by Carsen Taite
Martin tucked the phone in his jacket pocket, obviously agitated at the search, but it was standard operating procedure for anyone who had a meeting with the don unless they were made men. It struck her she’d neglected to subject Royal to the search, and she cursed how easily she’d let herself be distracted by Royal’s charm and good looks. She couldn’t let that happen again.
“Do you think he’s interested?” Martin asked.
Siobhan tore her attention back to the business at hand. She’d seen Carlo’s wheels turning with ideas about how to incorporate Martin’s app plan into his empire, but she kept her poker face fixed in place. “I’ll let you know.”
“You have until Wednesday and then I’m taking this elsewhere.”
She sighed. “You know better than that. Don Carlo will not be pushed into a decision, and if you really want to get this business up and running, we are your best bet. You’ll wait until he makes a decision and you’ll be grateful for the opportunity.” She kept her tone even and didn’t raise her voice, but the sharp rebuke landed as it should. He nodded and shook her hand.
“I’ll look forward to your call. I think we would do well in business together, you and me.”
She didn’t bother correcting him as he walked away, having no desire to give any oxygen to his implication that she might be remotely interested in his affections. There was a time when she would try anything, but people like Martin might say they were interested in one-night stands, but they were really only interested in finding the one, and she would never be that. Not for him, not for anyone.
Her mind strayed to Royal. If she was inclined to fool around today, Royal would be more her style—or she would’ve been before she was under Mancuso employ. Siobhan steered away from entanglements with employees, making a rare exception for some of the temporary help around the house. But Royal wasn’t like those women. She had a depth to her, a quiet strength that spoke of layers and layers to peel away. A woman like that wasn’t usually inclined to fuck and move on. Or maybe she was worried she wouldn’t be able to fuck and move on. Either way, steering clear of Royal was her plan, and when she made a plan, she held fast. There was no other way to survive.
Chapter Nine
Royal heard her phone buzzing, but the room was dark, and she couldn’t find it. She shuffled all the pillows out of the way until she found it in between the sheets, fished it out, and mumbled “Royal here.”
“’Bout time you answered. What’s going on?”
Royal groaned inwardly at the sound of Wharton’s voice and sat up in bed. “I was sleeping.”
“It’s after ten. Seriously?”
“I was out late. On a job.” She glanced around, hesitating to say more. She knew how to sweep a room for bugs and she’d done so regularly since she’d moved in, but you could never be too careful. “You know how much I hate talking on the phone.”
“Meet me for coffee. The usual place.”
She didn’t want to meet him. She didn’t want to meet anyone. She wanted to hole up in this place, away from her boss, the Mancuso family, her brother, and start a completely new life where she was Royal Scott, a person with one identity and a whole lot less baggage to bring to whatever new experiences she might encounter.
Experiences…Her mind flashed to Siobhan Collins and she squelched the thought. Siobhan wasn’t a path toward breaking free from this twilight zone life she’d been leading. No, her attraction to Siobhan threatened to have her running back into the fire, full force. The chemistry between them should help her do her job, but if she wasn’t careful, she risked getting burned in more ways than one. She needed to get a handle on her feelings before they led her astray. “I’ll see you at noon,” she said, choosing a busy time for the popular cafe.
She padded her way to the kitchen, brewed a pot of coffee, and spread her notes out on the kitchen table. The wedding had been a goldmine of who’s who in the world of organized crime, but except for the private meetings in Don Carlo’s office, no one seemed to be discussing business. She’d diligently worked the floor, hoping to overhear anything at all about any big moves the Mancuso family might be up to, but she came up empty on every pass. The conversations generally consisted of nothing more than the indulgent gossip of the rich and privileged. She now knew plenty about the personal relationships between the families, and she might be able to put that information to good use, but there’d been no bombshells, no earth-shattering revelations—not that she’d expected any, but it would’ve been nice to walk away with some nugget she could mine further.
It had been five days and she’d heard zip from Siobhan. “I’ll find you later” had been a promise unfulfilled and she’d barely seen Siobhan the rest of the day other than from a distance, across the room. The day after the wedding, she’d gone to the office and met with Robert, run the liquor inventory, and helped cook the books for the booze they’d stolen from the truck on Celia’s wedding day, but she didn’t have much intel for her efforts.
When she’d finished the last of the coffee, she swept her notes, locked them in a plain metal box, and stowed them back in the attic. It was definitely a risk to keep them on hand, but she needed the visual of seeing all the bits of information displayed in front of her in order to be able to arrange the pieces of the puzzle as they fell into place. Some undercover agents preferred to encrypt everything on their phones, but no method was completely safe. Besides, she could burn paper notes, but completely eliminating a digital footprint was a more difficult task.
The coffee shop was two miles away, but she chose to walk since she didn’t put it past the Mancusos to put a tracker on her car. When she arrived, she circled the place several times to detect if anyone was following or watching her or Wharton, who she could see sitting at the counter, nursing a cup of coffee. Satisfied she’d taken all the appropriate precautions, she went inside, took a seat next to him, and ordered an iced tea and a roast beef sandwich.
