“And then. I had to track down someone who owed a syndicate six months of payments.”
I bit the inside of my lip. “Did you… correct that?”
He gave me a small smile. “Yeah. He won’t miss another payment.”
Oh God, he absolutely killed someone today.
Vince didn’t seem bothered in the slightest. “After that, I stopped by one of the towers because there were rumors of a problem with the electrical redundancies.”
I stared at him.
He stared back.
And then he tipped his chin at the elevator ceiling.
“Guess those rumors were true.”
I swallowed, heart thudding a little too fast for entirely new reasons. He had just confessed, casually, to a crime buffet.Syndicate enforcement, counterfeit crackdowns, implied violence, probable murder, like it was a grocery list.
He probably shouldn’t have told me all that. Which meant only one thing for sure.
We’re going to die in.
He must think otherwise he wouldn’t have told me that. I exhaled slowly and stared straight ahead at the metal doors, trying not to visibly question every decision that led me here.
“You’re very quiet again.”
Of course I was.
I’d just learned the man calming me through a panic attack might’ve “corrected” multiple felonies before lunch.
I cleared my throat. “I’m… processing.”
“Processing what?”
“That your day was… eventful.”
Amusement flickered across his face.
“You asked.”
“Right,” I whispered. “My mistake.”
He didn’t stop smiling. And I didn’t stop wondering if he’d only told me because he fully expected the elevator cables to snap.
God help me if it didn’t.
He watched me for a moment, his gaze flicking up through the dim red light.
“What’s with the bow?”
I blinked. “The… bow?”
“In your hair. You always wear one.”
Always.The word hit a fraction too slowly. I reached up automatically, touching the black ribbon. “Oh. I—um. I think they look cute, I guess. They alway match my heels.”
His brow lifted. “Cute.”
