Chapter 2 - “And I really hate cleaning up blood. It ruins the carpet.”
For a second, absolute stillness.
Then the corner of Victor’s mouth twitched. It was a microscopic movement, but on a face made of stone, it was a seismic event. He reached into his jacket pocket. Lana flinched, closing her eyes.
“Open your eyes, Lana,” he said softly.
She opened them. He wasn’t holding a gun. He was holding a thick stack of $100 bills folded in half in a silver money clip. He tossed it onto the sideboard next to her.
“Your shift is over,” Victor said. “Go home. If anyone asks, the Germans left early.”
Lana stared at the money. “I don’t want your money.”
“It’s not a tip,” Victor said, turning his back to her and looking at Leo, who was currently zip-tying Klaus’s wrists. “It’s a retainer. Be out front in ten minutes. My driver will take you home. You’re going to need a new job, and I’m suddenly in need of a translator I can trust.”
He didn’t wait for her answer.
He walked over to Klaus, grabbed the massive German by the collar, and began dragging him toward the kitchen service exit.
Lana stood in the dim light of the private room, the jazz still playing softly overhead, the smell of blood heavy in the air, staring at the money that had just bought her life.
The alley behind the Oak Room smelled of rotting cabbage and freezing rain. Lana stood under the flickering yellow light of the service exit, the heavy silver money clip burning a cold hole in the pocket of her cheap, thin wool coat.
A black Lincoln Town Car idled twenty feet away. The exhaust plumed into the damp night air like dragon’s breath.
A man built like a commercial refrigerator leaned against the rear door, smoking a cigarette. He looked at her name tag, then at her face, and opened the door without a word.
She slid into the back seat. The interior smelled of expensive leather and peppermint. The sudden quiet of the soundproofed cabin was deafening.
For ten minutes, she sat in the dim warmth, staring at her frayed cuticles, wondering if the car was a ride home or a hearse.
The rear passenger door jerked open. A rush of cold air flooded the car, followed by Victor.
He sank into the leather beside her, bringing with him the sharp metallic tang of fresh blood.
He didn’t look frantic. He unbuttoned his suit jacket, leaning his head back against the headrest. He raised his left hand to loosen his tie. His knuckles were split and weeping crimson onto his stark white cuff.
“Drive, Pauly,” Victor said, his voice a low rasp.
The car glided forward, instantly swallowing the potholes of the alley.
“Where are we going?” she asked. Her voice sounded thin, stripped of the professional customer service veneer.
“To clear your ledger,” Victor said, keeping his eyes closed. “You mentioned you hate cleaning up blood. I assume you also hate dodging phone calls from Mickey Sullivan.”
Lana’s stomach dropped into her shoes. She turned her head sharply, staring at his profile. “How do you know about Mickey?” she whispered.
Mickey Sullivan was a mid-level loan shark who operated out of a porn shop in the East End. He held $70,000 worth of her younger brother’s gambling debt. It was the reason she worked doubles. It was the reason she lived on instant noodles and panic.
Victor finally opened his eyes, rolling his head on the leather to look at her. The streetlights sliding past the tinted windows cast long, shifting shadows over his bruised face.
“I don’t employ ghosts, Lana,” he said flatly. “When you started serving in my private room six months ago, I had Leo run a background check. You’re clean. No criminal record.
Three years in Berlin working for a hedge fund that turned out to be a Ponzi scheme. You came back broke, found your brother drowning in vig, and took a job pouring my wine.”
He reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and pulled out a sleek black smartphone. He tapped the screen twice and held it to his ear.
“Mickey,” Victor said into the phone. The exhaustion was gone from his voice. It was replaced by that cold, flat gravel that had terrified the Germans. “It’s Victor Rossi.”
A pause. She could hear the faint, frantic squeaking of Mickey’s voice through the receiver.
“The debt for the boy, David—I’m taking it off your books,” Victor interrupted calmly. “The principal and the vig.
Consider it settled.
If you or your collectors ever walk down his street again, if you ever look at his sister again, I will have Leo nail your hands to your desk. Are we clear?”
