On the bus home, I think about what that supervisor role actually means. Real money. Benefits that cover Opal properly. A trajectory that looks like something I chose rather than something I stumbled into. I’ve been working toward it for two years, and it’s been just out of reach, and something has shifted.
When I get home and see the drawing on the refrigerator, everything in me stops at once. Opal has taped it there—a tall building with three people inside, all holding hands, a crayon yellow sun in the top corner.
“Opal,” I say, finding her at the kitchen table. “You shouldn’t tape your drawings to his refrigerator. Dario might not?—”
“He said to,” she says, without looking up. “He said he likes them there. He said put all my drawings there because he likes seeing them.” She picks up a blue pencil. “So I did.”
I reach out and straighten the drawing slightly. Three people in a tall building, holding hands.
“Do you like it?”
“I love it,” I say.
She goes back to drawing. I stand at the refrigerator a moment longer, my hand still touching the edge of the paper. Then I leave it where it is.
Three months, I tell myself. The warning is getting quieter every day.
EIGHT
DARIO
Marco’s officelooks like power dancing for an audience that isn’t there. Heavy brown curtains, a desk built for a man with more physical presence than Marco actually has, a bookshelf lined with framed photographs of him shaking hands with people who matter less than they think. Even the men flanking him don’t improve the intimidation factor—Charlie hasn’t seen combat since the war ten years ago, and Big John should be Little John since he got on medication for his weight last year.
I’ve sat across this desk a hundred times, and I’ve never once been impressed by this paltry display. Today is not the exception.
“Say that again, Dario. You think I should what now?” Marco’s brows might have come close to his hairline with as much as they jumped up at my suggestion, but his hairline left him about twenty years ago.
“Let me clear Lena Swan’s debt. Tell Ed to back off. You get your money. She gets peace. Win-win.”
“You’ll clear her debt, just like that?”
“Just like that.”
He frowns, which only deepens the lines on his face. “How do you pay me with my money?”
“Not your money. Mine.”
“Money you make from working for me.”
It takes considerable willpower to refrain from having a physical reaction to the implication. We both know he runs things because of my family’s acquiescence.
“As you said. The money I made.”
He sits back, folds his hands in his lap. “No.”
“Marco, this costs the organization nothing.”
“It costs me something. It costs the impression that my men are out here doing favors for women they’re involved with. That’s not an impression I’m running. We don’t do mercy for civilians. It looks soft. It is soft.”
“One has nothing to do with the other. You call stealing money from single moms business, when all Ed’s doing is ripping off the poor. What’s the point of that?”
“It’s a favor for your piece of ass,” he says flatly. “Call it what it is.”
I look at him. I can see the full shape of this conversation from where I’m sitting—the wall he’s built, the reasoning behind it. It all goes to how he runs things, and I’m picking at that foundation. Marco decides what things look like before he decides what they are, and once he’s decided, the decision becomes architecture. I’ve spent years learning which structures to work inside and which ones to route around.
If I keep picking, he’ll get an attitude. “Understood.”
“Good.” He unfolds his arms. “Anything else?”
