Page 29 of Baby for My Ex's Brother

“Already compiling.” He stands, smooths his jacket, and pauses at the door with the expression he wears when he’s about to exceed his portfolio. “One more item. You seem distracted lately. Not impaired, distracted. As your counselor, I’m required to ask whether it’s a security matter.”

“It’s not a security matter.”

“Then it’s the other kind.” He does not smile, but something adjacent to it passes through. “Those are historically more expensive.”

“Mm.” He’s not wrong, which is the irritating part, and he knows he’s not wrong, which is the more irritating part. I’m distracted. The distraction has a name, a shop, and a goldfish, and it doesnotbehave the way distractions are supposed to.

Distraction is supposed to be a debt you pay down, an itch that quiets once scratched.

I have scratched, and the itch has instead developed infrastructure.

I think about her at unscheduled times. Reviewing the casino numbers this morning, I caught myself wondering what she’d say about the pastry chef in our steakhouse, and I lost four minutes to constructing her argument, in her voice, and enjoying it.

This is the part I would not say to Armin, and the part he’s already half-assembled. There’s no angle in which Luna Ambrose advances the organization, shields me from Hugo, or improves my position with Boris or Pyotr.

She is, strategically, a liability with excellent posture. The rational play is to conclude the arrangement now, cleanly, with a gift, the way such arrangements normally conclude.

But I find I don’t have the heart to do so.

On Tuesday, she sent me a picture of her goldfish in front of a tiny paper sign reading“No swimming”, no caption, no explanation, and I closed my office door and laughed alone for the first time in far too long. Thursday, she described the smell of rain on hot pavement for two unprompted minutes. Petrichor, she said. But as she put it,“Smells like fresh steamed corn.”

I can’t argue with that.

When she fell asleep on my couch, the penthouse stopped being a holding I maintained and became a place I was in, The difference between those two conditions is one I didn’t know existed until that moment. Now it’s the only metric that matters to me.

A man my age, in my work, knows exposure from every angle. I’m currently viewing it from inside.

The afternoon proceeds. Captains send reports. Freight, the casino, a signature dispute in Cicero that requires fourteen minutes and one phone call. The last two minutes of the call are silence on my end, which is when the signature happens.

More can be said with silence than words, and that particular silence earns a wobbly, “Yes, Mr. Fedorov. Of course.”

At six, Armin’s preliminary list arrives, containing the men who answered Pyotr’s questions. One name I underline, not because the man matters, but because he reports to a man who does. Jaba Fainberg.

Given all the noise he’s made as of late, I hope, for his sake, that this is merely two coincidences and not a trending behavior.

At seven, my phone sounds. Luna.

Settle a debate. Hairy has opinions about the new fall scent. Cherry says fish don’t have opinions. This is discrimination, and he’s considering legal action.

I look at the message for a long moment, the whole gray day of maps and feuds and relics standing behind me, and feel the day lose the vote. Somehow, the tedium of my life is nothing in comparison to the discrimination lawsuit of a goldfish.

The fish has been right before. Note his objection formally. I’ll review the evidence on Friday.

Three dots while she relays this to the plaintiff.

He says you’re the only one in management who respects him. Also Cherry says to tell you nothing.

I smile, typing back,I understand why she would not wish to influence the judge, however, I’m to be presented with all the evidence before I render a verdict.

A smiley face pops up, and then, a picture of a smiling Luna and Hairy’s blank fishy expression.

I put the phone face-down, return to the names, and find their names blur together. I don’t much care right now about bratva politicking. Hugo’s whispering to the city that I’m a relic, old-world, finished, and somewhere on the south side, a goldfish has filed a formal objection, and only one of those two facts is going to matter in the end.

I know which one Hugo would pick. He was always smarter than he is wise. He’s trying to take my place. He got married to solidify his position. A bold move. One that means business.

Honestly, I should be concerned.

But as I look at my phone again, at her smiling face and her fish, all I can think is,I wish she were here.