“How are you?” he asked when the waitress disappeared into the kitchen.
“Starving. Your people stocked the fridge with crap. Maybe have them check with a person first to see what they actually eat before wasting time.”
“Okay. Any other complaints?”
“Sorry. It’s been days since the wedding, and despite their promise to elevate me, I haven’t heard from anyone. I saw Robert on Sunday and again last night for another take down of an incoming liquor delivery, but other than an attagirl for zeroing out the cost of booze for the reception, it’s been crickets. I’m either blown or they’re just not interested.”
“When did you get to be so impatient? You know jobs like this take time.”
“And you assured me they were teed up to do something big soon. I don’t have a clue what that something is, and I seriously doubt I’m going to figure it out anytime soon.” She slid an index card across the bar. “That’s a list of everyone I saw at the wedding and a chart showing the relationships between them along with my other notes. It’s not a lot, but it does fill in a few gaps in the intel you had before. I’m in until the rest of the week and if nothing shakes out, I’m done.”
“Really? You’re going to give up so easily?”
She knew better than to offer empty threats. As much as she wanted to walk away from this life, she was hooked enough to want to see this through. If only she could find a way to accelerate her investigation, but jobs like this didn’t work that way. Normally, she’d spend months laying the groundwork before she could develop hard evidence. The difference was that unlike after every other job, after the last one, she’d expected to be done. And then there was the issue of her brother showing up at her apartment and the mystery about his arrival having to wait. “Tell you what. Do me a favor and I’ll stick around, but how long remains to be seen.” She gave him Ryan’s military info and he promised to look into it and report back.
“So, what’s she like?” he asked as he stowed the index card in his jacket.
“Who?” She knew who, but she felt
a strange reluctance to talk about Siobhan.
“The consigliere. It always surprised me that Carlo didn’t pick Dominique for the job and went outside the family.”
“She seems like family.” Royal reflected on the way Siobhan and Carlo had interacted, the doting father figure and the attentive daughter. “Dominique is pretty brash. Maybe he thinks Siobhan has a cooler head for giving counsel.”
“You could be right about that. They say Siobhan’s like a daughter to him.”
Royal pictured the way Siobhan had placed her hand on Carlo’s arm, establishing a connection as she entreated him to find a better job for her in the family business. But maybe the appearance was greater than the real thing since, days later, she’d heard nothing from the Mancusos about coming into the fold. “Something like that.”
“You need to get into her place, at the very least her office.”
“So now you’re telling me how to do my job?”
“She’s the key.”
“And she’s a lawyer. You really want me poking around her office? You won’t be able to use anything I get.” She took a drink of her coffee. “Has main Justice signed off on you targeting a lawyer?”
He shifted in his chair. “We’re not targeting her. Not officially. Listen, you find something juicy and I’ll figure out how we can use it. Trust me, I got this.”
Like every other time in her life, when she heard the words “trust me,” Royal’s internal alarm system started going off. After years working with him, she had grown to trust Wharton, but now she wondered how much of her trust was about survival rather than good sense. Going after lawyers was sensitive business in the federal system. They couldn’t be indicted without the blessing of the Department of Justice, and that usually resulted only after evidence had been gathered, not the other way around. What Wharton was talking about was bootstrapping the evidence to fit the supposition, something she didn’t mind doing when there was some imminent danger, but in a case like this where they were doing run-of-the-mill catch-a-gangster investigations, it didn’t make sense to risk guilty verdicts with unnecessary technical violations. Slow and steady old-school investigation would yield results—they always did.
And apparently, she’d just talked herself out of bailing too soon. “I’ll let you know what I find,” she said, hedging against an outright promise to toss Siobhan’s office, but his suggestion did spark an idea. She pushed her cup away and stood. “Next time, wait for me to call you.” She took a step toward the door before she remembered what she’d been planning to ask him. “Hey, is Carlo ill?”
“Not that I know of, why?”
She remembered the signs she’d seen. He’d been pale and shaky, but she’d been pale and shaky after a long night at the bar. It was probably just stress from the wedding. Weddings were usually happy events in memory only. “No reason. Never mind.”
She took a different route on the walk home, stopping at a used bookstore. She missed the shelves of books at her apartment, a collection she hadn’t added much to in a while. She ran her hands along the spine of the last Sue Grafton book before returning it to the shelf. Buying certain titles said something about who a person was, and she couldn’t risk the message they might send. So, when she was working undercover, she bought books she thought would best reflect the role she was trying to play. Sometimes they overlapped with the books she’d choose on her own, but often not. Today, she picked up a conspiracy theory book about how the government was a sham and people shouldn’t have to pay income tax. Pretty fringe, but still a bestseller so she could use it to either claim credibility with the people who were anti-government or claim curiosity with those that were more moderate. She paid for the book, waved off the offer of a bag, tucked it under her arm, and continued her walk. She was about a quarter mile from her place when her phone rang, caller unknown.
“Yeah,” she said, answering the call.
“Where are you?”
