Chapter 25 #2
He stops at the counter.
Smiles.
“Hi. I’m here to open a checking account,” he says. Deadpan. Not even blinking. “Or ruin someone’s day. Dealer’s choice.”
Janice actually giggles.
Giggles.
This is a hostage situation. Emotionally.
I stare at him. He stares back.
“Lev,” I whisper.
“Sweetheart,” he replies, like we’re in a romcom and not a federal crime.
“Why are you here?”
He shrugs, casual as hell. “I needed to see their faces. Get a visual on the charming assholes who make your workdays a waking nightmare.”
Then he leans in, low and warm and way too close. “And if you need someone to rearrange their teeth, just blink twice. I’m very affordable. First hit’s on the house.”
I blink once. Hard.
He grins.
Stephanie peeks over her monitor. I can feel her trying to eavesdrop without being obvious, which she is failing at.
Lev glances lazily around the room. “So this is where the magic happens. Beige cubicles. Institutional lighting. Cold-blooded bitchery.”
I cough into my sleeve to cover a laugh.
“You need to leave,” I murmur. “Right now. I’m at work.”
He tilts his head. “You call this work?”
“Lev.”
He holds up his hands in mock surrender. “Fine, fine. But you’re not fooling anyone. You’ve got your angry eyes on today.”
I blink. “What does that even mean?”
“It means I know a woman on the edge of a breakdown when I see one. And yours is going to be spectacular.”
Stephanie walks by. She gives me a once-over, then eyes Lev like she’s debating offering him her number or her womb.
Lev watches her go. Doesn’t say a word. Just tracks her with that lazy, unreadable gaze.
Then, casually—to me—he says, “That one? She’s got dead fish energy. Like the kind that floats to the top before anyone notices the tank’s been off.”
I choke out a laugh.
“You’re insane.”
“And you’re surrounded by amateurs,” he says, low and smooth, just for me. “You sure you want to keep playing nice, Mary?”
He’s smiling. Still joking. But there are teeth underneath it now.
I glance toward the cameras. Toward my coworkers. Toward the fact that I am suddenly very aware I am being watched from multiple directions.
And yet…
For the first time all morning, I don’t feel small.
Just… seen.
Which might be worse.
Lev knows it too.
He knows Anton’s listening. That I’m mic’d up like a tragic reality show contestant. And because he’s Lev—and because he has the emotional maturity of a flamethrower—he milks it.
He taps the counter once. Light. Deliberate.
“Tell Anton I was polite,” he says casually, like he’s signing out of a guestbook.
And then he spins on his heel and walks out like he didn’t just flip my whole day upside down.
The door chime rings behind him.
Stephanie watches him go, slack-jawed.
Then—like clockwork—she turns to me. And suddenly her voice is different. Softer. Almost sweet.
“Hey, um… who was that?” she asks, like we’re besties now. “Friend of yours?”
I don’t answer.
I’m already turning on my heel. Already speaking to the next customer.
She blinks. I can feel her watching me, waiting for something. A name. A reaction. A cue.
I give her nothing.
And it’s the most powerful I’ve felt in weeks.
But the second she turns away—and the lobby settles, and the air goes back to smelling like copier toner and reheated tuna—I sit down and feel it hit.
All of it.
The adrenaline dump. The leftover tension in my shoulders. The too-tight feeling in my blouse that I suddenly notice again now that I’m not being stared at by a legally questionable fashion model.
I count twenties. Confirm account numbers. Smile at the next person like I didn’t just get emotionally suplexed by a man in designer sunglasses.
I go back to doing the job I’m paid to do.
Because yeah. Lev just walked in here like the bank was his playground.
And yeah. He saw everything.
The fake smiles. The high school mean girls in business-casual. The part where I stood there like a human welcome mat and said nothing.
I press my palm to my thigh, then slide it up to my wrist, fingertips brushing the thin band of the bracelet.
No response, obviously. It’s not two-way.
But still—I rub my forehead.
“I didn’t need that,” I mutter, voice still low. “Whatever that was. Mafia theater.”
Still no answer. Of course.
Just the low hum of the printer. The tap of Janice’s nails on her keyboard. The sense that my life has been cracked open like a dropped snow globe and everyone is just pretending the glitter isn’t sticking to the carpet.
I glance toward the front doors, even though he’s long gone.
The girls are still whispering. Probably about him. Maybe about me.
Whatever.
Let them talk.
For once, I wasn’t the weakest thing in the room.
And that… that’s what really messes with me.
Not Lev. Not his grin or his insults or the fact that he definitely scares Stephanie more than HR ever has.
What messes with me is how fast everything changed.
How suddenly I had backup. How easily the dynamic flipped. How even Stephanie looked like she didn’t know where she stood anymore.
And the part that keeps clawing at me?
Anton didn’t come.
He sent someone else.
A distraction. A warning. A message.
But not him.
And that… stings in a place I don’t have words for.
I look down at the bracelet again. It glints under the fluorescents.