Chapter 3 - “Do not mistake yourself for a judge. You are an auditor.”
Rossi’s calloused fingers passed lightly across the sleeve of her blazer.
“Sit. Drink the water. Find the money.”
He returned to the large desk without looking back.
Mave released a breath.
She sat, opened the 1st ledger, and breathed the smell of aged paper and ink.
It was familiar.
Safe.
Mave selected a mechanical pencil and began.
Hours disappeared into numbers, columns, and the gradual loss of daylight.
The office remained almost completely silent.
Only Mave’s pencil, heavy pages turning, and the occasional chime of Rossi’s secure telephone disturbed it.
He never used the speaker.
He spoke in short Italian phrases, and his voice never rose above a dangerous murmur.
Mave did not stop.
Her bladder hurt, and a headache developed at the base of her skull.
An intense concentration had taken control of her nervous system.
The books were perfect.
That was the 1st problem.
Warehouse accounts were never perfect.
Crates were dropped.
Forklifts destroyed inventory.
Rats consumed grain.
A perfectly balanced record inside a physical import business was the mathematical equivalent of a crime scene cleaned with bleach.
It was too clean.
Rain struck the windows.
The sky turned the color of a bruise.
“Eat.”
A white porcelain plate moved across the table and covered her notes.
Roasted garlic, seared steak, and rosemary filled the air.
Mave’s stomach contracted painfully.
She looked up.
The office had become dark except for several brass lamps.
Rossi stood beside her carrying a matching plate and 2 crystal glasses of amber liquor.
“What time is it?” Mave asked.
Her voice was rough.
“After 8:00 p.m.”
Rossi sat opposite her and moved 1 glass closer.
“Drink. It will reduce the headache.”
Mave looked at the whiskey.
Then she drank a small amount.
It burned and spread heavy warmth through her chest.
She lifted a piece of steak with the fork and ate almost immediately.
It was the best food she remembered tasting.
Rossi watched her.
He did not touch his own plate.
He leaned back, moved the whiskey around his glass, and studied her with unwavering attention.
“You found something.”
It was a statement.
Mave swallowed and cleaned her mouth with a linen napkin.
The food had returned her thoughts to order.
She examined 3 pages of dense notes.
“Your accountants are incompetent.”
A dark trace of amusement appeared in Rossi’s eyes.
“Explain.”
“They are examining the most expensive categories.”
Mave moved the notes from beneath the plate.
She tapped the paper with the pencil.
“They are auditing the heavy machinery, imported vehicles, and bulk textiles.”
Her concentration sharpened.
“Whoever is stealing from you is not removing containers filled with sports cars. That creates noise.”
She leaned forward.
“The money is leaving through the dirt.”
Rossi placed his forearms on the glass table.
“Agricultural imports.”
“Exactly.”
Mave opened the 2nd ledger.
“Ten thousand crates of oranges arrive from Sicily.”
She pointed toward a line of ink.
“The ledger records 2,000 as spoiled in transit because of defective refrigeration.”
Her pencil moved lower.
“The insurer accepts the loss, and the accounts balance.”
“The refrigeration was not defective,” Rossi said.
“No.”
Mave turned another page.
“I compared the records with maintenance logs for the ships involved.”
She looked at him.
“The cooling systems were serviced 1 week before departure. There was no spoilage.”
Rossi’s face became still.
“The 2,000 crates arrived intact.”
“Where did they go?”
“They were sold outside the books as soon as they reached the Miami docks.”
Mave felt her pulse increase.
She was explaining theft to the person who controlled it.
“Cash transactions. Nothing reaches the holding company’s accounts.”
Her pencil struck the paper lightly.
“Because the products are perishable, no one questions a 20% loss.”
She paused.
“It is extremely intelligent.”
Rossi said nothing.
The faint amusement disappeared.
The pressure inside the room seemed to change.
“Show me the floral shipments.”
His voice was dangerously soft.
Mave’s stomach turned.
She opened the ledger near its final pages.
“South American orchids.”
