The $100k Bonus and the $800k Bill

Summary

My year-end bonus was a solid hundred thousand, and my girlfriend, Valerie, insisted I treat her to a grand dinner. The bill, though, came to eight hundred thousand. My jaw dropped. This was daylight robbery! I refused to pay. The restaurant owner, a formidable woman, didn’t bat an eye. Instead, she had her crew seize me, snarling that if I didn’t come up with the cash, they’d make me disappear.

I finally got a good look at her, and a surge of anger coursed through me. Wasn't this Ramona Flowers, one of my mother, Astrid Vance’s, former associates? My mom, for all her ruthless reputation as a crime boss, had always been incredibly tender with me, her only son. When my dad divorced her years ago, I was disgusted by her violent lifestyle and refused to see her. She’d promised me then, tears in her eyes, that she would retire from the underworld for good. I never imagined that all these years later, her crew would still be running their old rackets! And now they’d actually kidnapped me!

…