Off Limits, Brother's Best Friend Chapter 106

Chapter 106: Living My Dream Job

Callan

I don't know how Brianna feels about it and I didn't ask. What we were doing between us is having fun, it is not serious heart to heart or really much talking beyond sexy phone calls and messages. And I want it to stay that way, so I didn't ask.

My father was in town which means I had a lot of criticism coming my way, he is a hard ass and he has always been even though I run the empire perfectly, he always feels like he wants to correct me on some or press about being better at something else. It is a load of shít, one major issue my father has had with me for years is the fact that I made Bryce my left hand man over my own family. He was ousse that I raised him through the ranks in record time and that my aunt's child isn't my number three when it is his birthright. My father doesn't dislike Bryce or anything but he always disagreed with me on this. He hasn't been running lead on anything here in Port Harcourt for a while now, so he didn't have the right to complain and try to undo what I did. He has been living in another state at our casinos and I told him to go worry about what he has got over there.

Him and my mother are separated but not divorced. He didn't want to legally give her half of everything so the crazy bastard just left his wife, giving her a monthly allowance to keep her content and quiet. He won't be staying there on his little visit, he is staying at his brother's house and it is where I was heading to now. I know this goddamn house is going to be full to the brim with all my loud, crazy family members. A bunch of mobsters, mafia princesses, daughters and wives and ex-wives and the whole thing. I can say I get a lot of respect within the family because they do acknowledge that I am number one, no matter how much older most of them are. They are still family though, so it isn't the same as my goons and soldiers and a lot of capos.

“Callan!” I already heard someone hollering my name from the entryway.

After about forty kisses I waved everyone away, I walked down to the cigarette room my uncle has in his house where I knew my father was. Him, my three cousins and my uncles and when I opened the door, I remembered how old school this room is. It looks like an old time cigar bar with the deep brown leather upholstery and other decorum. I kind of used this as inspiration for my poker room in the back of my club. I grew up in this room, back when my legs couldn't reach the ground when I sat on the high stools beside the wet bar. I listened to my father and his men talk about the business. I was always listening. As a child, I was like my father's shadow, maybe that is why I have got a knack for this. I had two younger sisters I didn't care to play with, so I was always following older men of the family, just watching.

“My son, big guy.” My father stood up and slapped me on the back.

“Father,” I nodded to him in acknowledgment.

“I have been hearing good things, Callan. I was talking to your uncles.” He surprised me by saying that.

“I told you I run a tight ship here.” I walked right past him and shook hands with my uncles.

I was already being offered a pour of whiskey and a cigar, typically, one of my little cousins was sitting on the same stand with his feet dangling. He watched me drop onto the leather chair and cut the end of my cigar. Maybe I was so desensitized to violence because I heard stories about mafias having to sit down that would go array. People blowing guys head off with a sawed off shotgun hidden below a table at the old man's diner. Stories about gutting a man, I heard all about the violence and then I went to the military and lived oy the violence. When I returned here, I was running the empire. I started ordering the violence, carrying some of it out myself without even blinking.

“Where is your number three?” My father asked, already starting with me.

“Not here,” I replied.

“You cousin just turned nineteen, it is time to start bringing him around to learn some of the business.” He wasn't looking at me as he said that, he was looking down at the cigar he was lighting.

“No, hi? No, how are you? We were just going straight to business then.” I felt like an asshole.

“Hi, how are you?” My father repeated in a bigger asshole tone that even I managed. I chuckled sardonically and shook my head.

“Tell me about the capos that have been giving you trouble.” He randomly spoke again and I cursed in my mind.

Who the fuck opened their big mouth and told him about that? I wanted him to stay out of it, that is east coast business and he is living on the west coast. No need to involve him at all. I rolled my shoulders back and unclenched my jaw, here we go with the critics again.

****

Brianna POV

I have been running myself ragged lately between working for Elizabeth and Janet. Joining meetings, going to pull looks for clients, transporting clothes for shoots, shadowing Janet and Elizabeth, taking notes and cleaning up. It is what I wanted and I can't complain but I have to at least acknowledge the toll it takes on a person to handle this constantly. I am juggling two jobs that usually are a handful on their own, so just imagine. I have been alongside Janet and other writers, putting their mainline collection on the runway. It was this whole article and I got to sit on the sidelines behind the scenes to take notes for Janet. Today is one of those days when all this hard work pays off.

Janet Alinco is taking one writer and one intern to France for Vogue's articles on the new Dior collection and the Designer Guild award. It is an incredible opportunity and somehow, by some miracle she chose me as the intern to go. I thought it was unfair to Lucy and the others because I am so new but she wants to test me out a little more. This is the payoff for working as hard as I have been. I am addicted to this feeling of exhilaration whenever I get good news, or find out who we will meet or where we will work next. I am in the middle of living my dream job, it is not the future, it is here and now.

I was also so excited to see France for the first time in my life, we will be there for a few days. Two days of crazy preparation and behind the scenes stuff, one day of the show and one day for the award and then we leave first thing in the morning the next day. It was a perfect short flight too, under a few hours to fly from one point to the other. Jane was jealous that I was getting to go all these awesome things but she will obviously be staying behind in London. It is not even a week since we will be apart, but it is the first time we haven't been together since we came here. Already three months, how time flies. Elizabeth had called this a trial run and I passed with flying colors, she was generous enough to give me these few days off from interning so I could go to France with Janet.

I am building up quite the resume with the experience I have been getting. I have been thrown into the fashion industry and I haven't stopped once.

***

Our first day here, we had a few hours to ourselves to look around. Myself and the writer Janet had brought along decided to go explore it together even though we don't really know each other. Still we took our tourist pictures and walked through a lot of this cool city. The palace was too far from this location for us to walk there, so maybe another time or in passing to the events this week. Janet only told us to meet her promptly in two hours at the location she pinned and sent to us, where she is right now, I don't know. When the magazine does articles like a look inside the Dior runway show, it means we go behind the scenes, we see what is going on with the movement of the models and the stylist and we look at the clothes. Then we go out to the show and watch that too or at least they do when they write. I am not a writer, I am here as the intern that does the grunt work for her. We have some meetings to attend today and that is really all I know about it so far.