Chapter 14 #3
"That man is wearing a mask thicker than his cologne." Cassius uncrosses his legs and leans forward, his elbows on his knees, his dark eyes fixed on the closed door.
"I know, but we can't pick sides here." I rub my thumb across the scars on my knuckles, feeling the ridged skin, the old breaks that healed wrong because I never went to a doctor.
My father's hands looked like this. The hands of men who build things the hard way and hold them with force when the world tries to take them back.
"You could have refused." Santi's voice is quiet, his Spanish accent thickening the way it does when a decision sits wrong in his chest. "We all could have."
"On what grounds? The contract is clean. We took the meeting through proper channels." I press my knuckles against the table, the wood cool and smooth beneath the scarred ridges of my skin. "If we start refusing legitimate contracts because our guts don't like the client, we lose."
Santi holds my gaze. He's not backing down. He never does when it matters. "What’s the saying? Clean paper doesn't mean a clean deal."
"I know." I exhale through my teeth. "And I'm not sleeping well tonight because of it."
Cassius clasps my shoulder, his grip firm. "None of us are, brother."
Santi stands. He doesn't add to the conversation because the man never wastes a word when silence carries more weight. But he pauses at the door, his hand on the frame, and looks back at me with an expression I've learned to read over the years.
We'll handle this. Whatever it costs.
They leave. The door closes. I sit alone with Lorenzo Ferraro's contract on the table in front of me and the overhead light casting its warm circle across Harrison Whitmore's signature.
I pull out my phone and tap Massimo's name.
He picks up on the second ring. "Constantine. Twice in one week. Should I be worried?"
"You should. This is not a social call, Santoro." I keep my voice even, professional. One businessman to another. "Lorenzo Ferraro walked into my club this morning with a marriage contract bearing Harrison Whitmore's signature. He's hired Genesis to enforce delivery of one Sloane Whitmore."
Silence.
"I'm giving you ten days. Fix this before I have to come for her."
More silence. Then Massimo's voice, low and controlled, carrying the steel of a man who has already decided what he's willing to lose. "Understood, Constantine."
"Massimo." I pause. Weigh my next words against the neutrality I'm obligated to maintain. "For what it's worth, I didn't enjoy taking this contract. The ink is clean. I had no choice."
"I appreciate that."
I end the call and head for the elevator. Polaris has moved up here and sits at her desk just outside my office. Her pen moves across paper as she takes notes of something with the same quiet precision. She looks up when she hears my footsteps. Her blue eyes search my face for information.
"Bad one?" she asks.
"They're all bad ones, Polaris." I stop at the desk. Her raven hair has fallen forward across her cheek and my hand moves before my discipline catches up, tucking the strand behind her ear.
Her delicate skin is warm against my fingertips. She doesn't flinch. Six months ago she would have flinched. The fact that she doesn't sends hope through me that I have no business entertaining.
Her lips part on a breath she doesn't release. I drop my hand. "Hold my calls for the rest of the morning."
"Yes sir." She holds my gaze for one beat longer than professional. Then she looks down at her ledger and the moment passes, folding itself into the space between us where everything we don't say lives alongside everything we want.
The warmth of her skin stays on my fingertips long after I drop my hand, stirring up dark wishes.
And with that thought, I head for my office.
Santi and Cassius step off the elevator and fall into step behind me.
They move shoulder to shoulder, their postures carrying the same tension I feel grinding between my vertebrae.
"Think he'll fix it? Or are we prepping for a bloodbath?" Cassius asks, his voice pitched low enough that it stays between the three of us.
"I think Massimo will burn the whole city before he lets anyone take Sloane from him." I strip off my suit jacket and adjust the seat of my holsters before I sit. The men do the same. "The question is whether ten days is enough time to dismantle a contract this clean before he starts a war."
Santi sighs heavily. "And if it isn't? Are we ready for the fallout?"
I don't answer. All three of us already know.
I look up to catch a glimpse of Polaris still at her desk. The bruises have long faded but the ghosts of them are still visible to anyone who knows where to look.
Three men. One woman. A tangle of duty and desire that keep us miles apart.
My father told me every contract tells two stories. The one written in ink and the one between the lines. I've spent my career reading the second story in other people's deals.
I just never expected the hardest contract to read would be my own heart.