Chapter Two #3
I typed. Three commands, a routing sequence I’d written while eating caramel at three in the morning, and the money began moving.
Thirty million dollars, walking back across international borders like it had remembered an appointment, flowing into the accounts I’d identified as the original sources.
The transfer took twelve seconds. The confirmation notifications began populating the screen before I’d finished closing the first window.
“Done,” I said. “Oh, and I may have bent a few regulatory rules to make that happen. Nothing fatal. Just the kind of creative interpretation that would make a compliance officer develop an ulcer and/or a drinking problem.”
He set his coffee down. The cup made a soft sound against the wood. He looked at the screen. Looked at me. Looked back at the screen.
The silence lasted long enough that I could have recited the first twenty digits of pi in three languages, which I did not do because even I have limits.
“You’re hired,” he said finally. “Probationary. Two weeks. You handle the books, the calls, the scheduling. You report directly to me. You speak to no one about family business without my authorization.” He leaned forward slightly.
The movement was small, controlled, and carried the gravity of a glacier deciding to inch forward.
“Betray this family, and bending regulatory rules will be the least of your concerns. Understood?”
Most people, when confronted with a statement like that delivered in a voice like his, would nod. Would look appropriately chastened. Would maybe swallow and say “yes, sir” in a tone that suggested they were reconsidering their life choices.
I reached into my laptop bag. Past the individually wrapped caramels. Past the switchblade I kept nestled against the inner lining where airport security had never once thought to look. Pulled out a folded document and set it on the desk between us.
“Non-disclosure agreement,” I said. “Pre-drafted. Standard template with Romano-specific amendments. I’ve already signed it.” I tapped my signature at the bottom. “You should have every employee sign one. Including the guys with guns.” I widened my eyes. “Especially the guys with guns.”
He looked at the document. Looked at me. The patience in his expression had acquired a quality I couldn’t quite name. He looked like a man who had expected many things from this interview and “legal advice from the applicant” had not been on the list.
“We’re the mafia,” he said. The words were delivered flat, with the weary precision of someone stating an obvious fact to a child who had missed several key lessons.
“So?”
He blinked. It was an excellent blink—slow, deliberate, the kind of blink that contained an entire internal monologue compressed into the time it took his eyelids to close and open. I made a mental note of it.
Excellent blinks were rare and worth cataloging.
“Killing a man removes one problem,” I said, typing as I talked because my hands did their best thinking when they were moving.
“Dragging him through civil and criminal channels makes the problem hereditary. Debts attach to families. Judgments outlive people. Cement shoes end one conversation. A well-constructed lawsuit starts fifty.” I looked up.
“Also, paperwork is boring and I’d rather not do it twice. ”
He was still looking at me with that expression—the one that suggested he found this entire exchange irritating primarily because it made sense, which was arguably worse than if it had been stupid.
“Draft an ironclad NDA for all staff,” he said. “Today.”
“I’m already writing it.” I was. The document was taking shape on my screen, paragraphs assembling themselves with the efficiency of something I’d rehearsed in my head during the walk over.
“Also, every armed employee should be properly licensed. You should consider establishing a small legitimate private security company on paper. Documented training records, legal carry permits, great tax write-off. The government tax bureau loves organized crime almost as much as organized crime loves not paying taxes, and this is the kind of loophole that makes accountants develop feelings.”
He squinted at me. The squint was different from the blink—more evaluation, less surprise. “Have you worked for the mafia before?”
“No. I just read a lot of books.”
He continued squinting. I continued writing. The keys clicked under my fingers, a steady rhythm that filled the space between his silence and my occasional muttering when a clause didn’t parse the way I wanted.
The whole exchange crackled with something neither of us named.
Ari watched me the way a man watches something he hasn’t decided whether to keep or release—measuring, assessing, those black eyes tracking the movement of my hands across the keyboard, the shift of my shoulders under the oversized T-shirt, the way I tucked one foot under the opposite thigh when I was concentrating.
I was acutely aware of being watched with a specificity that was doing inconvenient things to my pulse, the kind of focused attention that made my skin feel two sizes too small and entirely too warm for the temperature of the room.
I kept typing.
He kept watching.
The desk between us might as well have been electrified.
The door opened. Leon stood in the frame, his expression exactly as readable as a closed book in a language I didn’t speak. “Study’s ready,” he said to the room at large, though his eyes were on Ari.
I saved the document. Closed the laptop. Stood and slung the bag over my shoulder, the weight of it settling against my hip with the comfortable familiarity of a thing that had been with me through significantly worse decisions than this one.
“Lead the way,” I said to Leon, and followed without looking back at Ari.
I made it approximately two steps into the hallway before the smile broke through, wide and involuntary. I pressed my lips together to stop it.
Failed.
The smile won.
Behind me, through the still-open door, I could feel Ari Romano’s eyes on the back of my neck like a physical touch, and the part of my brain that handled risk assessment made a sound that was approximately the auditory equivalent of a warning label written in bright red letters and several exclamation points.
I kept walking.
The warning label could wait.