Chapter 14
MATTEO
MARCO TELLS ME AMALIA wants me in her office, and I head up there with no real idea what to expect. We haven’t talked much since we got back from Dominic’s. Not about anything that matters anyway, and the kiss is still on my mind.
It wasn’t supposed to mean anything. She grabbed me because someone was about to open the door, and it was the only thing that would get us out of the mess, so I kissed her back and it worked.
But I liked it more than I should have, and now I don’t know how I’m supposed to act around her, so I just push the door open and try to look like a man who hasn’t thought about it once.
She’s behind the desk with papers spread out everywhere, and she glances up when I come in. Her shoulders are tight, her mouth set, so I figure she’s been at this a while.
“Have a seat,” she says, waving at the chair across from her.
I lower myself into it and keep my eyes on the papers instead of on her, which is easier. “Your men cracked the code?”
“Most of it.” She taps a printed page with one finger. “It took them a couple of days, but the code wasn’t as difficult as Dominic probably thinks it is. Once they had the key, the rest was easy.”
I lean forward to get a look. The photos she took are printed out and lined up, and next to each one, there’s a fresh sheet where her men have written everything out. The names that used to be numbers are spelled out now, along with the dates and the amounts. All of it laid out nicely.
“That’s a lot of work for a couple of days,” I say.
“They’re good.” She frowns at the page. “But it bothers me. Why would he leave something like this where anyone could grab it? The door wasn’t even locked.”
I shrug, because I’ve been wondering about that too. “Maybe someone forgot to pull it shut all the way when the guards ran off to handle Fonte. Locks don’t catch if the door’s not closed right, so it’s not as crazy as it sounds.”
“Maybe.” She presses her lips into a tight line.
“Or he never thought anyone could read it,” I say.
“He’s got it all in his code, so as far as he’s concerned, it’s safe right out in the open.
Who’s going to crack it? And I doubt anyone would believe there’d be anything worth taking in that room in the first place, since it’s not even his real house. ”
She tilts her head. “Maybe. Or it could be a trap. Like, maybe he expects someone to do this very thing and believe the info is true, and then he’ll catch them.”
“Nothing a little bit of verifying the info first before acting won’t solve.”
“Right.” She slides half the pages across to me, and I pull them in and start reading.
Most of it is financial records and stuff that usually puts me to sleep, except now it actually means something.
Money coming in and out, accounts I half recognize from the shells she dug up the other week.
.. There’s a whole batch of shipment schedules, dates and ports and weights, and then a stack of notes with just names and little marks next to them.
“These are his connections,” Amalia says, tapping the notes. “Who he owes, who owes him, who he’s been talking to lately...” She runs a pen down the column. “Some of these names I expected. A few of them I really didn’t.”
I look over the schedules. The shipments don’t tell me much on their own, just freight moving from one place to another, so I check them carefully to see if anything jumps out.
“These dates,” I say, sliding a page toward her. “He’s got way more going out than coming in over the last few months. Either he’s selling off everything he’s got, or he’s moving something he isn’t bothering to write down where it came from.”
She leans in, and I keep my focus on the page so I don’t get distracted by her.
“Discrepancies,” she says. “Look here. The numbers in his books don’t match what’s actually moving.
He’s running money through the legitimate side to cover it up.
If this is true and not some fake info he left around on purpose, then maybe we have something to poke at. ”
We work for a while, trading pages back and forth.
Every now and then, she stops to highlight something or scribble a note in the margin, and I watch her more than I should.
She’s good at this, and I think about how I came into this whole thing expecting to babysit a woman who got handed something too big for her, and now I’m the one trying to keep up.
But something nags at me while I’m reading through the shipment dates. I pull a few of the pages closer and line them up next to her notes.
“Hey,” I say. “Look at this. These big shipments... The high-value ones. The dates aren’t random.”
She glances at me. “What do you mean?”
“They line up with things.” I point at one, then another.
“This one’s the week of that big meeting all the families went to last spring.
This one’s around when the Rowen deal closed.
And this one here, right before that whole mess with the docks.
” I tap the page. “Every time something big happens in our world, Dominic’s got a high-value delivery going out within a few days of it. ”
She pulls the schedules toward her and runs them against her own notes, furrowing her brow. “You’re right,” she says. “Every major event. He’s timing them on purpose.” She looks up at me. “But why?”
“That’s the question.” I lean back. “Either he’s using the chaos as cover, since everyone’s looking at the big thing and nobody’s watching his trucks. Or he’s somehow triggering or creating chaos on purpose. Or a combination of both.”
“Maybe.” Her eyes narrow at the page. “Either way, it means he’s a lot more involved in everything than people think. He’s not just running his own operation off in a corner. He’s potentially got a hand in every big thing that moves. And nobody knows it, because they’re all busy with other things.”
“So what is he actually up to?” I ask.
“I don’t know yet.” She pulls a clean sheet of paper toward her.
“But we can find out. If these shipments line up with the big events, then they might be predictable, depending on what’s happening.
If we figure out when and where a high-value shipment’s going to move, we know where to hit him.
A delivery’s vulnerable. It’s out in the open on the road, away from his house and most of his men.
We disrupt one, cost him money, and make him look like he can’t keep his own house in order in front of all the people he’s worked so hard to charm.
And a man like Dominic can’t afford to look weak. ”
My brow creases. “So we go for the thing he can’t protect.”
She finally glances up at me, and there’s an excited glint in her eyes. “We sabotage one shipment, see how he reacts, and learn even more. Then we do it again. We could bleed him slow until he panics and starts making mistakes.”
I nod, because it’s a good plan, and because my father would’ve called this patient and I would’ve called it boring, except it doesn’t feel boring when Amalia lays it out like this. “But first we need to verify this info isn’t fake.”
“Indeed.” She pulls another sheet over and starts marking dates down the side as I slide the shipment schedules closer to her.
I don’t know why, but when she’s excited about something, I get excited too.