Page 5 of The Devils in the Details

I rubbed my forehead with my free hand. The scar there was old, raised slightly, a ridge my fingers found by habit.

“In the mafia?” The question came out lower than I’d intended, almost amused. The idea was absurd on its face. Since when did crime lords hire administrative assistants?

“Even a crime boss needs support.” Leon didn’t smile. Leon never smiled. But something in his tone suggested he’d been sitting on this argument for a while, waiting for the right moment to deploy it. “An assistant. A secretary. Someone discreet with no ties to these families.”

He had a point.

I hated that he had a point.

The paperwork was drowning us. Calls went unanswered. Schedules conflicted. The shipping contract in Genoa needed a signature by Friday or we lost the port

I’d already missed two calls from the distributor because nobody was manning the phone during the hours I was in meetings or handling terminations or doing any of the hundred other things that actually kept this family from collapsing.

I watched a dust mote drift across the open ledger in front of me. It caught the dawn light, turned gold, hung suspended for a moment, then vanished into the shadow of the page. Temporary. Weightless. Gone.

I nodded once. “Find someone reliable. Civilian if possible. No family baggage.”

Leon picked up a pen. Jotted a note on the margin of the expense report—quick, efficient, the handwriting as tight and controlled as the rest of him. Then he began sliding ledgers into neat piles, aligning their edges with the precision of someone who couldn’t stand disorder even when the world was falling apart.

I stood and crossed the room to the window again. The terraced grounds spread below me, morning mist clinging to the lower slopes, the lake a sheet of still silver in the distance.

From here, the estate looked almost peaceful, almost whole. It was the kind of view that made you forget the rot underneath until you opened the wrong ledger or talked to the wrong guard.

The weight of delegation settled across my shoulders like something physical. I wasn’t good at it. I’d built my crew on the docks by doing everything myself first, by being the first man through the door and the last one out, by carrying the load until my back broke and then carrying it anyway.

Trusting someone I hadn’t vetted personally, someone who hadn’t earned it in blood and darkness—it went against every instinct I had, but instincts were for survival. This was for building.

Different muscle group.

Behind me, Leon’s pen scratched across paper. The desk lamp threw his shadow against the wall, enlarged and steady, a dark companion to the man drafting what was probably the world’s most cautious job description. Discreet. Reliable. No family connections. Willing to work for a man who’d inherited a broken crime family with a ruined name, millions in debt, and fifty-four immediate problems.

Good luck finding that candidate.

I turned from the window. The study felt different in the full light—less tomb, more office. The lingering ghost of Geno’s cologne had faded overnight, replaced by the simpler smells of old paper and cold coffee and the faint herbal trace of whatever cleaning product the housekeeper had used on the desk.

One problem solved. Fifty-three to go.

Leon looked up. “I’ll have something by end of day.”

I nodded. Didn’t thank him. Didn’t need to.

The lighter clicked shut in my palm. I slipped it into my pocket and reached for the next ledger.

Chapter Two

~ Zephyr ~

The caramel was stuck to my knee again, which was exactly where caramels went to die in my apartment. I peeled it off, considered the ethics of eating something that had been fused to my skin for twenty minutes, and decided ethics were for people with better snack discipline.

Back in my mouth it went.

Sweet. Salty. A little bit floor.

Perfect.

The apartment didn’t judge. My apartment was the kind of place that had long ago given up on expectations. Clothes lived on the floor because the floor was closer than the closet. Empty mugs collected on every surface like territorial fungi. The overhead fan turned at a speed that suggested it was thinking about its life choices rather than actually cooling anything.

Afternoon light cut through the half-closed shutters in warm diagonal bars, illuminating the dust motes that drifted through my personal ecosystem with unhurried confidence.