in her direction.

While Shaun didn’t even acknowledge Tuesday, she received the message.

Tuesday wasn’t surprised that a young bitch like Shaun was playing games but wondered what else she had up. She didn’t know if Shaun would keep things cool or was still planning to put their relationship on blast.

To Tuesday, the most important thing was that Marcus already knew, but still, she didn’t want a scandal that would embarrass the family. For the rest of the workday Shaun’s threat hovered like a storm cloud.