I pick it up because my hands need something to hold.
“Car’s downstairs in five. You’ll ride with me.”
“Okay.”
“We have a lot to get through today.”
“I know.”
He finishes his coffee. Sets the cup down. Checks his watch again, the way he checked it in the bedroom, like the minutes are a thing he’s personally managing.
For a split-second—less than that, really—his eyes find mine properly. Not a glance this time. A look. Whatever’s behind it, he doesn’t let it reach his face, but I feel the pause. I feel him decide whether to say something.
He doesn’t.
“Let’s go.”
He moves past me toward the elevator. His hand almost grazes the small of my back and then doesn’t. The not-touching registers louder than the touch would have.
I follow him into the elevator. I drink my coffee. The city slides up to meet us through the walls on the way down, the same city that glittered behind us last night when he had his hand around my throat and was telling me who really ran it.
I keep my eyes forward.
In the mirrored panels I can see him beside me—jaw set, mouth neutral, a man going to the office. Across from him is a woman in a blouse she didn’t buy, holding a cup of coffee she didn’t pour, with a bruise already darkening on her hip under a skirt that fits too well.
He doesn’t look at her.
She doesn’t look at him.
Something about the angle of his profile against the mirrored wall pulls at me. Déjà vu, the clean kind. I’ve stood next to this exact man in this exact kind of elevator, in this exact silence. A few weeks ago. I remember thinking he looked like he belonged on a magazine cover or a wanted poster.
He looks the same now. Not a hair different.
That man turned into my boss.I just slept with my boss.
Did I—any small, stupid part of me—feel something that morning? Watching him hit the top-floor button without looking at me? Wondering whether there was a flicker—of curiosity, interest, the faintest pull—or whether she really was as unseen as she felt. I try to picture her noticing him and thinkinghim.I can’t. Not clearly. The memory is already someone else’s.
And the ache under my blouse keeps doing its quiet, pointless thing, beat after beat, all the way down.
12
RAFFAELE
The afternoon light is distracting me.
That’s what I keep telling myself—it’s the light. The blinds are angled wrong. Marcy should have them adjusted before the next meeting. The sun is cutting across my office in long gold bands, and whenever Bea crosses through one, her hair catches, her throat catches, and the curve of her shoulder in that cream blouse catches, and I lose another thirty seconds of whatever Antonio Martinez is telling me.
“—three weeks, Raffaele. Three fucking weeks my guys have been sitting in County. You know what County does to people?”
“I have a general idea.”
“A general idea.” He laughs without any warmth in it. “You know, when I hired you, they told me you were the best. Best lawyer. Best cleaner. Guy who could fix anything. And now I’m sitting across from you, and you’re half somewhere else.”
I bring my attention back to his face. Antonio is a compact, nervous man with a gambler’s hands and the kind of cologne you only wear if you’re trying to cover the smell of grease. Two of his men are in the chairs behind him, silent as always, one picking at the arm of the chair, one watching the door.
“Your guys get processed through the courts the way the courts process them. I’ve filed the motions. The filings are in.”
“Filings don’t mean shit if the judge doesn’t move. You promised me a schedule.”
