“You’re questioning my integrity, Mr. Mercer?”
His smile is tight. He’s very aware of my reputation. He knows exactly who I am. It would be stupid of him to enter into business with me without that information.
“I’m just trying to make sure everything is done according to the books,” he states.
A poor choice of words. For a brief moment, I imagine reaching inside my jacket. My gun is there. I could end this conversation permanently and it would take less than a second. Less than a second to end Mercer’s sorry existence.
My expression doesn’t shift as I consider it briefly. And then I let it go.
Violent displays aren’t exactly my thing. Although… it’s a beautiful thing when executed in the right manner. I’m not a child throwing a tantrum and shooting a man in the head simply because he disagreed with me. There are better ways to deal with… disagreements.
“I don’t deal in half-measures,” I say calmly. “If you want full visibility, go looking somewhere else.”
Silence stretches across the table. I watch the expression on Mercer’s face as he thinks it over. Considers it like he’s got another choice. He doesn’t.
I already knew it before I walked in here. His third-quarter shortfall is $3.8 million. His board doesn’t know yet. His silent partner is three months from calling in that debt; Mercer has no liquidity to cover.
I found that out in twenty minutes sharing a cigar with Salvatore, which tells me everything I need to know about how well he’s actually managed it.
He thinks he’s negotiating. He’s not. He’s being absorbed.
It’s his pride on the line, though. His business.
I fight the urge to tell him I’ll take good care of it when it inevitably falls into my hands and under my control.
His fingers tap once against the table. He exhales slowly.
“You’re confident this will return at least twenty percent within the first year?”
“At minimum.”
Another pause. Finally he nods.
“Alright,” he says. “We can proceed.”
I slide the contract toward him, already reaching for the pen. He hesitates for half a second before signing. Ink on paper. It’s final and irreversible.
The meeting ends shortly after. I don’t linger.
Outside, the air is cooler, sharper against my skin as I step onto the pavement. I think over the past year, and all that’s happened since my brother’s wedding.
Old habit kicks in before the door closes behind me. I run the Mercer deal the way I run everything, one final audit before I file it away. Asset identified. Vulnerability mapped. Terms set unilaterally. Signature obtained.
The man thought he had a choice. He didn’t. He had the illusion of one, which is better; it keeps them cooperative long after the ink dries.
I file Lindsay Beaumont the same way, without meaning to.
Asset: Exceptional. Beauty and brains. The kind of mind that follows her target the way I follow money. Through walls, through shell companies, through the seventeen layers of legitimate business I’ve built to keep people like her at bay. She is, by any objective measure, the most dangerous variable currently active in my life.
Vulnerability: The mayor. Valentina. The belief that justice is a system rather than a transaction.
Leverage: Her father’s office has signed off on permits for four shell companies I own. He almost certainly doesn’t know that. She doesn’t either. The moment she pulls that thread, she’ll find his name on the same documents as mine, and that will cost her far more than a RICO case. I haven’t decided whether to let her find it or bury it. Both options are useful, depending on what I want from her.
Terms: Not yet set.
I pause on the pavement and notice I’ve just run a full acquisition assessment on a woman who wants me behind bars. I’ve stayed away from her, mostly because the way she makes me feel is unnatural.
But she walked up to me at the compound while she was visiting Valentina and served me a fucking subpoena. Cute.
