My Online Lover Was the Mafia Boss Who Fired Me Chapter 01
My anonymous online boyfriend was six foot two.
He had abs, loved working out, and even said he’d support me after we met in person.
But today, I just found out he was my boss.
Elio Valtieri.
Don of the Valtieri mafia family out of Chicago.
Also the same guy who told me in front of seven of his top capos that my stupidity made him sick.
Half an hour ago, he fired my ass.
Now he was blowing up my phone nonstop.
Spamming me with friend requests over and over.
My phone buzzed a couple times.
I figured it was another alert from the Valtieri Group, so I ignored it and buried my face in the moldy pillow
of my shitty studio apartment.
I’d left all the work group chats after the morning meeting.
But my body still hadn’t caught up to the change.
Every time I heard a notification ping, I’d automatically sit up straight, panicking it was Dario
asking me to rewrite a report or drop files off at Elio’s office.
This fear had hung over me for eleven months.
I’d worked at the Valtieri Group for eleven months.
On paper, the Valtieri Group ran hotels, casinos, and international freight.
But everyone in Chicago knew who really called the shots.
The Valtieri family.
An Italian mafia syndicate that controlled all the underground gambling, the docks, and the life or death of countless people.
Elio Valtieri was their youngest Don ever.
Three years ago, his dad got taken out in a family coup.
Elio took over every single dock in one night.
By the next morning, every man who’d betrayed his father was gone.
No one had dared question his orders ever since.
And I was just the most invisible analyst in the marketing department.
I wore thick black–rimmed glasses, kept my hair pulled back in a boring bun all the time.
I wasn’t pretty.
I wasn’t good with people.
I stuttered when I got nervous.
On my first day, a coworker glanced at me and immediately looked away.
I found out later the position I filled had gone through four people in three months.
One got fired for messing up the guest list for the family banquet.
Another accidentally overheard a conversation they
weren’t supposed to, and vanished from Chicago by the next day.
I worked my ass off.
Got to the office earlier than anyone, left later than everyone.
All the shit no one else wanted got dumped on me.
Printing documents.
Ordering lunch.
Reconciling warehouse inventory.
Even cleaning the wine–stained tie for my direct boss Dario,
I really did work hard–earliest in, latest out, took every garbage task anyone threw my way–copying, ordering food, making spreadsheets, grabbing coffee.
But it didn’t matter. To everyone else, it just looked
pathetic. Like a hamster running harder and harder on a wheel, the more effort you put in, the more
ridiculous you looked.
No one ever invited me to team dinners.
When coworkers passed me in the hallway, their eyes just slid right past me like I was an annoying chunk of
roadblocks in their way.
I’d stand in the break room holding my coffee, and I could hear them snickering under their breath in the next cubicle.
They’d mimic the way I walked, called me “a fat
penguin“, said my hands shook when I presented, my voice shook, my whole damn body shook.
I didn’t blame them.
I did get nervous. Nervous made me stutter, stutter made me blush, blushing made me stutter even worse
–it was a vicious cycle, a loop I couldn’t climb out of.
I knew what I was–clumsy, awkward, out of place.
Like a dull knife that was just in the way no matter where you put it.
But I still needed this job.
money,
It wasn’t that the job was good. I needed the needed to survive in this city, needed to prove I wasn’t
useless.
I needed the paycheck to pay off the medical debt my mom left behind.
Ding.
My phone vibrated again.
I finally lifted my head.
The dark gray moon avatar lit up the screen.
Nox texted me.
[Why haven’t you messaged me all day?]
I stared at those words, and my eyes suddenly burned.
I’d met Nox on an anonymous dating app three months earlier.
We never exchanged real names.
He called me Wren.
Wren meant little wren, tiny king of the birds.
I called him Nox.
After the black moon.
I didn’t know where he lived, only that he was 31, six
foot two, loved working out, smoking cigars, and mystery novels.
He said his job was dangerous, so he never sent voice notes.
I never pressed.
After all, I couldn’t exactly tell him I worked for the most dangerous family in Chicago either.
We talked for three days before he asked for a photo.
I hesitated for ages, only sent a picture of just my eyes.
I’d taken my black–rimmed glasses off.
He could only see my eyes and a sliver of my nose in the frame.
Right after I hit send, I regretted it.
I was just about to unsend it when he replied.
[Your eyes are beautiful.]
I stared at that sentence for a full minute.
No one had ever called me beautiful my whole life.
My mom would just pat my head and tell me looks
didn’t matter, a woman just needed to be capable to get by.
But I wasn’t even capable.
At least to everyone at Valtieri Group, I was clumsy,
slow, couldn’t even put together a decent market report.
Only Nox never saw me that way.
Iranted to him about work.
Told him how coworkers made fun of me.
Told him how that stupid manager Dario dumped all his work on me.
Told him how my stone–faced boss Elio stared at me with those gray eyes in meetings, like he was two
seconds from ordering his goons to dump me in the Chicago River.
Nox always told me.
[You don’t have to please them.]
[They don’t get to decide your worth.]
Now he sent another text.
[What’s going on?]
I buried my face back in the pillow.
My finger hovered over the keyboard.
I wanted to tell him I got fired today.
Wanted to tell him my boss told me I made him sick in front of the whole room.
But I wasn’t ready to relive it all again.
Nox sent a job posting screenshot.
[I remember this is the field you’re good at.]
[This company’s hiring right now.]
Then another text right after.
[Or you could come work for me.]
My heart skipped a beat.
I texted back.
[You haven’t even met me.]
[What if I’m just as bad as my boss says I am?]
He replied almost instantly.
[You’re good enough.]
[How do you know that?]
[My gut never lies to me.]
Guts lied all the time.
He went quiet for a minute, then sent a picture.