Chapter 6 Rafe
RAFE
Ilean back in my desk chair and watch the security feed on my left monitor. Riley sits at the desk in my living room, shoulders hunched forward, fingers moving across the laptop keyboard in bursts. She pauses, rubs her eyes, and starts typing again.
It's been three days since she walked into my house with that duffel bag clutched to her chest and terror written across her face and she hasn't cried once in front of me.
Though, she's looked like she might piss herself a few times.
It's too easy. Men make this sort of task difficult by being difficult and arrogant.
All I have to do with Ms. Maddox is wave a picture of her blushing bride of a sister in front of her face and she does whatever I ask.
Family ties don't just make folks strong—sometimes, they make a person foolish and weak.
I watch her push a strand of hair behind her ear and lean closer to the screen.
Her posture straightens. She's found another entry, probably, or another discrepancy she'll note in that meticulous way of hers before moving on to the next line.
She's good at this—better than I expected.
Feodor said she'd crack under pressure, but so far, she's held steady.
The feed shows her glancing at the door.
She does it every ten minutes or so, as if expecting me to walk in and demand an update.
Or maybe she's thinking about running, though if so, she doesn’t make a move.
Ms. Maddox seems to genuinely want to do this job and go home, and I almost feel bad knowing she won't be going anywhere but a wooden box six feet under.
It's such a shame. She's actually very smart and beautiful, and if things wouldn't get messy, I'd consider her sticking around for other things. But I don't need any more complications in this business.
My eyes flick toward the television that runs round the clock news.
No one has reported her missing yet, but I'd say they got the email she sent out.
Otherwise, I'd be seeing headlines. I'm sure they've tried calling her number, but the guys probably smashed that to pieces, and we know it was likely already dead to begin with.
No one can track where she is at all, so she's my little secret.
Clicking through the different camera views, I make sure the entire property is secure.
First the back door, then the front, then on to the garage and side yard.
It's peaceful, but I didn't install these cameras because I wanted to see my neighbors.
I'm no fool. Riley isn't the reason someone would approach this house.
I'm a dangerous man by all accounts, and I have plenty of enemies. But for now, everything's quiet.
The banker was a meticulous bastard and kept every single record done by hand so no one could hack him.
The ledger Feodor found in Riley's car covers six months of transactions, but it's incomplete.
Entire weeks are missing. Transfers don't match.
Account numbers appear once and then vanish.
Marco built himself a failsafe, and now I'm racing the clock to dismantle it because the last warning he gave me when I told him I was coming for him threatened a full exposure of my business on Christmas if he wasn't alive to stop his failsafe switch. Whatever that means.
Riley shifts in her chair. She reaches for the water bottle I left on the table earlier, unscrews the cap, and drinks. Her throat moves as she swallows. She sets the bottle down and goes back to typing.
I'm lost in my thoughts, trying to decide how to make all of this go away cleanly as soon as my ledgers are complete, when my phone buzzes. I take my eyes off the screen to look down at my phone that is lit up with Joel's number. He doesn't call me very often so I take it seriously when he does.
"Yeah," I answer, letting my eyes drift back to watch Riley continuing to type.
"Boss, we got a problem…"
I almost swear out loud before I catch myself and grumble, "What problem?"
"Seems like Lombardi was selling ledger sheets, Boss. Looks like maybe to the Caruso family."
My jaw tightens. "How many sheets?"
"We don't know. Could be one or could be fifty… They may have enough to move against us if Lombardi was feeling traitorous." Joel's tone is cold, and I've had about enough of these damn surprises for one month.
I close my eyes and exhale through my nose as I inwardly curse Enzo Caruso.
That wiry bastard has been circling my territory for months, waiting for an opening.
If he's got pieces of the ledger, he knows where my money moves.
He knows which accounts are vulnerable. And if he's smart—and he is—he's already planning how to use that information against me.
"Marco was desperate," Joel continues. "He was bleeding money and trying to plug holes any way he could. Selling ledger pages was probably his Hail Mary."
"And now Enzo has them?"
"Looks like he might have some."
If Lombardi was selling off my information, I'll know it in a matter of days, or maybe even hours. But I know something my enemies don’t know. Marco Lombardi wasn't just working for me. He was working for multiple families. I can't go all vigilante until I know which ledger sheets he sold off.
"Sit on it for the night. Let me think," I growl, then I hang up and toss the phone onto the desk.
It lands with a dull thud. My chest feels tight.
Marco's betrayal doesn't surprise me—desperation makes men reckless—but the timing couldn't be worse.
The dead man's switch is already counting down, and now I might have Enzo sniffing around my accounts with insider information.
I turn back to the monitor. Riley's leaning back in her chair now, arms crossed.
She's staring at the screen, but her focus has shifted.
