Page 5 of Billionaire Hunt

Chapter 2

“Get up.”

“No.”

“Get up.”

“Go away,” I groaned as I tried to use my pillow to block out the burst of light that filled my room.

“You have two seconds to get up or I’m bringing in a hose.”

I peeked out from under my pillow and said to the man who was standing next to my bed, looking annoyed, “Oh man...did Grandma call you?”

Uncle Niko nodded. “She says you haven’t showered in weeks.”

I sat up and shrugged. “It might have been that long. Maybe longer.”

Uncle Niko shook his head and said, “Pitiful. You look like a dirty, street kid. Like you spend your evenings picking through garbage looking for food.”

I looked down at my shirt. I had fallen asleep in a t-shirt and sweatpants. It was my uniform now. My shirt was covered in mustard stains. I couldn’t help myself. I binge ate hot dogs when I was depressed. And there were unknown stains all over my sweatpants. I figured some of those stains were ketchup, relish and probably even more mustard.

“Okay, so I eat like a pig when I’m depressed. Sue me. Whatever,” I said, turning to bury myself back under the blankets when I caught sight of my face in the mirror. I had black smudges across my cheeks. “Where the heck did those come from?” I said to myself as I spit on my fingers and tried to wipe it off.

Uncle Niko sat down in the chair across from me and shook his head. He said with amusement, “You look like a coal miner.”

He was right. “I have no idea what this gook is on my face.” I gave up trying to fix it.

“You’re a mess, Misha.”

“My life is a mess. What do you expect?”

“I definitely don’t expect you to just sleep your life away just because Wyatt left you. I never liked that guy.”

I fell back on my bed with a sigh. “For the hundredth time...I left him. He did not leave me. Well, I mean…we left each other.”

“Doesn’t matter...same conclusion. You getting up sometime this week or do you plan to turn into a dry skeleton?” He shook his head. “I thought I raised you better.”

“You didn’t raise me.”

“I gave you candy. And sent you birthday cards.”

“Why’d you stop giving me candy?” I whined, feeling nostalgic for simpler times when my only concern had been how much chocolate I could stuff myself with.

“You’re an adult. Buy your own candy.”

“Newsflash, Uncle Niko. I’m broke.”

He instantly stopped teasing me. “You serious?”

I turned my face to look at him. He hadn’t aged much over the years, except that his dark hair was now turning slightly silver and there were silver streaks in his beard. He was short and stocky, wearing jeans and a plain t-shirt. He had tattoos from his wrists up both his arms, finishing at his neck. And he had a scar that started at the top of his forehead and finished just between his brows.

He wore his wedding ring on his finger. He never removed it, even though his wife, Selma, had been dead for at least two decades.

He looked tough because he was tough. I remember hearing rumors that he served time before I was born. And my friends in the neighborhood had said he was in the mafia. Grandma had always silenced those rumors, but just looking at him, it was an easy assumption to make. Most people who didn’t know him well were afraid of him.

He was tough-looking on the outside and a tough talker too, but he had always been there for me and my friends. Embarrassingly enough, he had met all my dates. He had also scared all my dates away so it was a miracle that I had even ended up married.

“Maybe you should have done a better job scaring Wyatt away,” I commented out loud.