She recognized Siobhan’s silky voice and recalibrated. She’d been formulating a plan to drop in at her office with some made-up legal need, but Siobhan reaching out to her was a much better development. “Out for a walk in my neighborhood. Where are you?”
“Hold on.”
Royal waited a few moments and then held the phone away from her ear to see if the line was still connected. When she heard Siobhan’s voice come through again, she pulled it back to her ear. “What was that?”
“Turn around.”
She turned slowly, cautious about the fact she’d been walking without a lot of regard to what was going on around her. It only took a moment to spot the black Suburban at the end of the block headed her way. If that was Siobhan, this was next-level surveillance, and she wondered if they’d seen her at the cafe. She shook her head. No, Siobhan had seemed genuinely curious when she’d asked where she was.
She stood in place and watched the vehicle approach, acting nonchalant when the rear window lowered to reveal Siobhan.
“Get in.”
It was another test of her ability and willingness to do whatever they said without question, and for a second, she thought back to her days in the military where she’d spent a lot of time balking at jumping through hoops like these. Was Ryan having similar issues and was that why he was on an indefinite leave? She shelved the question for later and climbed into the SUV. The seats in the back were arranged like the passenger section of a limo with two rows facing each other, and she took the seat opposite Siobhan. She was barely seated when Siobhan told the driver, the bodyguard Royal recognized from the day she’d pushed Siobhan out of the street, to go.
“How are you today?” Siobhan asked, her tone formal.
“Good. Went out for a walk, had coffee, and checked out the local bookstore.” Royal held up the book and then tucked it back under her arm.
“I didn’t picture you as the type of person who indulged conspiracy theories.”
“I read all kinds of things. Nothing wrong with covering all your bases.”
“Why aren’t you working today?”
Royal stifled a reaction to the quick change in subject and went with the flow. “Robert told me not to come in. Said he’d call me later.”
“So, this gives you time to read and you choose to use it on nonsense.”
“Nonsense?”
“Those books all rail against the bureaucracy of government, but only because they want a different kind of government. One that reflects only their ideas. The authors are hypocrites.”
Royal sensed a well of emotion from Siobhan about this issue and she played on it. “Wow, tell me how you really feel.”
“Tell me you don’t believe everything you read.”
“I don’t believe much I can’t sort out for myself. Not to worry, I’m in no danger of joining up with the fringe right. I’m more of a live and let live kind of person.” She waited, but Siobhan didn’t respond, so she pushed a little more. “How about you?”
“How about me what?”
“You don’t strike me as someone who likes to be told what to do.”
“You’d be right about that.” Siobhan studied her carefully. “You don’t strike me as someone who grew up thinking they were going to peddle alcohol for the rest of her life.”
“Ouch.” Royal paused for a moment to consider the source of the comment. Did Siobhan already suspect she was hiding something or was the comment more of a backhanded compliment? Treading carefully, she said, “You make it sound so low-rent.”
Siobhan waved her hand dismissively. “Sorry. I’m not saying it’s not an important job, but…Never mind.”
“No way. Now I’m curious. What exactly do you think I should be doing?”
The SUV pulled to a stop at the intersection. “Good question. You’re definitely a person who steps up. I guess I wonder how you got started working for someone like Robert.”
“Well, now you have me curious about exactly what you think of Robert.”
“And you think I’d trust you enough to
share my opinion?”
“You seem full of opinions and you haven’t been shy about sharing them yet.”
“Why don’t you tell me what you think of him. Bonus points for honesty.”
Royal studied Siobhan’s face, looking for some clue about whether this conversation was idle gossip or a test. Either way, both the questions and answers could be revealing both for her and Siobhan. She took a deep breath and plunged ahead. “Robert is ambitious. Becoming a made member of the Mancuso family is his dream and he can’t think of anything more fulfilling in life.”
“Now it’s my turn to point out that you say that like it’s a bad thing.”
Royal shook her head. “It’s not. The problem is that, as far as he’s concerned, the goal is more important than the getting there. He’ll do anything to suck up to Don Carlo, and the anything may not always be in the family’s best interest.”
“And you profess to know what’s in the Mancuso family’s best interest?”
“Not entirely, but Carlo Mancuso’s reputation is that he values both loyalty and discretion. Robert may seem loyal, but his loyalty comes with a price. If he doesn’t escalate through the ranks, he’s the kind of person who will turn. And as for discretion? You’ve seen how he struts around. He likes to brag just to let people know he’s on the inside without regard to what being on the inside really means.”
“He’s your boss.”
“You asked me a question. I’m merely answering.”
“Or maybe you’re trying to undermine Robert. Maybe you think there’s a chance if he doesn’t get a seat at the table there might be room for you someday.”
“I thought you had decided I wasn’t ambitious.”
“I’m not afraid to admit when I’m wrong.”
Royal grinned. “I doubt that happens very often.”
Siobhan grinned back. “Hardly ever.” The light changed and the driver pulled out into the intersection. “Let’s see how ambitious you are. Do you have plans Friday night?”