Chapter 7
GIANNI
"He doesn't have the votes," Spackman says. "Not yet. But he's courting Ferrante in Newark and the Calabrese family in Boston. If he locks both down..."
"He won't."
"Gianni." Spackman leans forward, elbows on his knees. "With the grand jury convening in four weeks, you can't afford a war on two fronts. Marino smells blood. If the Feds get any traction..."
"They haven't gotten traction in fifteen years. They won't start now."
Theresa recrosses her legs. "I can handle Marino's union play. I still have contacts at the port authority who owe us favors. But Chad's right. The timing is terrible. If we're fighting Marino and managing a RICO investigation simultaneously, something slips."
"Nothing slips," I say. And I mean it. Nothing slips, nothing cracks, nothing moves without my permission.
That's how I've run this empire for two decades. Not by being smarter than everyone in the room, though I usually am, but by being the one who never blinks.
You don't survive by being reckless. No. You survive by being patient and precise. Not to mention utterly unwilling to lose.
Right now, however, patience isn't coming easily. And the reason is seated fifteen feet from me.
Violet Wolfe.
Her red hair is falling across her forehead, tucked behind one ear so her glasses sit straight.
Her green eyes are focused on the page, deliberately not looking at me, which only makes me want her more.
She's wearing a fitted black blouse today, buttoned one higher than yesterday, as if she wants to show a little modesty after the bit of immodesty last night.
She shifts in her chair, uncrosses and recrosses her legs, and the movement pulls her skirt an inch higher on her thigh. She doesn't notice. I do.
I remember the sound she made when my thumb dragged across her panties. That small, desperate, involuntary sound. Not a moan, not a gasp, something more helpless than either. A sound that told me she'd been thinking about this longer than she'd ever admit.
A sound that went straight to my cock and hasn't left since.
I wonder what she'd do if I cleared this room right now, sent Theresa and Spackman out, locked the door, walked over to that chair and pulled her to her feet.
Turned her around. Bent her over the edge of my desk with her palms flat against the mahogany, her skirt pushed up around her hips, her panties pulled to the side.
I'd take my time, slide two fingers inside her until she was soaking, until her legs were shaking, until she was begging me in that breathless, broken voice I heard last night.
And then I'd make her come so hard she'd forget her own name.
Whichever name she's using this week. Because that's the other thing.
I've known something was off since the second month, when I pulled her personnel file and found it too clean, too seamless, too perfectly ordinary.
I let it sit. A clean file isn't a crime, and I had bigger problems. Then Friday morning she put page one hundred and twelve in my inbox, and clean stopped being a curiosity.
No one is that ordinary.
Violet Wolfe is not who she says she is. And the fact that I want her anyway, want her more because of it, if I'm being honest, is a problem I haven't figured out how to solve.
I want her, but I don't trust her. These two pieces of information sit side by side in a way I don't quite understand.
This room isn't the place, and this conversation isn't finished.
"Thank you, Theresa. Miss Wolfe." I stand, buttoning my jacket. "That'll be all for now."
Theresa rises immediately, though I can tell by the look on her face that she's a little put out about being dismissed.
Violet takes a beat longer. She closes the legal pad carefully, clicks her pen, tucks it into the spiral binding. Precise. Controlled. She glances at me as she stands, and for half a second, I see it. The question behind her eyes. Why did you bring me in here?
I don't answer it. Not yet.
Theresa strides out into the hall without glancing back, her heels clicking. The walk is performative, as if she wants Violet to notice she's not waiting for her, that my dismissal didn't bother her when I know damn well it did. Violet moves at her own unhurried pace.
The door closes. I wait until both sets of footsteps have faded, then sit back down.
"Close the blinds," I tell Spackman.
He does, then settles into the chair across from me, and the room changes. The air gets heavier. The pretense of corporate professionalism falls away like a suit jacket dropped on the floor.
"Gianni." Spackman's voice speaking my name pulls me back into the moment. He's watching me with a calm, knowing expression that suggests he's clocked something I don't want him to know.
"Go on," I say.
"The grand jury," he says. "The US attorney's office has been building this for months."
"And what are we doing?" I ask.
Spackman continues. "We're giving it a full-court press. Blocking subpoenas, stonewalling witnesses, tying their hands with motions. But they're getting closer. If they convene and the jury votes to unseal..."
"They won't unseal."
"They might, Gianni. And if they do, it's RICO. That's not a fine, and that's not a slap on the wrist. It's asset seizure, conspiracy charges, and every business I've helped you insulate over the last five years suddenly exposed."
I let the silence sit.
Spackman has earned the right to speak plainly.
I gave him that right the night I dragged him out of a warehouse in Red Hook with two bullets in his shoulder.
He was a good agent. Honest. Which is exactly why the Bureau hung him out to dry when he got too close to the wrong people.
I brought him in because loyalty like his doesn't exist in the wild anymore, and because a man like him knows exactly how government machinery works.
And exactly how to break it.
He's the only person in any room whose judgment I trust without reservation.
"What do you need?" I ask.
He leans forward. "Time. Time and information.
" He glances away for a moment, giving more thought to the question.
"I need to dig into Marino, find out more.
And not just the union plays. Everything.
I need to dig into his financials, his alliances, his communications.
If he's making a move for the seat, that means he's coordinating with people.
And people are sloppy, leave information trails.
I'll find them. And when I do, I'll find leverage. "
Quick and to the point. Another reason I like him.
"Do it."
"I'll need resources. Off-book."
"You'll get them."
He nods. "And the grand jury?"
"Our attorneys will handle the legal front. Motions, delays, procedural challenges. We buy time, stretch things out."
"Money's always a good way to gunk the gears of the legal system," Spackman adds.
I nod in agreement and continue. "By then, you'll have what we need on Marino, and we use it to shore up our position with the other families.
Marino loses his allies, he loses his play for the seat, and the Feds lose their star witness.
Because I guarantee you, whatever evidence they think they have, at least some of it is coming from Marino's side of the street. "
I watch the calculation move across Spackman's face. He sees the logic. He also sees the risk.
"It's tight," he says.
"It's always tight. We navigate. We figure it out."
He purses his lips and nods in confirmation, as if he'd had doubts but doesn't any longer. "Done. I'll have preliminary findings within the week."
"Make it sooner." I pause. "And Wolfe."
"It's been two days, Gianni. I said slow."
"I know what you said."
"Then you know I don't have anything yet." He shifts in the chair, favoring the shoulder. "What I have is what I can see from inside this building. She files things. She eats at her desk. She leaves at five on the dot, every day, for eleven months." A beat. "Except this week."
"This week."
"Wednesday she left at ten." He doesn't say from where. He doesn't have to.
"Pull every thread. And do it carefully. I don't want her to know, and I don't want anyone else in this building to know. Whatever she's hiding, I want to find it before someone else does."
He studies me for a beat. I can see the question he won't ask, because he already knows the answer.
Why do you care this much about an office manager?
Because she's not just an office manager. Not anymore.
"You'll have it," he says. He stands, straightens his jacket, and heads for the door. He pauses with his hand on the handle. "For what it's worth, I think she's running. Hiding."
"From what?"
"That's the question I aim to answer, boss."
He leaves before I can respond.