He reads.
I watch his face.
I’ve been watching faces across tables for a long time, and I am good at it. I know what the first moment of recognition looks like, the slight stiffening, the recalibration behind the eyes. Iknow what it looks like when a man who is accustomed to being the person with the most information in any room realizes he isnotthat person tonight.
Roman turns three pages without speaking. His left hand, resting on the table, goes very still. “Where did you get this?” he grumbles. It’s not a question. It’s something different.
“Jonas McClane kept meticulous records,” I say. “Three years of them. Ever since you kidnapped his daughter. Every payment, every account, every confirmation. He was a very careful man…” I pause. “You should have thought about that before you took his documentation and pointed it directly at my prospect.”
Roman closes the folder and sets it flat on the table. His expression holds, unchanged to anyone who isn’t looking closely.
ButInotice.
“That’s a significant collection of documents,” he says.
“It is.”
“I’d like to discuss—”
“There’s nothingtodiscuss,” I say, my voice flat, like I’ve already worked this through and the answer doesn’t change.
You. Are. Fucked!
“You tried to put one of mine in prison using a dying man’s records. You extorted Jonas McClane for years to keep his daughter safe from you, and then you used his own documentation of your crimes as a weapon.” I let that sit. “That file goes out at midnight tonight,” I continue. “The Gaming Control Board. The IRS. The FBI. And two journalists who have been trying to write this story for years and have never been able to get the documentation to support it.”
Roman goes very still.
“You have until midnight to make sure your people are nowhere near McClane Mining, nowhere near the people connected to it, and nowhere near anyone with a patch fromLas Vegas Defiance. That message goes to everyone in your organization. Tonight. Before the hour.”
I hold his gaze. “You understand leverage. You’ve been using it for decades. So, I know you understand what I’m telling you.”
A long silence stretches. One of the flanking men shifts, draws, and aims the gun directly at me. Suddenly, a woman screams, and the room fractures.
People are on their feet instantly, chairs scraping, glasses tipping, bodies pushing toward the exits in a sudden, desperate rush.
I don’t flinch.
I don’t even blink.
“And if we choose not to comply…” Roman says, his voice smooth and practiced, the kind that has never answered to anyone, “… with your… ultimatum.”
Behind him, the restaurant crumbles into noise and movement, people shouting, running, scrambling for the exits.
Roman doesn’t even look. His attention stays locked on me, unbroken.
“The file still goes at midnight,” I say. “The only choice you have to make is whether this turns bloody here or not. Your man pulled the gun first, and people are panicking right now, so from where I am sitting, if we have to draw our weapons, we will be the ones claiming self-defense here.”
Roman turns as the room erupts, a woman crying out, chairs slamming back, feet pounding across tile as people surge for the exits. A child is pulled past us, half-carried, half-dragged.
Roman huffs, irritated by the disruption, and signals lazily to his man to lower the gun.
He hesitates, but reluctantly does as his capo instructs.
I pick up the folder and slide it back into my cut. “You don’t get a copy,” I say, standing. “This was a courtesy. So, you can’t say you didn’t know it was coming.”
I look at Roman one last time. The calculation in his eyes has shifted into something else now, more serious, like he’s finished the math and doesn’t like the number he’s landed on.
I don’t enjoy it.
