Chapter 2 - “Your father is desperate, Mave. Desperate men are often loud.”
Hearing her name from him produced an uncomfortable sensation along her spine.
It sounded heavy.
“He owes the syndicate $400,000,” Rossi continued. “He has altered the import company’s records for 2 years to conceal it.”
His tone remained conversational.
“Did he believe a woman in a green dress would make me forget basic accounting?”
Mave’s stomach fell.
She knew the business was failing.
She managed the floral warehouse and had watched the margins decrease each month.
She had not known the scale of the debt.
Four hundred thousand dollars.
It was a death sentence.
“So what?” Mave demanded.
Fear changed rapidly into anger.
“You decided to use me to turn the knife.”
She looked directly at him.
“You wanted to prove that you would reject his bribe but accept his garbage instead.”
Rossi’s eyes narrowed.
The cigarette glowed near his tightening jaw.
He dropped it and crushed it slowly beneath his shoe.
Then he approached.
Mave forced herself to remain in place while her heart struck violently.
“Do not call yourself garbage.”
His voice entered the lowest part of its range.
“It’s what they believe,” she replied.
Her chin rose.
“It’s what the entire room believed. You leaving with me was a joke.”
“I do not make jokes.”
Rossi stood close enough that heat moved from his suit.
“I walked out with you because you were the only person inside that room who was not attempting to sell me something.”
He held her gaze.
“You stood there bleeding into a rented dress and looking as though you wanted to burn the building.”
His hand rose.
It stopped briefly before his thumb touched her bare shoulder.
Rough warmth against cold skin produced a violent physical reaction.
“I liked the view,” he said.
Before Mave could understand the contact or its implication, a steel door opened below.
“Boss.”
A man in a dark overcoat entered the alley beneath the newly falling rain.
He did not look upward.
He stood beside the open rear door of a matte-black sedan that had arrived without sound.
Rossi removed his hand.
The strange vacuum surrounding them disappeared.
“Your feet are freezing,” he said.
His voice returned to practical control.
“Enter the car.”
Large drops of rain began striking the concrete as they reached the street.
Mave climbed into the rear seat while holding the shoes against her chest.
She was painfully aware of how foolish she looked.
Rossi entered beside her.
The door closed with a muted and solid sound that separated them from the outside.
The cabin was nearly silent.
There was no engine vibration, rain, or distant siren.
It smelled of dark leather and peppermint.
The seats surrounded Mave’s narrow body.
The driver had shoulders nearly as broad as the seat and a neck thicker than Mave’s thigh.
He did not look into the mirror.
The sedan entered traffic smoothly.
“Where are we going?” Mave asked.
Her voice sounded too loud.
“I am taking you home.”
Rossi adjusted a dial on the console.
Warm air began moving directly across Mave’s feet.
Her toes curled.
She prevented herself from sighing.
“My father—”
“He will remain at the gala until it ends and behave as though nothing happened.”
Rossi continued without emotion.
“Your sister will spend the next 2 hours telling anyone willing to listen that you imposed yourself on me and destroyed her evening.”
He looked through the window.
“Then they will return to the townhouse. Your father will drink half a bottle of scotch and calculate how many days remain before my collectors break his knees.”
Mave flinched.
The bluntness struck physically.
“Do you enjoy frightening people?”
Rossi opened his jacket and adjusted himself against the leather.
“I value order. Your father creates chaos.”
His voice remained controlled.
“He borrows money he cannot repay to preserve a life he cannot afford, only to impress people who would enjoy watching him drown.”
Rossi looked tired.
“It is tedious.”
“Then why not kill him?”
The question escaped before Mave could stop it.
The words remained between them.
Rossi turned slowly.
Streetlights passed across his face and revealed the exhaustion around his eyes.
“Is that a request?”
“No.”
Mave’s breathing caught.
“No, of course not. I do not understand how your world functions.”
She looked down.
“I balance accounts for a flower business. I do not know the syndicate’s rules.”
“The rules are simple.”
Rossi looked back toward the wet streets.
“You pay what you owe. If you cannot pay in money, you pay through exchange.”
His tone became colder.
“If you possess nothing to exchange, you bleed.”
Mave examined her hands.
The blood on her thumb had dried.
“What happens to him now?”
“Nothing tonight.”
Rossi’s jaw relaxed slightly.
“Tonight, I only wanted to destroy his party.”
Silence returned.
It was not the ballroom’s suffocating stillness.
It was heavier and more complicated.
Mave sat with her knees together and remained aware of the space between herself and the man holding her family’s future inside his hands.
She looked at him briefly.
Rossi watched the rain beyond the window.
In that light, he did not resemble a monster.
He resembled a man working 90-hour weeks who had not slept properly in 10 years.
He is a killer, her mind reminded her.
He destroys lives and breaks bones.
He was also the only person who had noticed that her shoes were injuring her.
“I live in the South End,” Mave said. “Above the Sullivan Floral Warehouse on 4th Street.”
“I know where you live.”
Of course he did.
He probably controlled the mortgage.
“Caroline lives with Dad at the townhouse,” Mave said.
She felt an inexplicable need to separate herself from them.
