I stop in the doorway.
Laptop open, three browser tabs visible from here, but she’s not typing. She’s sitting with her knees pulled up in the chair, chin on her folded arms, staring at the monitor. Her hair is falling out of the knot she put it in this morning. The purple tips brushing her collar.
She hasn’t noticed me.
There’s a blanket on the shelf behind her. Gia keeps them in every room. I mark the distance between that blanket and her bare shoulders the way I mark routes and exits. Automatic. A calculation I can’t turn off.
She looks up. “You’re back.” Not a question. Her eyes scan me top to bottom. “How was your playdate?”
“Handled.”
“Did you handle it the way normal people handle meetings, or the way you handle everything, intimidation and monosyllabic threats?”
I sit. Open the file on my side. “The second one.”
She catches a laugh before it lands. The shape of it stays on her mouth. She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, the dyed ends catching the light, and unfolds her legs. Pulls the laptop closer.
“I ran Carlo’s financials while you were gone. Clean. Too clean. No debt, no unusual deposits, no secondary accounts. Either he’s the most disciplined man in organized crime or he’s hiding it well.”
“Or he’s not the leak.”
“Or that.” She’s typing now. The rapid-fire click I’ve started hearing in rooms she’s not in. “Tomás is messier. Credit card at a hotel on Bourbon. Three times in the last month. Same room.”
“Meeting someone.”
“That’s my read. Same day of the week each time. Checked in under his own name, which is either arrogant or stupid.”
“Both.”
“Could be both.” She pulls up a tab. “The room is billed to a corporate account. Fake company. The address traces to a P.O. box in Metairie that hasn’t been checked in six months.”
“Dead drop.”
“Or a cutout. I can pull the hotel’s security feed if you get me a way in.”
“I’ll get you a way in.”
She glances at me. Not long. But in that beat I see what she does when I deliver what she asks without questions or conditions. Her eyes shift. Adjusting. She goes back to the screen.
“Okay so the third transfer routes through— no, that doesn’t— wait.” Chews her thumbnail. Two sharp taps. “Yeah. This matches.”
The file sits open. Unread. I’m listening instead. The rhythm of her voice. The way it changes pitch when she hits a wall and drops low when she finds a crack in it. She drums her fingers on the wood when she’s close to an answer. Stops cold when she has one.
“Got it,” she says. “The third transfer loops back to the same Crescent Holdings account. They’re not distributing to four locations. They’re cycling funds through four locations and pulling them back into one.”
“Consolidating.”
“For a payout. Or a purchase. Either way, a lot of money is being collected in one place, and it’s been building for months.”
She tabs to another window. “Also. That side channel I flagged yesterday. The gambling revenue running through the Benedetti network.”
“What about it?”
“It’s got a signature. Weekly settlements. Fixed-percentage vig. Debt cleared through intermediaries instead of direct payment.” Her fingers drum the desk. “Whoever’s running the book is connected, but the operation is separate from the trafficking money. Different pipeline. I’m leaving it on the board in case it leads somewhere.”
I note it. Gambling operations feed the cycle of information. The men who owe money talk. The men who collect it listen.
“I organized your files while you were gone.”