Another pause. The squeaking stopped.
“Good,” Victor said, and hung up. He dropped the phone onto the center console.
Lana couldn’t breathe. The crushing weight that had been sitting on her chest for two years—the constant, grinding terror that her brother’s kneecaps would be shattered, that she would be pulled into an alley after a late shift—vanished just like that, erased by a single phone call from a man sitting beside her with bloody knuckles.
“Why?” she asked, her voice cracking. She hated that it cracked. “You don’t owe me that. The money you gave me in the restaurant was more than enough.”
Victor turned his body slightly, facing her. He looked at her cheap coat, at the dark circles under her eyes.
“I don’t like debts, Lana,” Victor said quietly. “And I don’t like my assets distracted. Gavin was compromised because Richter found his weak point. Mickey Sullivan was your weak point. Now he isn’t.”
My assets. Lana wasn’t a person. She was a tool he had just purchased and sharpened. The realization should have offended her.
But all she felt was a strange, cynical comfort. In this car, in this world, there were no illusions. Nobody pretended to be noble. Everything was a transaction.
“I don’t know how to navigate your world, Mr. Rossi,” she said, staring down at her hands. “I poured wine. I know which fork to use for the fish course. I don’t know how to negotiate with killers.”
Victor reached across the space between them. She tensed, but he simply took her right hand. His grip was firm, rough with calluses and dried blood.
“You already did,” he said, his thumb tracing the blue vein on the back of her hand. “You stood in a room full of loaded guns and you took control of the table. You don’t need to know how to pull a trigger, Lana. I have twenty men who can do that. I need someone who can hear the lies I can’t. I need a wall I can lean on when the room goes dark.”
He let go of her hand, leaving her skin buzzing with a strange, heavy warmth.
“Tomorrow at noon, Pauly will pick you up,” Victor said, looking out the window as they pulled up to the curb outside her crumbling apartment building.
“We have a meeting with the Colombians. Wear something black, and leave the apron at home.”
Three weeks later, the smell of dry-aged beef was replaced by the stinging scent of diesel fuel and freezing saltwater.
Lana stood on the concrete expanse of the South Docks. The wind whipping off the lake was brutal, slicing through the thick wool of her new Max Mara coat. The boots she wore cost more than her first car.
Victor had ordered them sent to her apartment the morning after the bloodbath at the Oak Room. If you’re going to stand on cold concrete, the attached note had read, you need a proper foundation.
Beside her stood Victor. He wore a heavy black overcoat, the collar turned up against the wind. His hands were shoved deep into his pockets.
They stood shoulder-to-shoulder, not touching, but the proximity was a physical tether. They moved as a unit now. Where the boss went, the voice went.
Across from them stood a man named Van der Veen. He was a Dutch logistics broker who controlled the freight coming out of Rotterdam. He was flanked by three heavily armed men whose eyes never stopped moving.
Van der Veen smiled, his teeth perfectly white against his wind-chapped skin. He was speaking Dutch, a language close enough to German that Lana’s ear caught the edges of it. But Victor had hired a dedicated Dutch translator for this specific meeting—a nervous kid named Thomas.
Thomas cleared his throat. “Mr. Van der Veen says that the tariffs have increased. He requires an additional five percent on the shipping containers to guarantee safe passage through customs.”
Victor didn’t look at Thomas. He looked at Van der Veen. He waited a beat, letting the silence stretch, letting the cold wind do the talking.
“Tell him,” Victor finally said, his voice flat and unyielding, “that my price was locked in last month. If he wants to renegotiate, we can unload his containers right here and see how long his perishable goods last on my asphalt.”
Thomas swallowed hard and translated.
Van der Veen’s smile slipped a fraction. He muttered something sharply to the men behind him in Dutch, then switched to German, looking directly at Lana. It was a test. Word had spread through the underground that Rossi’s new shadow understood the European tongues.