She's thinking about something, eyes running over the screen back and forth.
I watch her squint and then rub her face again, and then she's on her feet, moving.
I watch each camera as she progressively gets closer to my office where I hear a knock.
"Come in," I say casually, and the door opens and Riley steps inside. Her face is pale, but her eyes are clear. She closes the door behind her and crosses her arms.
"We have a problem," she says.
I lean back against the desk and fold my arms. "I'm listening."
"The previous banker had everything set up for a payment to go through today at this time. I was just sitting there doing my work when I got a notification that a vendor payment bounced."
My stomach drops as I lean forward, scowling, and plant my elbows on the desk in front of me. "Why?"
"The banker's credentials were deactivated," she says flatly. "My guess is someone figures he's dead. I mean when you don't show up to work for three days—"
The coffee mug in front of me is too much of a temptation to my angry temper. I pick it up and fling it across the room and it shatters against the wall, shards of ceramic scattering across the floor. Riley flinches but doesn't step back.
"Are you fucking kidding me?" I snap.
"Christ, man," she hisses, hugging her arms over her chest. "Look, it makes sense that—"
"Don't tell me it makes sense." I push off the desk and stand, taking a step toward her. "You're supposed to fix this. That's why you're here."
"I am fixing it." Her jaw tightens. "But I can't fix what I don't know about until it breaks."
"Then figure it out faster."
"Can't you see I'm fucking trying?" Her glare hardens on me. "You think I want my sister dead? I'm doing the best I can, but I'm not a miracle worker. I can't make a bank undo their automated security protocols."
The first time I saw this little defiant streak, I thought it was cute. Now I'm furious and I don't like the way she's openly giving me attitude. "Make the fucking payment go through, then."
Her eyes flash. "I already told you—"
"I don't care what you told me." I lean in and narrow my eyes at her. "You figure it out. Hack it. Forge it. I don't give a damn how you do it. But that supplier gets paid, or your mother starts getting very uncomfortable questions about where her daughter went."
Riley's defiance ends the moment I mention her family because as I said, she's weak. It's a button she should never have let me know would work. Every time I press it, she bows like a worshiper come to offer sacrifices to their god.
Her face falls. Her eyes blow wide, and her throat works around a knot before she speaks.
"I'd need access to the bank's internal system," she says.
"So get it."
"That's not how it works. I'd have to bypass firewalls, spoof credentials, reroute—"
"Do you know how to do that or not?"
She hesitates. Then she exhales and looks away. "I've done some coding. Built mods for games I play online. But this is different. This is a financial institution. If I get caught—"
"You won't get caught."
"You don't know that. Making a Minecraft skin isn't the same as busting through a firewall of a secure financial institution's website." Her tone is holding to the edgy tone, but her eyes are uncertain and searching. She's afraid of me.
"I know you'll do whatever it takes to keep your family safe." I straighten and cross my arms. "So stop wasting my time and get it done."
"Yes, sir," she says, but she stands there staring at me like a frightened animal afraid to move for fear they'll be eaten.
I notice a twitch of her lip, then the way her eyelashes bat slowly. Riley Maddox isn't just afraid of me. There's a single trace of attraction there. I notice it in the way her eyes study my face—the same way they memorize those lines of data on the computer screen. She's such an easy read.
"Why are you standing here?" I ask her, and her mouth opens and shuts like a fish taking in water, but she says nothing.
"Do you need more instructions? Or maybe you need to be punished…
" I step closer, feeling something stir inside me at the idea of really punishing her the way I know I would enjoy so much.
"Is that what you want, Riley Maddox? You want me to show you what I do to women who disobey me?"
The vein in her temple throbs, but her tongue draws over her lip, moistening it. Then she shakes her head. "No, sir…" she says, but the way her hand flutters to her neckline and toys with her collar shows me how flustered she is.
"I suggest you go work miracles with your fingers now, because you're going to have one very unhappy man to deal with if you don't. And you haven't seen me be anything but calm yet.
" I reach up, curl a strand of hair around her ear, and smile the most sardonic smile I can muster.
"And the monster inside me desperately wants to come out and play. "
Riley's eyes widen marginally and she nods, backing away before turning and leaving my office abruptly. The door almost slams shut, and I chuckle to myself as I sit back down at my desk and watch her flee the scene of her near meltdown.
I bet if I checked, I'd find her panties are soaked and her little slit is dripping. But before I have any fun with my new apparent plaything, I need her to do her fucking job.
That woman is infuriating and defensive and downright stubborn at times. But that's the exact sort of woman who makes a good toy. They bite and scratch and fight back, and that's if they're consenting.
Something tells me Ms. Maddox would be the exact sort of woman I'd find very enjoyable if I let myself do that sort of thing with her.
Who knows? If she can't produce results, she might be good for more than just numbers, after all.