Octavia Girl

Chapter Twenty One

Vash, the Complainer

Vash, the butler, was a different story.

He was built like a brick wall with the biggest hands Jenna had ever seen on a person. He could have palmed her head and crushed it with one hand.

“I don’t do laundry,” he said in a voice closely resembling a British accent.

“What? Why?” Jenna asked curiously.

“It’s your stylist’s job to take care of your wardrobe,” he continued. “I don’t give massages.”

Jenna looked at his meaty hands and thought that request probably came up quite frequently. She imagined just one of his fingers was a good deal more effective than the mechanical fingers inside a massage chair.

“I don’t help anyone in or out of the bath.”

Jenna imagined that had probably come up before as well and nodded.

“I don’t accept visitors in my bedroom.”

“That’s a given,” Jenna replied.

“I don’t clean up messes in the middle of the night,” he pressed.

Jenna nodded, the skepticism inside her was beginning to simmer.

“I don’t do maintenance work. I will not flush out your plumbing. I will not fix the hot water tanks. I will not be on call to fix appliances in the kitchen. I will not go up on the roof to realign solar cells, correct wiring, or repair wireless devices. I will not work on preassigned days off. I will not whip something up in the kitchen. I will not do outdoor landscaping. And I am not your answering service.”

Jenna put her hand up to stop the rant. “Given your job description, most of what you’re saying is completely reasonable, but if you want to say you are not my answering service, that’s going too far. I appreciate that you’ve been imposed upon and asked to complete tasks that were not in your job description in the past. I’m willing to allow you to only do your job and no one else’s, but if you can’t pass on simple messages… Well, that’s unacceptable.”

“I can walk out of here right now,” Vash threatened without flinching.

“Yeah. You can. If this job is beneath you or you feel you haven’t been heard, you can walk.”

“Jenna,” Sardius chirped up, back in his old perch of her ear. “We might not be able to get anyone who can replace him. He’s enormous. I chose him because I was hoping he could double as a bodyguard.”

Jenna didn’t amend her stance and instead met Vash’s gaze steadily.

Finally, he broke eye contact and put his nose up in the air. “There is no reason for me to be responsible for your messages when you have a personal assistant like Sardius.”

“In that case, I’ll ask that you only pass on messages when Sardius is unable to,” Jenna amended.

Vash favored her with a particularly sour stare. “He’ll always be available. Considering your level of experience with having your own staff, I suppose I’ll give you a trial period. I’ll give you three months.”

Jenna glanced at his contract that was displayed on the wall. It already stated that he was being hired for a three-month trial period. She smirked. “I’m happy to give you a try too, but I should warn you, if you prove to be antagonistic or particularly unhelpful, I’ll fire you. I need a support team in my home who believes in our mission. I need you to work with me and the other members of the household happily. Will you be able to do that?” she asked, softening her tone on the last words.

“I will not dance with my shirt off!” he shouted like he had to get his whole list off his chest. No pun intended. “I will not rip my pants off!”

“Great. No one wants to see you with your shirt or pants off, dude,” Jenna replied before she could help it.

Vash snorted. “You’ll see. You’ll see how much fun this all is once Adamis military officers get here and start wanting the royal treatment.”

“Really?” Jenna asked, curious and leaning forward. “Those guys are the AAMC? Have you had experiences with them? What can you tell me about them?”

Jenna listened while Vash shouted out six second-hand accounts of things that had happened when Arvantis was living in her palace, though he had not worked for Arvantis. Some of them turned out to be third-hand accounts. Jenna wasn’t sure if she believed them, but Vash seemed satisfied that she was willing to listen to him. It went all the better because she didn’t try to cut him off again. When he had said everything he needed to say, he went up to his room to unpack.

“Was there any truth in that, Sardius?” Jenna whispered. “You were Arvantis’ assistant.”

“I never once said Arvantis was a good person. I said I did my job concerning him. As for the stories Vash told, the only ones that have any merit were the ones that spoke of how Arvantis treated his lover, Vinia. They sound a bit made up and they have been embellished, but he really didn’t treat her well behind closed doors. I would have liked to have done something to stand up for her, except for two things.”

“Which were?”

“She had signed warped agreements with him that made him able to abuse her legally. If I’d reported him to a disciplinary authority, they wouldn’t have been able to charge him. She’d signed papers stating it was okay for him to hit her, shoot her up with drugs, yell at her, subject her to humiliation, and more. I had access to their agreements and video footage of her in negotiations. She thought it would be fun, but he turned out to be worse than she expected.”

“What was the second reason?” Jenna pressed.

“Vinia was incredibly interesting. After she got all the jollies she could have by getting swatted across the face, she got interesting, and I found her fascinating to watch.”

“What happened to her?”

“Arvantis died, the police carted her off as a suspect, then as a witness, and after the investigation, she was never allowed to return to the palace. I supervised the moving company that packed her things, but I haven’t spoken to her since.”

“What did she do that you found so fascinating?”

“It’ll come up.”

Jenna frowned. “What do you mean, ‘it will come up’?”

“Exactly that. It will come up and when it does, you’ll be glad I watched her so carefully. At the very least, we can talk about it later. Smoothie, the new cook, is waiting to meet you.”