Van der Veen grumbled in German, rolling his eyes. “This American is a stubborn mule. We give him the old price, but we hide the extra costs in the fuel surcharge. He won’t notice.”
Van der Veen then plastered the smile back on his face and spoke in Dutch to Thomas.
Thomas turned to Victor. “He says he understands your position, Mr. Rossi. He agrees to honor the original price as a gesture of long-term friendship.”
Victor nodded slowly. He looked like he was about to accept the deal. He turned his head slightly toward Lana. He didn’t ask the question out loud. He didn’t need to. He just waited.
Lana stepped forward. She didn’t look at Thomas. She locked eyes with Van der Veen. The Dutchman’s smile froze.
“Mr. Van der Veen,” she said in perfect, unaccented High German. “The stubborn mule reads every damn receipt. If you try to hide the costs in the fuel surcharge, we will sink your freight in the lake and you right along with it.”
The color completely drained from Van der Veen’s face. He looked at her as if she had just pulled a live grenade from her pocket. His guards tensed, but Leo and Pauly, standing just behind Victor, stepped forward, their hands resting on their holsters.
Victor didn’t speak German, but he fluently read fear. He watched the Dutchman crumble.
Van der Veen hastily raised his hands in surrender, stammering an apology in broken English. “No, no tricks! Original price, everything clean, Mr. Rossi. My apologies.”
“See that it is,” Victor said coldly. He turned away, dismissing the man entirely. “Let’s go, Lana.”
They walked back toward the waiting Town Car. The wind howled, but Lana barely felt it. Her adrenaline was spiking, a hot, electric current rushing through her veins. It was the thrill of power, the intoxicating high of holding a man’s fate on your tongue.
Victor opened the rear door for her, a gesture he insisted upon, completely blurring the lines between employer and something far more complicated. She slid in. He followed, shutting out the biting wind. The car began to move.
Victor reached into a small mahogany compartment between the seats, retrieving two heavy crystal tumblers and a bottle of Macallan. He poured two fingers of amber liquid into each glass, handing one to her.
“‘Stubborn mule’?” Victor asked, taking a sip of his scotch.
Lana choked on her laugh, coughing against the burn of the liquor. “You heard that?”
“I recognized the word,” he said, a genuine, rare smile touching the corners of his eyes. The weariness that had defined his face a month ago was still there, but it was softer now, less desperate. “You handled him perfectly.”
“He was trying to play you,” she said, leaning back against the leather. “I just adjusted his perspective.”
Victor set his glass down. The humor faded from his face, replaced by an intense, heavy gravity. He turned toward her, invading her space. He didn’t touch her, but the heat radiating from his large frame was undeniable.
“In my life, everyone lies,” Victor said quietly, his dark eyes searching hers. “They lie for money. They lie for power. They lie to survive. I spent twenty years looking over my shoulder, waiting for the knife.”
He reached up, his large, rough hand gently brushing a stray strand of hair behind her ear. His fingertips lingered against the pulse point on her neck. Her breath caught.
“But not you,” he murmured, his voice dropping to a gravelly whisper. “You spilled the water. You broke the rules. You handed me the truth when it could have cost you your life.”
“I was tired of being invisible,” she confessed, her voice trembling slightly under the weight of his stare.
Victor’s hand slid to the back of her neck, his grip firm and anchoring. “You’re not invisible anymore, Lana,” he said. “You’re the only thing I see.”
He didn’t pull her into a frantic, movie-screen kiss. He didn’t need to. He just rested his forehead against hers, closing his eyes, exhaling a long, shuddering breath.
It was a surrender—a mafia boss laying his armor down in the back of a moving car, trusting the woman beside him to keep watch.
Lana closed her eyes, leaning into his solid weight, the smell of his expensive cologne mixing with the lingering scent of gunpowder.
May you like
She had traded the aprons and the panic for bulletproof glass and blood money. She had stepped out of the shadows of the dining room and into the crosshairs of a war.
But as the car sped through the freezing city with Victor Rossi resting his life in her hands, she realized something terrifyingly true: she wouldn’t have it any other way.
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