“Security around her stays tight.”
“It never loosened. But it could get tighter. If you want, I can send one of my guys to tail her when she goes into that building next. If she’s spending her lunch hour the wrong way, we’ll have proof.”
“Not yet.” Truth is, it sounds a little off. Bogdan is right—many drinkers first find their solace in alcohol during times of stress. But it doesn’t hit right. Gabriella, a lush? “I don’t want anything to rock the boat. She finds out I’m tailing her that closely, she might decide she doesn’t want to be a part of this operation any longer.”
“Can’t have that. She’s rare talent.”
“Indeed.”
“Let’s keep an eye on her at work. Make sure there are no other warning signs.”
“Good call. We don’t want to be paranoid, but you know, loose lips sink ships, as they say. And nothing gets lips looser than one too many.”
“She’s not careless,” I say.
“Yet.”
Silence blankets the car. I press my thumb into the palm of my hand until I feel the bone. Old habit. It calms me.
“Johan’s already doing the math,” Bogdan says. “Bet he’s at his office crunching the numbers now, figuring out how much he can make. He’ll sell out his father, if the price is right.”
“Not quite selling out. He’s worked hard, made his own way. If he wants to cut his business loose from a life he never asked for, that’s his prerogative. I’m just here to facilitate it.”
“Like the nice guy you are.”
I chuckle.
We stop at a light. A delivery truck rumbles past. A cyclist curses at a taxi. The city keeps moving.
I pull out my phone. There’s a message from legal, a draft timeline. I answer,Move it up.
Then I switch to Gabriella’s thread. It sits there, aching in this strange way. I read our last exchange. I think of her standing in the doorway of her apartment in those short-shorts and T-shirt tight enough to see her hard nipples. I replay the conversation, her telling me it was a mistake, that it will never happen again. My cock stiffens.
I type:Draft progress?I delete it.Need your latest by morning.That gets deleted, too. I decide not to send a text and place my phone face down on my knee.
We pass under a stretch of El track. The metal screams, then fades as the car passes.
“You’ll see her?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“Today?”
“Yes.”
“What will you say?”
“I’ll decide then.”
He grunts quietly in a reply that could mean anything.
I close my eyes for two breaths, then open them. The car settles into the lane that will take us back to AngelCorp. There’s too much work to be done—I have to make calls, move dates, pull strings.
And it all has to work perfectly, no matter what.
CHAPTER 8
GABBY