Her finger moved along the column.
“They are expensive, highly perishable, and produce a large margin.”
She pointed at 3 entries.
“The reported losses are extreme. Forty percent on 3 shipments during the previous month.”
Rossi’s thick finger followed the line.
It stopped at the signature approving the destroyed inventory.
Dominic Viti.
“Dominic,” Rossi said.
It was not anger.
It was the sound of a heavy lock closing.
Mave recognized the name.
Everyone in the South End knew Dominic Viti.
He was Rossi’s underboss, responsible for the docks and assumed to be loyal without question.
Mave watched the betrayal settle inside Rossi.
He did not break the glass or raise his voice.
His stillness was more frightening.
He resembled someone standing above a grave he had already decided to fill.
“Are you completely certain?” he asked.
His pupils had expanded until the muddy hazel nearly disappeared.
“I balance accounts for a floral warehouse.”
Mave’s voice trembled despite her effort.
“I know exactly how long an orchid can survive inside a shipping container.”
She held his gaze.
“Those flowers did not die. They were sold.”
Rossi watched her for several seconds.
Then he nodded.
“Finish your dinner.”
He stood, collected the secure telephone, and walked toward the windows.
He turned his back while dialing.
Thirty minutes passed.
Rossi did not speak again.
He remained near the glass and watched the city beneath the rain.
He was a dark, motionless shape against the storm.
Mave could not eat.
The steak had begun tasting like ash.
She pushed the plate away and held her shaking hands inside her lap.
She had located the leak.
Her father’s life was preserved.
Sitting inside the oppressive darkness, she understood what she had actually done.
She had not solved a mathematical problem.
She had aimed a weapon.
The secure elevator chimed.
The sound struck violently inside the silent office.
Mave reacted, and her chair moved against the floor.
The doors opened.
Two men entered in dark raincoats with water covering their hair.
Between them was Dominic Viti.
He stumbled.
Blood covered his split lip, and his expensive suit had been ruined by rain and dirt.
His eyes moved wildly until they found Rossi’s back.
“Boss,” Dominic said.
His voice was wet and frightened.
“Leo, I swear I don’t understand. They took me from the restaurant.”
Rossi turned slowly.
He did not appear angry.
He looked profoundly bored.
He passed Dominic without responding and approached the table where Mave sat.
Rossi lifted the ledger.
Then he returned to Dominic and displayed the page recording the orchids.
“Forty percent spoilage, Dom.”
His tone was conversational.
“Three consecutive shipments.”
Color disappeared from Dominic’s face.
He looked waxen beneath the low light.
“The refrigeration was completely operational,” Rossi continued.
“I know because the woman sitting at that table spent 9 hours dismantling your greedy, unimpressive operation.”
Dominic’s eyes snapped toward Mave.
Hatred filled them.
“You’re trusting a drunk’s daughter?”
His voice rose.
“A warehouse rat? She knows nothing.”
Rossi did not strike him.
He looked toward the 2 men holding Dominic.
One reached inside his coat.
“No,” Mave shouted.
She left the chair so quickly that it fell backward and struck the floor.
“Rossi, don’t. You do not have to do this here.”
Rossi lifted 1 hand.
The armed man stopped.
Dominic began shaking.
He cried as his knees failed beneath him, leaving his weight suspended between the guards.
Rossi turned toward Mave.
Her chest moved rapidly, and tears formed from terror.
“You located the rot,” he said with frightening gentleness.
“You do not cure rot by pretending it does not exist.”
His gaze remained steady.
“You cut it out.”
“Then remove it somewhere else.”
Mave’s voice broke.
“I am an accountant. I am not a butcher.”
She was not attempting to preserve Dominic.
He was already dead.
She was pleading for her own mind.
She could not watch a man die because of a spreadsheet she had examined.
Rossi looked at her shaking hands and pale face.
The panic was completely human.
Gradually, tension left his shoulders.
He turned toward the guards.
“Take him to the docks.”
His tone became flat.
“Place him inside a container. Let him discover how long he survives without refrigeration.”
