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“Annalise” I mumbled.
“Annalise…”
“E-Eden,” I stammered. “My dad works with your dad.”
The smile was quick. “You mean he worksforme?”
For me.I bit back a snarl of anger. I wanted to push the point. No, he workedwithhim. We could walk at any time, take our hard work and our brains and go any damn place we wanted.
“Finley,” he held out his hand. “But my friends call me Fin.”
“Finley,” I repeated, making sure he knew we weren’t going to be friends, as I shook his hand.
At first glance, he looked a lot like his father, but the sly, seductive smile was all his mother’s. Thank god for that. A little too much of the patriarch in this family wasn’t a good thing.
He shifted his gaze behind me to the man who whimpered and moaned. “I guess you’re wondering what’s going on here?”
Wondering? No. Trying to work out how I could scrub it from my memory…yes.
I gave a shrug. “It doesn’t look like numbers to me,” I said quietly. “Numbers are my business. They’re all I care about,nothing else.”
I prayed he understood me, prayed this wasn’t about to be the sudden violent end of my relatively boring life. But as a twinkle sparked in his eyes, he took one more step, lifted his finger to brush my cheek, and whispered, “Good answer.”
2
Anna
Code II
Once in, there’s no getting out
Anna
Six weeks before
My phone illuminated with a beep.
Fin: You didn’t come with your father tonight, what gives?
My pulse sped with the words. It was the first time he’d texted me after I gave him my number, to be usedin emergencies only. Was this an emergency? I didn’t think so.
What gives? Ah, how about last-minute meetings at midnight, asshole? My damn eye twitched and my thumbs slid across the screen as I opened up my messenger.
Why? Didn’t think you’d notice my absence.
Like there was a lot to miss, mostly me sitting in his father’s library while I studied dad’s work. The front door thudded as the words on my screen started to blur. I stifled a yawn, rubbed my eyes, and checked the time. Itwasafter midnight. Lucky I hadn’t gone.
Fin: Looks like you were wrong. The numbers look shoddy. I think your dad is getting old.
I couldn’t hide the smile. “Shoddy, my ass,” I muttered under my breath. “What kind of self-respecting gangster uses the wordshoddyanyway?”
I typed back:You weren’t even at the meeting, were you?
I shifted my gaze to the bedroom door, waiting for it to crack open and my father’s grumbled“'night, Button”,that’d eventually come.
Fin: Busted. Maybe next time we’ll see each other?
“Yeah, right,” I turned over in my bed. “I don’t think so, you’re way out of my league.”
