Section 15
This Meeting Could Have Been a Bullet
Gia
My office smells faintly of disinfectant and gun oil.
I don’t mind either. Both mean something’s been handled.
Red is closed for the afternoon—officially for “maintenance,” unofficially because someone tried to put a hole through my head before breakfast and I don’t reward that kind of behavior with bottle service.
I sit behind my desk, coffee untouched, Diablo sprawled at my feet. His ears flick every time someone passes the door. He hasn’t fully relaxed since the street.
Lucky stands near the wall, a steady presence.
Hands folded. Weight balanced. Watching everything without making it obvious, while simultaneously trying to make sense of the fact that I’ve disassembled and cleaned my Glock four times already.
“You don’t have to hover,” I tell him.
“I’m not hovering,” he says. “I’m strategically existing.”
“That’s hovering with ambition.”
He considers that. “Okay, fair.”
My laptop pings.
The meeting notification flashes across the screen:
SECURE CONFERENCE—D. LUSSARI NETWORK
I snort softly.
Dante runs a private security empire with government contracts and enough encrypted servers to start his own intelligence agency.
If this call gets hacked, we all deserve what happens next.
I tap accept.
The screen populates in boxes.
Dante appears first—suit immaculate, jaw tight, lighting perfect. Of course his lighting is perfect.
Then Antonio DeLuca, already mid-espresso, gesturing animatedly at someone offscreen.
Then the Morozovs.
Both of them on the same screen. Too close, and apparently mid argument.
“—I told you, you press the button with the microphone—”
“I did press it!”
“That’s the camera, idiot.”
“Why would they put them next to each other?”
“Because God hates us,” Lucky murmurs from behind me.
I don’t turn around, but I allow it.
Dante clears his throat.
“Gentlefolk,” he says. “Let’s—”
“I can hear you. You hear me?” Morozov One announces loudly.
“Yes,” Dante says. “That’s the problem.”
Antonio waves cheerfully at the screen. “Hello, my terrifying friends. You’re very loud today.”
“We are not loud,” Morozov Two snaps.
Their mic immediately picks up the sound of a chair scraping and something metallic clanking.
Dante pinches the bridge of his nose.
“I promise you,” he says tightly, “this connection is secure.”
Lucky leans down toward my ear. “Bold opening statement.”
“Shh.”
“I didn’t say it out loud.”
I return my attention to the screen and un-mute myself.
“I assume everyone knows why we’re here,” I say.
Even through pixels, I feel the tension shift.
Antonio’s expression sharpens. Dante’s posture goes rigid—well, even more rigid than usual. The Morozovs stop arguing long enough to look directly at the camera.
“I was shot at,” I continue calmly. “On a public street. In daylight.”
Antonio’s espresso freezes halfway to his mouth.
“That’s gauche,” he says finally. “Who does that before noon?”
“Bellini,” I reply.
The name lands like a dropped glass.
Morozov One swears in Russian.
Morozov Two forgets he’s not muted and adds something that sounds anatomically impossible.
Antonio sets the espresso down with visible reluctance.
“Absolutely not.”
Dante looks over.
Antonio gestures vaguely at the screen. “We have standards.”
He rolls his eyes, before switching his coffee for a large wine glass.
Dante exhales slowly. “We suspected he was getting restless.”
“Restless doesn’t involve rifles,” I say. “This wasn’t a warning. This was reconnaissance.”
Antonio nods. “Testing response time.”
“Testing hierarchy,” Dante adds.
“Testing me,” I finish.
The quiet that follows isn’t sympathy.
Behind me, Lucky goes very still.
Antonio breaks the silence first.
“Well,” he says carefully, “if he was going to poke someone, you do run the cleanest operation.”
I tilt my head.
“Say that again,” I say pleasantly.
Antonio blinks. “I meant—”
“You meant I don’t posture,” I say. “I don’t throw bodies into rivers for emphasis.”
“Once, I’ve done that,” DeLuca argues between sips.
Morozov One snorts. “Too tidy.”
I nod once.
“Which he interpreted as weak.”
No one contradicts me.
Lucky mutters, “That’s extremely un-feminist.”
I close my eyes for half a second.
Dante blinks. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Nothing,” I say immediately.
Lucky, unrepentant: “Just saying, targeting the only woman on the call because he assumes she’s easier feels very alpha-hole of him.”
Antonio stares at the screen.
Then laughs.
“Oh, I like him,” he says. “Can we keep him, too?”
“No,” I say.
“Understandable.”
Dante regains control with visible effort.
“Bellini doesn’t have territory,” he says. “Not officially.”
“He has attention,” I reply. “And he’s trying to earn legitimacy by surviving us.”
Morozov Two pounds the desk. “We kill him.”
“That’s not strategy,” I say.
“That’s… how you say… tradition. You throw him in river as warning.”
“And it makes him a martyr,” I reply. “Which is exactly what he wants.”
Silence again.
This one heavier.
“He wants us divided,” Dante says slowly. “Watching each other instead of him.”
“Yes,” I say. “And if you all think he started with me because I’m safest—”
I lean forward.
“Then he just proved you’re all next.”
Morozov One scratches his beard ominously.
Antonio sets his almost empty glass down.
Dante’s eyes sharpen.
“We respond,” he says.
“Carefully,” I add. “No retaliation yet. We let him think I flinched.”
“You didn’t,” Antonio says.
“I know,” I reply. “But he doesn’t.”
Lucky nods approvingly behind me.
“That’s hot,” he says quietly.
I shoot him a look.
He holds up his hands. “Strategically hot. In a progressive and totally respectful way. Ma’am.”
The meeting dissolves into logistics: surveillance routes, shared intel, financial choke points. Nothing final. Nothing clean.
That’s fine.
This isn’t the end.
This is the board being set.
When the call finally disconnects, I lean back in my chair. The city rumbles on outside, car horns, sirens and trains.
Lucky remains where he is.
“You can stop existing strategically now,” I tell him.
He relaxes a fraction. “Copy that.”
I study him for a moment—the calm, the readiness, the way he never once interrupted unless it mattered.
“You’re staying close,” I say.
He nods.
“Yeah,” he says. “Figured.”
I look down at Diablo, who thumps his tail once like a verdict.
Bellini wanted to see who I was.
He’s going to regret the answer.