15. Lorenzo #2
His jaw shifts.
I sit again.
He pours more scotch and does not drink it.
“Double,” he says.
“No.”
“Double is generous.”
“Double is what you offer when you think I need you.”
“You do need me. North Shore is mine.”
“For now.”
His eyes narrow.
The men at the windows go still.
Rocco does not move, but I can feel him waiting.
Vance taps one finger against the table. There it is, that old prison rhythm returning. He hates being cornered. Most men do. The successful ones learn to pay for the door.
“Two point two,” he says.
I reach for the vial.
“Two and a half,” he says.
My hand stops.
He hates himself for saying it. I see it in the way his mouth tightens around the next breath.
“Two and a half,” he repeats. “And I get triple my usual order. First third by Friday.”
“Half by Friday.”
He shakes his head. “No.”
I slide the vial one inch toward my side of the table.
He curses.
“Half by Friday,” he says. “But if the quality drops, I cut payment on the rest.”
“If the quality drops, you can keep your money.”
His eyes flicker.
He wants to ask who did it.
I can see the question sitting behind his teeth.
He takes another look at the vial, and there is the mistake. Not in his offer. Not in his greed. Those I understand. The mistake is that he forgets the product did not appear from air.
“You hit a gold mine with this cook,” he says.
The word is casual.
Cook.
Not chemist. Not professor. Not woman in a white coat with ink on her thumb and tired eyes that still refuse to bend.
Cook.
I keep my hand around the glass.
Vance keeps talking. “Whoever it is, they know what they’re doing. If the next batch comes in this clean, I’ll pay ten times the order price for the person.”
His men chuckle.
One of them says, “Cheaper than stealing the recipe.”
Vance grins, warmed by his own joke. “I’m serious. Ten times. Cash.”
The room stays the same.
The chandelier hums faintly overhead. Outside, the city wears the damp heaviness of an autumn evening. Scotch rests in Vance’s glass. The duffel sits open by Mateo’s polished shoes.
Nothing moves except my thoughts.
Victoria in the lab, arguing with Salvatore over filtration.
Victoria in the bedroom, damp hair on her shoulders, telling me she needs clean space and proper equipment.
Victoria looking at the vial in my hand not with hope, but expectation.
Then a different picture arrives without permission.
An empty station behind the privacy screens.
No ink-stained notes on the steel table.
No woman standing beneath white lights, refusing to learn fear properly.
My fingers close around the vial.
Vance’s grin begins to fail.
“Lorenzo?”
I look at him.
His men stop laughing.
The room seems smaller all at once.
Matteo turns his head slightly, not enough to draw attention, only enough to know where my hand is. Rocco’s coat shifts behind me.
Neither man reaches for a weapon.
They don’t need to.
Vance notices anyway.
His smile disappears completely.
“Easy,” he says, raising both palms. “It was business.”
“No.”
The word comes out calm. That is what changes his face.
I place the vial back into my pocket.
“The deal is for the product.”
“Of course.”
“Not people.”
For a moment, nobody moves.
He studies me now, really studies me, and the years between us do their work. He knows when a room has changed. He knows when an old joke has walked into a bad neighbourhood.
Whatever this is, it isn’t about money anymore.
“I meant nothing by it,” he says.
“I know.”
That does not comfort him.
I stand.
Matteo zips the duffel. Rocco steps away from the wall.
Vance rises more slowly.
“First delivery Friday,” I say. “Half the order. Two and a half times price. Cash at the canal warehouse before transfer.”
He nods once.
“And Marcus.”
His eyes lift.
“If you ask about my chemist again, you lose the North Shore before the weekend ends.”
A wet click sounds in his throat.
He wants to respond. Pride demands it.
Greed keeps him quiet.
I walk to the door, then stop with my hand on the handle.
“Six months from now, you’ll wish it still cost this much.”
I leave him with the wet cloud, the scotch, and the knowledge that he paid more than he planned to pay before I even finished my drink.
The hallway outside the suite is silent.
Thick carpet softens our footsteps.
At the private elevator, Mateo presses the button with his knuckle.
Rocco watches the corner.
I watch the numbers above the doors.
My hand remains in my coat pocket, wrapped around Victoria’s vial.
It should be about the money.
Triple order. Two and a half times rate. A new lane through the North Shore before winter. Vance’s distributors about to spread the word without knowing they are doing my work for me.
Instead, I think about a woman who called me late inside my own laboratory.
Not late with fear, but with the purest form of product.
The elevator doors open.
We ride down without speaking.
The service exit opens into the basement garage. Cold air rushes in. Our SUV waits near the far row, black paint beaded with rain. Matthew stands beside it, scanning the garage with both hands free.
Matteo takes the front passenger seat. Rocco gets in beside me in the back. The duffel goes at my feet.
“Estate?” Matthew asks, ready to move.
“Yes.”
The SUV pulls from the garage and climbs the ramp to street level.
Chicago meets us with rain.
It turns the pavement black and bright under the lights, blurs the headlights ahead, gathers in gutters until the tyres hiss through it. People hurry beneath umbrellas. A bus groans at the curb.
The city continues, somewhere, men make deals and die for it, while we turn onto Michigan Avenue.