“Leo, please.”
Dominic screamed while the men pulled him toward the elevator.
“Leo.”
The doors closed and removed his pleading with a metallic seal.
Silence returned more forcefully than before.
Mave remained behind the glass table.
Her legs felt liquid.
She held its edge with both hands to remain standing.
Rossi approached slowly.
He lifted the leather chair she had overturned and returned it to position.
Then he stopped directly before her.
The toes of his expensive shoes touched the scuffed leather of her loafers.
Rossi reached out.
Mave flinched and closed her eyes.
His hands did not close around her throat.
His thick fingers held her wrists and carefully removed her grip from the table.
His skin was extremely warm.
“Breathe,” he instructed.
Mave opened her eyes.
Rossi stood close enough to block the storm behind him.
“You killed him,” she whispered.
A tear crossed her cold cheek.
“He killed himself when he stole from me.”
Rossi’s thumbs moved slowly over the pulse points inside her wrists.
“You handed me the shovel.”
“I don’t want this.”
Mave attempted to pull away.
His hold remained gentle and impossible to break.
“I do not want to belong to this.”
“It is too late.”
Rossi released her wrists only to move his hands along her forearms and close them around her shoulders.
He drew her slightly closer and forced her to look upward.
“You left the ballroom with me.”
His voice became quiet.
“You sat at my table and dismantled my organization with a pencil and 3 pages of notes.”
Rossi lowered his face until his mouth was close to her ear.
Tobacco and ozone surrounded her.
“Your father’s debt is cleared.”
The gravel in his voice moved against her skin.
“But you work for me now.”
He pulled back enough to meet her eyes.
“You belong to the numbers, Mave.”
His expression held no romance.
“The numbers belong to me.”
Mave remained inside Rossi’s hands while the storm moved beyond the glass.
The contract between them had not been written through affection or trust.
It existed in blood and red ink.
It was not a gentle or predictable ending.
It was dark and terrifying.
She had crossed a boundary that could not be reversed.
The Sullivan debt no longer existed, but the price of its removal stood directly before her.
Rossi had recognized the value her family ignored.
He had seen the exhaustion beneath the rented satin, the competence beneath the poverty, and the anger she spent years swallowing.
He had also used every part of it.
Mave understood the structure clearly.
The office, the ledgers, and the men who disappeared into shipping containers were now part of her reality.
Her pencil could expose theft.
A line drawn beneath a number could become a sentence.
A name circled in red could decide whether someone returned home.
Rossi had not concealed that truth.
He had told her she was an auditor, not a judge.
He had shown her precisely where judgment ended and punishment began.
Mave looked into the muddy hazel eyes of the man who controlled the city’s ports and held the lives of her family inside scarred hands.
He was a monster.
He was also the 1st person who had looked beyond Caroline’s velvet, her father’s desperation, and Mave’s borrowed clothing.
He had noticed the bleeding thumb.
He had noticed the shoes cutting through her heels.
He had noticed that she could keep a failing structure alive.
Now he intended to use her mind as a weapon.
The realization should have made her run.
The elevator remained behind her.
The doors could open, carry her down 50 floors, and return her to the rain-dark streets.
She could return to the warehouse apartment, the smell of lilies, and accounts designed to hide her father’s collapse.
She could pretend she had not watched Dominic Viti dragged away.
She could pretend the numbers were neutral.
Mave knew better.
The numbers had never been neutral.
Her father had used them to conceal theft.
Caroline had used them to purchase the appearance of security.
Rossi used them to maintain control.
Mave had used them to survive.
His hands remained on her shoulders.
They were warm, heavy, and completely certain.
She felt the last of her panic settle into something colder and more useful.
Rossi had not rescued her.
He had recruited her.
He had not offered love.
He had offered purpose, danger, and a place inside a structure powerful enough to destroy everyone who had treated her as disposable.
Mave looked up at the man who had finally recognized her worth.
May you like
A sickening and cynical thrill passed through her.
She had no intention of running.
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