“I moved out 3 years ago when the business started failing.”
“When your father began stealing from the syndicate to purchase your sister’s clothing,” Rossi corrected.
“You mean?”
“Yes.”
Mave bit the inside of her cheek and tasted copper.
Rossi looked at her again.
His eyes moved from her face to the synthetic dress, the bare skin marked by cold, and the shoes held inside her lap.
“You manage the warehouse.”
It was not a question.
“You control inventory, local deliveries, and civilian accounts.”
“I handle everything except the cartel shipments.”
Mave’s voice became defensive.
“Dad manages the special imports from the docks. I sell roses and lilies.”
“You are effective.”
“I keep the operation functioning. It is not glamorous.”
“Glamour is a liability.”
Rossi’s voice lowered.
“Competence is rare.”
He leaned slightly closer.
Rain and tobacco surrounded her.
“You preserved a failing company for 3 years without capital while your father deliberately damaged it.”
His eyes locked onto hers.
“I do not need another attractive woman inside velvet. The city contains thousands of them. They are inexpensive.”
Rossi’s gaze became absolute.
“I need someone who understands how to survive within a collapsing structure without complaining.”
The sedan turned onto a familiar road marked by potholes.
Its suspension moved slightly over the broken pavement.
Mave’s pulse accelerated.
He was no longer discussing flowers.
“What are you saying?”
The sedan stopped.
Through the window, the pink neon sign of Sullivan Floral Warehouse flickered in the rain.
Rossi did not answer immediately.
He examined Mave as though the dress, disordered hair, and poverty did not exist.
He looked directly into the exhausted and cynical part of her.
“I am saying that your father’s debt is no longer my primary interest.”
Pink light from the warehouse sign moved across the leather.
Rain struck the reinforced roof.
Mave remained still.
Her mind, normally able to calculate shortages and margins immediately, stopped functioning.
Your father’s debt is no longer my primary interest.
The statement did not feel romantic.
It felt like an iron cage falling around her.
“You cannot transfer a debt like that,” she said.
“I own the paper.”
Rossi remained in his corner of the seat.
“I can burn it or rewrite it. The mechanics do not concern you.”
“They absolutely concern me.”
Panic raised Mave’s voice.
“If you want collateral, I have nothing. I do not own the warehouse.”
She spoke rapidly.
“I rent the apartment above it month to month. The dress is rented, and the shoes are 3 years old and held together with adhesive.”
She looked down.
“I have nothing you want.”
Rossi observed her with infuriating calm.
“You are panicking.”
“I am being kidnapped slowly.”
Mave gestured toward the armored doors.
“The door is unlocked.”
She stopped with 1 arm suspended.
“Bruno released the locks when we parked.”
Rossi’s voice remained level.
“You may open it. You may enter your apartment, remove that absurd corset, and sleep.”
His eyes stayed on hers.
“I am not a monster hiding beneath your bed.”
Mave lowered her arm.
She looked toward the chrome handle.
It seemed impossibly far away.
“Then what do you want?”
Her voice fell into a whisper.
“People like you do not perform favors. If my father’s debt is not your interest, what is?”
Rossi turned more fully toward her.
Pink light passed over his jaw.
“I want you to come to my office on Monday.”
Mave blinked.
“Your office?”
“At the holding company downtown. 10:00 a.m.”
“To do what?”
“Examine a ledger.”
Rossi reached inside his coat.
Mave reacted instinctively, expecting a weapon.
He removed a small, heavy card made from cream-colored stock.
Rossi held it between 2 scarred fingers.
Mave stared at it as though it might explode.
She accepted it carefully.
The paper was thick and textured.
A single elegant letter R had been embossed in its center.
There was no address or telephone number.
“My organization has operational leaks,” Rossi said.
“Money is leaving the shipping divisions. My accountants report that nothing is wrong.”
His expression hardened.
“My instinct says they are lying.”
“You want me to examine it?”
Mave tightened her fingers around the card.
“I operate a flower warehouse. I purchase bulk baby’s breath.”
She looked at him.
“I do not know how to audit a criminal syndicate.”
“You know how to stretch a dollar until it screams.”
Rossi’s eyes held hers.
“You understand how to conceal a failing system from hostile creditors. You are cynical and exhausted.”
He paused.
“Most importantly, you do not care enough about my men to lie for them.”
A trace of the earlier smirk appeared.
“If someone is stealing from me, you will identify it because you have spent years searching for rot.”
Mave became silent.
Two hours earlier, she had been invisible behind a column.
Now the city’s most dangerous man was recruiting her as a forensic accountant for a criminal empire.
“And if I refuse?”
The question barely carried above the rain.
“If I do not appear on Monday?”
Every trace of warmth disappeared from Rossi’s face.
His eyes became cold and flat.
“Then your father owes me $400,000 by Wednesday.”
His voice was soft.
“Bruno will visit the townhouse to collect it.”
It was not a threat delivered through anger.
It was a statement of cause and effect.
Adrenaline left a metallic taste in Mave’s mouth.
The trap was perfect.
Rossi was not taking her with a weapon.
