Chapter Eight
~ Zephyr ~
The study was quiet. I had my feet up on the desk. Bare feet, toes painted turquoise, catching the late afternoon light that came through the shuttered windows in warm diagonal bars.
Papers were spread across the dark wood in a pattern that made sense to me and would look like abstract art to anyone else.
My laptop sat open to a spreadsheet that was currently doing something to indicate which Romano shell companies were real and which existed only in the fever dreams of whoever had been running Geno’s books.
I was three caramels deep and my brain was doing that thing where it moved at twice its normal speed while making questionable decisions about humor.
Then the door opened without a knock.
I looked up.
Theo Romano stood in the doorway like the room had been expecting him. He was wearing a tailored suit, charcoal, Italian cut, the kind that cost more than most people’s cars and made no secret about it.
He had an expensive watch on his wrist and his hair was with the kind of precision that suggested someone had spent actual minutes on it rather than the fifteen seconds I gave mine before surrendering to the laws of physics.
He smiled. The smile was good. Professional-grade. The kind of smile that had opened doors his entire life and expected this one to be no different.
“Zephyr.” My name in his mouth sounded polished, like he’d rehearsed it. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you.”
I took a caramel out of the wrapper I’d been holding and popped it into my mouth. I held his gaze while I did it because I have principles, and one of them is that you don’t break eye contact when a man who dresses like he’s auditioning for a magazine spread walks into your workspace uninvited.
“The door has a mechanism,” I said. “It involves making contact with your knuckles against the wood. Revolutionary concept. Still catching on in certain circles.”
His smile didn’t falter. If anything, it got warmer, which was impressive and also deeply irritating. “My apologies. Force of habit. The palazzo has always felt like... family space.”
Well, that explained how he’d gotten in here.
Family space.
I needed to send Ari an email about that.
“The palazzo feels like a building. Buildings have doors. Doors have mechanisms.” I gestured with the empty wrapper. “We can workshop this. I have a whiteboard somewhere.”
He crossed the room, not fast, not slow, just the pace of a man who had never needed to hurry because rooms had always waited for him. He pulled the chair from the corner—my chair, the one I’d been using for reference materials—and sat down across from me like we were having a cozy conversation.
“I’ve been watching your work,” he said as e leaned forward. Elbows on knees. The posture of a man delivering something important with the casual confidence of someone who expected it to be received as such. “What you did with the accounts. The five hundred million. Impressive doesn’t cover it.”
“Thank you.” I didn’t elaborate. Elaboration was for people who wanted the conversation to continue, and I was still deciding whether I fell into that category.
I also had to wonder how he knew anything about what I was doing. I could see him maybe knowing about the returned money, but I doubt Ari would have told him how it was done.
Made me wonder if he had eyes inside the place I worked.
“Ari’s lucky to have found you.” He held my gaze. The dark eyes were doing something complicated—warm on the surface, calculating underneath. “But I wonder if he’s the right fit for your talents.”
Ah.
There it was.
I unwrapped another caramel. Slow. Deliberate. The gold foil caught the light, and I made sure he watched every second of it because timing is a weapon and I was fully armed.
“Are you offering me a job?” I asked. Pleasant.
Professional. The tone of a man who was enjoying the show.
“Because if so, I should tell you that my current employer has a particular set of responses to poaching that involve knives and a notable lack of due process. Just so we’re clear on the risk-reward profile. ”
Theo’s smile shifted. Something warmer entered it, something that lived in the neighborhood of indulgence without quite arriving there. “Not a job, Zephyr. Something better than a job.”
He paused. The kind of pause that was supposed to build anticipation, and would have worked on someone who hadn’t spent the last decade reading rooms for a living.
“I’m offering you a life.” His voice dropped lower, more intimate. “No more scrambling. No more contracts. You’d have everything—a place in the family, resources, protection. My protection.”
He reached across the desk. His hand settled next to mine, not touching, close enough that I could feel the heat coming off his skin. His fingers were smooth. Manicured. He had the hands of a man who had never unloaded a shipping container at three in the morning and had the calluses to prove it.
“Think about it,” he said. “What you could do with that kind of stability. What we could do together.”
