Then, he reaches over and runs a hand through my hair. “We got him, okay, baby? We got him.”
Wilson lets out a small sound, curling tighter between us as I force myself to sleep. Wilson is safe. With us. The next step? Making him believe he’s ours.
8
Lorenzo
The call comes in at 6 PM, an hour before we open. I’m in my office with the door closed, the week’s operating expenses spread across my desk in a layout meant to make them seem manageable. It doesn’t help. Numbers don’t change when you shuffle papers. My phone vibrates against the wood, Marcus Voss’ name lighting up the screen.
I consider letting it go to voicemail, but ignoring Marcus never makes him disappear. I pick up.
“Lorenzo.” His voice fills the line like it fills every room he enters, taking up more space than it’s earned. “I trust you received the updated lease terms.”
“I did.”
“Good. Then you understand those adjustments kick in at the start of next quarter. The board reviewed boardwalk propertyvaluations, and Vice & Virtue’s current rate doesn’t match market growth.”
Our rate was already fifteen percent above market when we signed three years ago. Voss knows because he set those terms.
“The increase is thirty-two percent, Marcus.”
“The board’s assessment reflects—”
“The board is you. Let’s not pretend there’s a committee.”
He goes silent, one of his signature pauses, the kind that reminds you who owns the ground you’re standing on. I lean back in my chair and press my palm against my left eye, where a headache’s been building since I opened the envelope this morning.
“The terms are non-negotiable,” he says. “You have until month’s end to sign, or the lease defaults to month-to-month at the adjusted rate. That leaves your tenancy in a far more precarious position.”
“I understand the implication.”
“I’d hate to see you lose the place, Lorenzo. Charming little operation.” He pauses for just a beat too long. “For what it is.”
The line goes dead.
I set the phone face-down and stare at the wall for ten seconds, letting my mind wander as I pick out a water stain near the ceiling’s that’s been there since before we moved in. I’ve studied it during every difficult moment in this office, and it’s never offered anything useful. It doesn’t start now.
The lease terms lie on top of the pile. I pull them closer and reread figures I already know by heart: a thirty-two percent hike on base rent, new common-area maintenance fees, and a “boardwalk improvement assessment” that’s basically a surcharge for operating on property Voss owns and has never improved. The total increase would devour our margin and push us into the red within six months.
Beneath that is last week’s code-violation notice, insufficient emergency lighting in the east corridor, despite passing inspection four months ago. Below that, a letter from the boardwalk merchants’ association complaining that Vice & Virtue’s late-night noise creates an “inhospitable environment” for neighboring businesses, the tattoo parlor that closes at midnight and the Alpha-owned sports bar with a live band until 2 AM.
The pattern has been clear for months. The problem is that I can’t fucking do anything about it and a lot of it has to do with hierarchal Alpha bullshit while I’mjusta Beta.
Quick footsteps by the door pull my attention, each one landing with the particular weight of someone who’s about to burst into a room whether the door is open or not. I reach for the lease terms to put them back in the folder but I’m a second too slow.
“Who was on the phone?”
Oliver stands in the doorway with a box of cocktail napkins balanced on his hip, his hair still wet from the shower. His eyes lock on me, tracking from my face to the papers on the desk to the phone lying face-down beside them.
“Supplier,” I say.
“Your jaw does a thing when you’re lying to me. It’s doing the thing.”
I close the folder. “It’s handled.”
He sets the napkin box on the floor and steps into the office. He’s still in the oversized shirt he throws on before he dresses for the floor, the hem hitting mid-thigh, bare feet on the hardwood. I’ve tried for years to get him to actually get dressed before the club opens but it’s useless.
With a speed that catches me off guard, he yanks the folder from under my hand and flips it open.
