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I was in a shadowed room, with a round table in the center. A man was seated by it, hunched over a laptop. Beyond that, there was nothing except for a standing lamp emitting a weak light in the corner. The windows were boarded over, making the air in the room stuffy, warm and stale.
“Hello—” I choked on air, unable to continue as a silver face, straight out of a nightmare, loomed at me through the dim light. Panic barreled through me, and my fingers sought the doorknob. I realized the face was amask,melted and stretched into a facsimile of a face, with large metal staples down its center along the jawline. Two jagged eyeholes watched me, but I couldn't determine the color of those eyes in this light.
Pretty elaborate mask for a man wearing a white hoodie and jeans,I tried to joke to myself.
“Ryan White,” he said. “How may I be of assistance, Miss Lia Gold?” There was a flash in those half-hidden eyes. “Or should I say, Miss Goldin.”
“A job,” I got out, my voice high and gasping. “Any job, so long as it pays, Mr. White.”
“Is that so?” he purred. “You think you have what it takes to work for me? You didn’t even know I existed until, what, three days ago?” Mr. White chuckled and sat back down. “Ricky works fast, I’ll give him that.”
“What does my finding out about you matter so long as I have what it takes?” I asked and folded my arms. Meanwhile, internally, I was trying to summon even an ounce of the courage that had gotten me this far. “And I think you know that I do. Otherwise, why waste your time?”
“Smart girl,” he said in a mocking tone. “Take a seat and let’s discuss the dirty game you’re about to play. Oh and — call me Ryan.”
Yanking out the seat, I threw myself into it and locked eyes on him, trying to ignore the contortions of his strange mask. It looked like it had been molded to resmeble human skin, that had been tortured, stretched, and then coated.
Not only that — but why a mask? And whythatmask?
“So long as I don’t have to kill someone, I’m fine with any job,” I said.
Ryan leaned back and grinned. “Well, the job depends on what you can do. So…” I shook my head at him, nonplussed and he continued. “Care to elaborate, Miss Goldin?”
“I-I can, uh, hack into computers and stuff,” I said, wishing I’d practiced my story in the mirror or even to Sara, especially since she was the actual technology whiz kid and I was only as adept as any other member of my generation.
“Really,” Ryan said, and though I couldn’t see his actual face, I had the sense he was raising an eyebrow at me. “Anything else?”
“I can fight.”
The words were quiet, striking out in the air between us like a dagger, and Ryan sat back, making a temple of his fingers.
When he nodded, I held myself up straighter and continued, “I know how to spot a weakness, how to get in and out undetected and how to trail people.” I shrugged. “Basic spy stuff, I guess. But I’ve had practice since I was,geez, seven? Maybe six.”
“Who trained you? And why?”
“My mom,” I said and swallowed hard. “She wanted me to know how to defend myself, how to think on my feet and fight.”
My mother was a hard-nosed bruiser of a cop: Marina “Fierce” Fioreno. She’d refused to take my father’s name but had still given it to me. I actually couldn’t even remember when she’d started teaching me things that no kid had any business knowing. Early on, it had been different, more of a way for her to challenge me. Those skills had been about solving puzzles, and the enigma in certain people. Later, after my tenth birthday, my dad took off and Marina had set about molding a warrior out of me, after her own heart.
“Huh,” Ryan said, and something in my chest glowed only to get snuffed right out when he shrugged again. “Most of my jobs are still too tough for you, little girl.” I scowled and a gruesome sound rattled through Ryan’s mask. It took me a moment to realize he’d laughed. “Ah, yeah, sorry, but youdidsay that you didn’t want to kill anyone and all I’ve got are assassinations, and messenger work?very bloody messenger work.” He tipped up his head and scratched at his jaw where the mask ended. “But since your mom was a cop…”
I went cold and gripped my hands together under the table. “I don’t remember telling you that.”
“Well, that’s the thing about small towns like Boston,” Ryan said. “I happen to have a mutual friend who knew your father — whoalsoknew his ex-wife, the hard-ass cop. Marina “Fierce” Fioreno, right?” He waved a hand as I jumped. “Doesn’t matter, I would have gotten this information from Ricky anyway.”
“Right,” I muttered, noting that he didn’t drop hisrwhen he spoke, but it seemed a little too forced at the same time. He was trying to hide a Boston accent, maybe. “So, do you have any jobs for a cop’s daughter?”
“Funny you should ask…” Ryan said in a tone that had me gritting my teeth and I regretted sassing him. “Think you could steal something from a cop? How about from a computer?”
Breath whooshed out of me. “Uh, maybe.”
“Well, I mean, you’ve got the perfect set of skills, Lia: hacking abilities, street smarts taught by Fierce Fioreno herself. It must run in the family.”
“Right,” I said slowly and my heart beat harder. “But you mean from his office? Like Boston Police headquarters or something?” Already, my mind was trying to plot a way into a police station and get past the security put in place on their computers. “What station does he work at? The one in Roxbury?”
“No station,” Ryan said. “His house.”
Shit.That made it more difficult on a personal level but I bit back a sigh and nodded. “Personal laptop?”
