Page 34 of My Ghost

She watches me with a wary look, her cheeks slightly flushed.I frown.What got her into this state?An irrational wave of jealousy hits me.

“What am I looking for?You never told me who I am to track down.”

Right, the job.

I nod toward my screen, motioning for her to join me.She rolls a chair next to mine and sits down while I pull up the file I have on the problem at hand.I open the file and spread out the different pieces of information I’ve gathered over the two screens on my desk.

“Do you remember the man who abducted Lily?”

“Gian Mancini?Yeah, he’s dead.”

I nod.“We thought that he was operating solo.Turns out he was part of a network which is spreading wider with every passing day.”

I hear her sharp intake of breath, and I am this close to aborting the whole thing.I want to shield her from this darkness, want her far away from all this.But I also know that she is brilliant and that she has taken down far more trafficking rings than I could imagine, she would know where to look and what to look for.

“I…guess I can try,” she says tentatively.

“They call themselves Manticore, but until now I’ve not been able to determine if the name applies to a single individual or their whole organization.I’ll send you everything I have.”

“Okay,” she mutters and begins to stand up.Before I even realize what I’m doing, my hand is clamped over her wrist in a vise grip, stopping her.I look her dead in the eyes, wanting her to understand the seriousness of all this.

“If you find anything, and I sayanything, you come to me.Don’t do anything rash.They are dangerous, I’ll deal with them myself.”

She quickly nods, and I release her wrist, watching her walk away from me toward her desk.That goddamn thing is getting moved tonight.Or maybe I’ll get it burned, along with all the others, so she’ll have nowhere else to sit but my lap.

Erin

At noon, Matteo removes his glasses, stands up and wordlessly walks to me to hand me my hoodie.I look up at him in confusion.

“Let’s go have lunch.”

Curious about his habits, I jump up to follow him out of the office.He stalks past Allan and Dave to the elevator without sparing them a glance.I frown.

Once we are inside and riding down, I ask him, “They’re not coming to lunch?”

“They eat in the employee lunchroom.”

“And we’re not?”I ask, perplexed.

He doesn’t reply and steps out of the elevator.He wordlessly leads me through several corridors until we emerge in a huge lobby with white marble floors.Holy hell, this place is sumptuous.Columns rise to a vaulted ceiling from where a huge chandelier casts a golden light.There are brass embellishments and crystal vases with fresh flowers everywhere.The place screams money.

Matteo steers me to a set of glass doors which open as we approach and we are standing in a very upscale restaurant.

Suddenly self-conscious, I turn to Matteo and whisper-shout, “We can’t eat here!”

He looks at me and raises a brow.

I motion at myself.My hoodie-distressed-jeans-and-sneakers look is standing out like a sore thumb in this upscale environment.He frowns, clearly not understanding what I mean.

God, don’t make me spell it out.I grit my teeth.“This is not exactly the look for this kind of place.They will never let us in.”

“Mr.Di Rossi, this way please, your table is ready,” a friendly voice says behind me.

I whirl around, fully prepared for the person to sneer at me and ask me to leave, but the maître d’ doesn’t even bat a lash while he guides us to a table by the large windows.

Matteo pulls out my chair and I sit, still bemused.Then he rounds the table and takes the other chair opposite me.

“Welcome to La Corte,” he says while the maître d’ hands us the menus.Then it hits me.