"April." He repeated it once. "After you." Dante stepped aside.
After you. I expected force. I got manners.
He stopped at the glass-walled alcove. The not-a-door. His men, behind them, returned to their cards with heroic commitment to plausible deniability.
He pulled out a chair.
"Sit."
April sat. Dante settled across from her and immediately pulled out his phone. Started typing.
April watched him for three seconds. Then: "You told me to come to your office so I could watch you text?"
He didn't look up. Finished whatever he was sending. Then set the phone on the table between them, screen down. Now she had his full focus.
This is the weirdest customer service I’ve ever received.
“We negotiate properly," he added, as if she'd suggested otherwise.
"This feels like the prelude to a merger," April said.
"I would be remiss," Dante continued, settling into his chair with grace, "if I did not acknowledge that you have walked into a room full of men who answer to me, and done so without hesitation. That speaks to either courage or calculation."
He paused.
"I suspect both."
A hint of amusement touched his mouth.
He looked at his men. "Eyes on cards, gentlemen." No one looked up. No one acknowledged him. They simply obeyed.
Then he looked back at April. "Eyes on me."
His eyes were dark. Focused. Eye contact that felt like a challenge and a test and possibly a threat, all wrapped in expensive politeness.
April exhaled through her nose. "You're dramatic."But she enjoyed it.
"Eyes on me—if you're staying."
"I'm staying."
Approval moved through his eyes.
"You walked into my den," he said, voice low, precise. "Asked me for a favor. Offered yourself as payment."
"I didn't—"
April started to stand. Dante's gestured to stop and she froze.
"One does not leave a negotiation before terms are settled, that would be... discourteous."
"You did," he continued simply, like it wasn't an accusation, just a fact. "Maybe you didn't mean to. But you did. I want to make clear that the favor's a gift, you don't owe me anything."
April leaned back in the chair, letting herself look unimpressed on principle. "Great. Because I'm not paying for tacos with my soul."
A soft sound escaped Dante—almost a laugh, swallowed before it could become one.
April arched a brow. "So if the prank is free, what are we doing here?"