He was using employment and a blade suspended above her family.
Mave looked down at the card.
The embossed letter felt rough beneath her thumb.
She owed her father nothing.
He had destroyed their lives and fed Mave to Caroline’s vanity for years.
The image of Bruno entering the townhouse still brought blood and screaming into her mind.
She hated herself for the weakness.
“10:00 a.m.,” Mave said.
“Do not be late.”
Rossi paused.
“And Mave.”
She looked up.
“Burn the dress.”
His voice became quiet.
“It does not belong on you.”
Mave did not answer.
She reached for the chrome handle and opened the door.
Cold air carrying the smells of garbage and rain entered the cabin.
Mave stepped onto the broken pavement in her stocking feet and closed the door.
She did not look back as the sedan left.
Its taillights dissolved into the wet darkness.
Mave remained beneath the flickering Sullivan Floral sign, shivering inside the rain and holding the heavy card like either a lifeline or an anchor.
Monday morning tasted of burned espresso and bile.
Rain struck the glass revolving doors of Rossi Holdings.
Mave stood on the pavement with a worn trench coat closed around her shoulders.
She looked upward at the skyscraper’s sheer wall of glass.
Buildings like that did not appear to belong to men who broke kneecaps for a living.
They belonged to hedge-fund managers and corporate predators.
Standing beneath the rain and breathing the metallic smell of wet pavement, Mave understood that the difference was limited.
She entered through the heavy doors.
Cold air struck immediately, carrying the scents of expensive filtration and lemon furniture polish.
Her practical shoes squeaked against the lobby’s perfect white marble.
Security officers in tailored suits watched her with lifeless eyes.
They resembled professional athletes rather than rental guards.
“Can I help you?” the receptionist asked.
Her voice was polished and condescending.
Her eyes moved over Mave’s secondhand blazer and wet hair.
Mave said nothing.
She removed the cream-colored card and placed it on the desk.
Recognition entered the receptionist’s face.
Fear followed immediately.
The smile disappeared into a narrow bloodless line.
She returned the card without speaking and pointed toward private elevators behind a frosted-glass wall.
The ascent through 50 floors required exactly 40 seconds.
Mave’s stomach seemed to fall into her shoes.
She rubbed the rough scab on her finger and reminded herself that she remained physical and real despite voluntarily entering the lion’s enclosure.
The elevator chimed.
Its doors opened onto an enormous office floor resembling the bridge of a silent ship.
Dark oak paneling absorbed the sound of her steps.
The lighting was low and deliberate.
Leo Rossi sat behind a mahogany desk at the opposite end.
He did not look up.
He wore a white shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows.
Faded scars marked his muscular forearms.
Silver reading glasses rested low on his crooked nose while he signed documents with a heavy gold fountain pen.
“You’re 4 minutes early,” he said.
His voice traveled across the room without effort.
“The buses were following a holiday timetable.”
Mave stopped approximately 10 ft from the desk.
Her mouth was dry.
Daylight revealed deeper exhaustion than she had seen during the gala.
Purple shadows marked the skin below Rossi’s eyes.
He looked up.
Rossi removed the glasses and placed them on the desk.
His gaze moved over Mave’s shoes, dark trousers, and inexpensive blazer.
“Better,” he said.
He stood.
The size of him immediately diminished the desk behind him.
Rossi crossed to a side table and lifted 3 leather-bound ledgers.
They appeared heavy enough to be used as weapons.
He dropped them onto a smaller glass table surrounded by 4 leather chairs.
“Shipping records.”
Rossi indicated the books.
“Southern ports. We import olive oil, machinery parts, and textiles.”
His voice remained businesslike.
“Legitimate operations used to clean the proceeds from less legitimate ones.”
Mave approached the chairs.
Rossi’s familiar scent surrounded him: ozone and tobacco beneath heavily starched cotton.
“And the leak?”
“$3 million during the previous 2 fiscal quarters.”
Rossi poured water from a crystal carafe and placed it before her.
“My accountants attribute it to inflation, damaged goods, and increased tariffs.”
“You don’t believe them.”
“I believe mathematics.”
He leaned against the table with his arms crossed.
“Mathematics has no ego. It does not take money to purchase an apartment for a mistress in South Beach.”
Rossi looked toward the ledgers.
“If the accounts are bleeding, someone opened a vein.”
Mave examined the dark leather cover.
Gold dates had been stamped into it.
This was cartel money.
Blood money.
If she located the missing funds, she would not be identifying an employee for discipline.
She might be selecting someone for death.
Her hand shook as she touched the book’s spine.
“Are you afraid?”
Rossi’s question was quiet and held no judgment.
“Yes.”
There was no purpose in lying to a man who seemed capable of reading a heartbeat across a room.
“If I find the missing money, what happens to the person responsible?”
“That does not concern you.”
“It concerns me when I place a red circle around a name.”
Mave looked up.
She expected anger.
Rossi’s face contained only a heavy and unforgiving gravity.
“Your concern is the $400,000 your father owes.”
He left the table and entered her personal space.
May you like
“Your concern is that performing this work keeps his knees intact.”
His voice lowered.
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