“Good. I’ll have something more concrete for you soon.” Gabriella’s proposal should be ready before too long.
“Soon,” he echoes. He rises. Johan gives me one more look, as if searching me for a tell that this is all bullshit or some way to pull the wool over his eyes, fleece him, play him for a fool.
But he finds nothing. I meant what I’d said about honesty.
Then he buttons his suit jacket, turns, and leaves.
Bogdan lets out a breath he’d been holding. “Don’t like it. Could be on the phone with Papa right now.”
“Could be. But he’s not.”
“He’s interested. I can tell.”
“Yes.”
“But it could be bait. Lure you in, finish you off. That’d be how Peter would take your empire from you.”
“Also yes.”
We rise. I throw a few hundred on the table, then leave through the main room. Outside, the air is cold and clean. The river catches the bright noon light. Bogdan matches my pace as we head to the car.
“Peter wouldnotbe happy about this.”
“Peter doesn’t need to know.”
We reach my sleek, black Maybach. Bogdan opens the back door and I slide in. Moments later, he’s at the wheel, gunning the engine.
“There’s the other part to this,” he says as he eases into traffic. “The girl.”
“What about her?”
“This all depends on her work.”
“I have faith in her.” My eyes drift to the back of Bogdan’s neck, the clean, straight scar at his hairline from a knife attack years ago, one of many scars he’s earned.
I say nothing else. But when Bogdan clears his throat, I understand there’s more to the story. “Go on,” I say.
“She’s been out of the office more than usual recently. Over the last couple of weeks.
“Doing what?”
“Coffee with her friend Angela. Walks by the river. She does a little work, answers calls, sends drafts. Nothing I figured you’d be too worried about. But there’s something else.”
“Tell me.”
“Twice over the last month she’s gone into this building in Lincoln Park.”
“What kind of building?”
“Three stories, a different business on each floor. One is a comic book shop—I doubt she has much interest in that. Top floor is a doctor’s office. Bottom floor is a bar.”
It’s clear to me what he’s getting at. A little flash of anger roils inside me. But I choose to wait to hear Bogdan’s assessment first.
“What, youthink she’s going in and getting liquored up on her lunch breaks?”
He shrugs as he pulls a turn. “Hard to say what she’s doing when she goes into that building. But I know she’s under a lot of pressure. Stranger things have happened than a young employee feeling the pressure, wanting something to take the edge off.”
We flow into traffic. The city rolls by in sheets of glass and brick.