I looked at his hand. Then at his face. Then at the caramel wrapper between my fingers, which was considerably more interesting than either of those things.
“Let me make sure I understand.” I kept my voice even. “You’re proposing that I become your... what, exactly? Personal finance wizard? Live-in accountant? The kept man of a Romano cousin with a nice watch and boundary issues?”
His smile didn’t move, but something behind it did. A fractional cooling. The kind of shift that happened when a man who was used to doors opening found one that had just closed.
“I’m proposing a partnership,” he said. The warmth in his voice had developed a thin edge. “One that benefits both of us considerably more than whatever arrangement you have with Ari.”
“I have a job with Ari. It comes with a desk, a paycheck, and the distinct advantage of not being a metaphor.” I leaned back. “Also, he knocks. It’s a small thing, but it matters. Manners. You should look into them. They’re having a moment.”
Theo’s jaw shifted. Once. Barely perceptible. The kind of movement that happened when a man’s composure developed its first hairline fracture.
“You’re making a mistake,” he said. The warmth was draining now, replaced by something cooler, more measured. “Ari doesn’t see what you are. What you could be. He sees a tool. I see a partner.”
“What I am,” I said, “is employed. What I could be is significantly less interested in this conversation than I already am, which I did not think was mathematically possible, but here we are, pushing the boundaries of human disinterest.”
The fracture widened.
Theo stood, fast, the chair scraped against hardwood, a sound that cut through the quiet of the study like something that didn’t belong there.
His hand moved—not toward me, across the desk, fingers closing around my forearm with a grip that was considerably stronger than his manicured hands had any right to be.
His fingers dug in. Hard. The kind of hard that left marks, that registered pain before my brain had fully processed what was happening. His other hand came up, grabbed a fistful of my collar, and the fabric tore at the neck with a sound that was small and specific and entirely unacceptable.
I did not freeze.
This is worth noting because freezing is what most people do. The body locks. The brain short-circuits. The world narrows to the point of contact and everything else goes white.
I Did Not Freeze!
My hand found the Julius Caesar bust on the desk—ornamental, marble, the kind of decorative object that had been sitting there gathering dust since approximately the Renaissance—and I drove it into the side of Theo’s head with both hands and enough force that the sound it made was deeply, profoundly satisfying.
Thunk. Solid. Dense. The acoustic signature of marble meeting skull with the enthusiastic violence of something that had been waiting four hundred years for exactly this moment.
Theo’s grip loosened. His body swayed. His eyes did something complicated—surprise first, sharp and genuine, then something that landed close to disbelief before his brain caught up with what had just happened to it.
I did not wait to assess the damage.
I snatched my laptop bag from the floor and shoved my laptop into it. I was moving before my body had fully committed to the decision, as if my survival instincts had just overridden every other system in the building.
Not toward the exit. Toward Ari’s office.
Every instinct I had was pointing the same direction, like a compass that had found north and was now screaming about it at a volume my nervous system could not ignore.
Down the corridor. Boots would have been faster, but boots were upstairs and upstairs was the wrong direction, so bare feet it was, the slap of skin on hardwood loud in the narrow hallway.
I hit Ari’s door at speed. No knock. No courtesy. My shoulder connected with the wood and the door swung open hard enough that it cracked the wall behind it with a sound that announced my arrival with considerably more drama than I had intended.
Ari was behind the desk. Leon was at his shoulder. Both of them looked up with the coordinated attention of men who had been trained to perceive door violations as potential threats and were currently categorizing me accordingly.
I did not slow down.
I rounded the desk without breaking stride. Dropped to my knees. Folded myself into the space underneath it—knees to chin, laptop bag clutched to my chest, the wood above me close enough that I could feel the grain against my hair.
I held one finger to my lips.
Leon stared at me. Ari stared at me. The study was very quiet except for the sound of my heart, which was currently doing something that would have qualified for Olympic consideration if tachycardia were a sport.
From under the desk, I had an excellent view of Ari’s boots. Polished leather. Scuffed at the toes. The kind of boots that had seen more miles than most vehicles and had the stories to prove it.
The boots did not move.
Neither did I.