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“Call your mother and tell her you’re going out of town for a while.”
“And friends?”
“Post it on Facebook if you have to.”
She waved her fork at me. “They come into the shop sometimes.”
“Then think up a better lie.”
She let out a breath and kept eating. “Alright, fine. No communication with the outside world. No leaving the house. What else, warden?”
“I prefer boss, but I’ll accept warden.”
She finished eating and put her fork down. It took her less than five minutes to shovel it in and I realized she must’ve been starving.
“How long do you think this can last before someone comes looking for me?”
“As long as it has to.”
She shook her head. “You haven’t thought it all through, have you?”
“Don’t worry about that.” I moved closer to her. “Last rule is, you do as I say. If you do your job, keep your head down, and don’t make trouble, you’ll walk away from this with a lot of money. But if you make trouble, you’ll get trouble. Do you understand?”
“Sure, I understand. I make your life hard, you make my life hard.”
“Exactly. It’s a give and take. We’re in a partnership, see?”
“Less like a partnership and more like a dictatorship.”
I laughed and stood. “I like that. I can be your dictator and you’re my little subject.”
She crossed her arms. “Are you going to let me leave the room now?”
“If you want to.”
We stood in silence. I watched her closely. I wanted to see how she’d react, and I smiled when she finally looked away.
“I’ll stay in here.”
“Your choice. I’ll be downstairs if you want to come join me.”
Her face contorted into something confusing and angry. I repressed a smile and drifted over to the door.
“Wait,” she said. “Can I get… a TV for in here?”
I laughed. I couldn’t help myself. What a simple, absurd request, but I wanted her to feel like she was at home.
I needed to make her feel comfortable and happy. The happier she was, the less likely she’d be to do something stupid and frustrating.
“If you want a TV, I’ll get you one.”
She nodded. “Thanks.”
“But one more thing. Some of my guys are going to start working at the shop. They’ll show up when I send them. Don’t expect them to do anything to help the business, and they will need free run of the back.”
Anger flashed over her face. “So I’m just supposed to let your goons do whatever they want in my store?”
“More or less. Unless you want to be the one who handles shipping and storing the pills?”
She glared at me and crossed her arms. “I guess not.”
“Then my guys will show up and you won’t get in their way.”
I could tell she wanted to argue. The idea of letting strangers into her shop and giving them the freedom to do whatever they wanted probably felt like dying to her. She had an independent streak that I admired, but needed to be tamped down if this was going to work.
“Fine. Whatever you want. This is your show.” She inched closer and nudged at the tray with her toe. “Can I ask you something?”
I leaned against the doorframe and gestured. “Go ahead.”
“Who do you work for?”
“What makes you think I work for someone?”
She shrugged. “Everyone works for someone.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “That’s a good point.”
“So who’s your boss?”
“His name is Hedeon.”
“Hedeon,” she repeated. “That’s a strange name.”
“It’s Russian. He’s the head of our crew. I suppose we’re a family now, actually.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
I spread my head. “It’s a long story.”
“I have time.”
I considered that for a moment, trying to decide how much she needed to know. Truth was, she could go through this without ever hearing about the details of Hedeon and the crew, but I couldn’t see the harm in telling her.
“We used to be a small and distributed outfit. We worked in individual cells. But about a year ago, we took over a major Russian mafia family called the Volkovs and won a lot of territory. Since then I’ve been operating my own little crew under the umbrella of the family. We pay them tribute and take orders from the top, but I mostly have freedom to do whatever I want.”
“So your boss doesn’t like to micromanage.”
“As long as the tribute payments flow and there aren’t any problems, Hedeon lets us all do what we want. He had his own plans to pursue.”
“Interesting.” She chewed on that for a moment. “Will I ever meet the others? I assume there are other groups like yours.”
“There are, and probably not. If you do, I think you should assume that shit’s gone very wrong.”
She took a deep breath and let it out. “Okay, I think I understand how this works now.”
“Try and get some sleep, little diamond. Works starts in the morning.”
