Page 37 of His Assistant

“We were still confirming. He missed his check-in, which is what made us look in the first place. Then Tomasso went over there and found his phone two blocks away.”

“Who took him?” I ask, though I’m pretty certain I already know the answer.

“Calderone’s men,” he says, confirming my suspicion.

“Do you know that for a fact?” I ask slowly, between gritted teeth.

I’m ready to burn their whole operation to the ground, but I’m not going to do that without proof that they threw the first punch.

“They wanted us to know,” he says carefully.

“What do you mean?”

“They already gave him back,” he answers. “About fifteen minutes ago, one of our men found him near the Queensboro Bridge.”

“Is he alive?”

“Barely. They roughed him up pretty bad. Not bad enough for us to escalate, but he’ll need a few days to recover.”

“Why would they do that?” I ask.

“Because they wanted to send you a message.”

“As if goddamn cell phones don’t exist,” I seethe. “This went too far. Where is he now?”

“He’s at a safehouse in Long Island City. Our doctor is with him.”

“Can he talk?”

“I don’t know what else there is to say.” He shrugs. “He already passed along the message. They want you to stop interfering with their debt collectors.”

It goes so quiet you could hear a pin drop. There’s only one debt collector I interfered with, and only one debt I paid. Marco Bellini.

“We need to double Sofia’s security,” I tell him urgently.

“Dom,” he starts to protest.

“Double it,” I repeat. “I want 24/7 surveillance on her building, and two men to trail her at all times.”

“This is a bad idea, Dom,” he says automatically. “It’s one thing to have one guy on her building, but this is probably overkill. Nobody even named her father.”

“They shouldn’t have known about the interference in the first place!” I shout at him. “We went through back channels. You handled the drop. There’s no way it had our fingerprint on it.”

“Then we need to consider the possibility that someone in our organization is leaking information,” he says seriously. “But I don’t think putting Sofia in a cage she doesn’t even know about is the right move.”

“Are you really questioning me about this?”

“Dominic,” he says. “I know you like her. This isn’t just about sex for you, you have actual goddamn feelings for her. Which means that you’re not thinking rationally. You’re not even capable of it.”

“Excuse me?” I roar.

“Dominic,” he says patiently. “If this was any other employee you’d helped, would you be reacting the same way?”

I take a deep breath. We both know he’s right, but I’m not giving him the benefit of admitting it.

“If you’re going to insist on this, you should tell her the truth,” he says into the silence. “It’s the right thing to do.”

“So now you’re a moral expert?” I answer tensely.