2. Matteo
Chapter 2
Matteo
A raven was staring at me from the window of the office I occupied. As children, we’d been warned by mother’s people not to stare into the eyes of a raven for too long because when it flew away, it’d take our soul with it.
The pen I had in my fingers was tapping lightly against the desk where I sat, and the raven seemed to be fluttering his feathers in tune with my movements.
When I stopped, he stopped.
When I started again, he fluttered again.
“Zacharra,” a voice said from behind me, causing me to give a slight jump.
“What?” I asked, turning and looking around, coming face to face with Agent Jack Berkley.
He was a short balding man, who was set to retire later in the year. He’d been on desk duty for the last few years, mostly a glorified secretary for the Seattle FBI office.
“Director wants to see you in his office,” he said before departing, leaving the door to my office open.
A sigh escaped my lips as I swiveled back around to look at the raven.
The raven had left but I was ever so sure that my soul was still intact.
Adjusting the case files on my desk, I reached and turned off the pink salt lamp that I kept on during the day.
The Director was going to be my last stop of the day before I headed out and got a drink. He’d been riding my ass lately because of some shit that had happened a few months ago. I’d even lost my chance to move to the East Coast for a better position.
It was another grievance that I was going to file against my father the next time I saw him. There was no mistaking it, I was going to see him. I hoped that it would be sooner rather than later.
As I was rounding the corner, coming from the opposite direction I locked eyes with Jason Nakamura. His sharp angled eyes pierced into my own and wouldn’t look away.
He hated me and I hated him right back.
Of course, he had a good reason to hate my guts, not that I could blame him.
We hadn’t started off as enemies, in fact we’d been best friends meeting at the academy in Quantico, Virginia.
Then, I’d met and married his sister Jessica. Our marriage had been short and tumultuous to say the least. The moment I’d signed my name on the divorce papers, I’d been on Jason’s shit list.
Turning the corning, I realized we were going in the same direction.
“Do you know what this is about?” I asked as we stepped onto the elevator together.
“Didn’t ask,” Jason mashed the button hard to take us to the director’s office.
The elevator grew quiet, only the hum of the machinery carrying us up to the very top floor to the Director’s office. The quiet ding hit my ears and we stepped off going left. We stopped at the secretary’s desk, and she offered us a small smile.
“Director Lance is expecting you,” she went back to work.
What does he want?
Following behind Jason, I let him lead the way. Director Jacob Lance kept his office dark as if he were sitting in his own personal corner of hell.
We rarely ever saw him out in the main office building, and I hated getting called up here. The man gave me the goddamned creeps.
Imagine that being a grown ass man, an FBI agent no less and having to deal with a man everyone called Dracula behind his back.
“Good evening gentleman,” the director said once we were inside.
Slowly, I braced myself as I closed the door before turning around.
It was smokey as hell in this office and all you could see was an ember burning on the tip of the cigar, I knew he was smoking.
I was surprised that there weren’t smoke alarms blaring demanding we all exit the building.
“Evening, Director,” I mumbled ready to go, the sensation of something creeping and crawling, rolling up and down my spine.
“I suppose you’re both wondering why I’ve called you up here,” he stated, puffing on the cigar again.
I could barely see my hand in front of my face, just the glow of the damned ember. Reaching to my neck, I wiggled the tie around it wanting to loosen it a bit. I felt as if I were choking from the thick heavy sweet miasma.
“We were,” Jason said next.
“I hand-picked the two of you,” the director spoke again before another drag on the cigar happened. “For a task force that will be targeting the Ito crime family.”
“Who are they?” I asked.
“Yakuza,” Jason said from beside me.
Clearly, he knew something that I didn’t, but I let it slide.
“For now,” the director spoke softly once more. “You’ll be simply observing. Gathering intel and reporting back to me.”
“Sir?” I finally questioned.
A pregnant pause filled the air. “Yes, Zacharra?”
Director Lance said my last name with such a disdain sometimes, I wondered if he hated my guts. We hardly ever interacted with each other, so I shook it off.
“How many people are being assigned to this task force?”
“As of right now, it’s just the two of you. I’ve paired you and Agent Nakumara, due to the fact that he speaks fluent Japanese. I know the two of you have history together.”
I coughed, pulling at the tie that seemed to be trying to strangle me. The Director continued.
“I trust that won’t be an issue for either of you?”
Everything seemed to go silent, I couldn’t hear anything until finally Jason cleared his throat and replied. “No, sir. It won’t be a problem on my end.”
I nodded, even though it was dark. “Not a problem, sir.”
“Good. I have my secretary getting files ready for the two of you for Monday morning. Gentleman, I don’t have to tell you that this needs to be kept to yourselves.”
Jason and I finally exited Lance’s office. I gulped in the air the first chance I could. Neither of us said a word, even as we passed the secretary’s desk who had already left for the evening.
Getting onto the elevator, we were quiet still. It wasn’t until we were stepping off to go in the opposite direction that I suggested something I hadn’t done in a long time.
“Mmm…Jason,” I spoke.
“What?” He snapped, his hands going to his hips.
Taking a deep breath, I realized that this was going to be an extremely long assignment. We needed to find some common ground, or it was going to be even longer.
“I was thinking we could grab a beer tonight, there’s a bar, I like to go to. Not too far from here.”
He raised an eyebrow, his eyes seeming annoyed. “We’re not friends, Zacharra. Why in the hell would I want to grab a beer with you?”
Taking a deep breath, I let it go. “I want to go over some details on this case. Look, I’ll be at Noir, if you decide to show up.”
He frowned as if he were thinking about it. I watched his mouth open to reply and then he clamped it shut. He spun away and stormed off.
“What a dick,” I muttered before heading back to my office.
Opening the door to my office, I picked up my laptop and placed it inside my bag. I hadn’t been lying when I said that I wanted to go over the case. Clearly, the Ito crime family was a major faction and I wanted to know everyone in the game.
Snatching up my car keys from the drawer at my desk, I looked up to find the raven was back on the windowsill. We stared at each other for a moment before he gave a series of loud, deep guttural croaks.
I stopped, and stared caught up in the sound before he finally flew off again. Snapping out of it, I turned off the light in my office.
That beer from T.J.’s was calling my name; it’d been a long week.