Page 62 of Wicked Mafia Beast
Line by line. Clause by clause. The woman reads every word the way she reads people: thoroughly, suspiciously, with an eye for what's hidden between the lines.
Good girl.
"This says I remain in your custody until the threat is eliminated." She looks up, one finger pressed against the offending clause. "Define eliminated."
"Your uncle and father are neutralized. Either imprisoned, dead, or otherwise unable to harm you."
"'Otherwise unable.' That's vague."
I lift a shoulder. "It's flexible. You know what I am, Onyx. There’s no need to dance around the truth."
"Nope. You’re not going to scare me out of getting answers. I want specifics. I’m all about details." She uncrosses her legs and leans forward, elbows on the granite, the sweater slipping further down her bare shoulder. "I want to know exactly when I'm free to go."
Ah, those specifics.
I amend the language on the contract. She finds another issue. We go back and forth, point by point, her pen scratching notes in the margins with a precision that makes my admiration war with my irritation.
I've never had anyone negotiate with me. Most people sign whatever I put in front of them because the alternative involves body bags and unmarked graves. This woman treats me as an equal, challenges every assumption, refuses every ambiguity.
It's infuriating. It's intoxicating.
"This clause about testimony." She taps the page with her pen, her brow creased, the crease deepening when she's about to argue a point she knows she'll win. "It says I testify if necessary. Who determines necessity? I didn’t think you guys would work side by side with authorities."
"I determine the necessity."
"No." The word is flat, absolute, delivered with a jaw set in stone. "We do. Jointly. I'm not a puppet, Kon. If I testify, it's because I choose to, not because you decided it's convenient. And you didn’t answer my question."
I should refuse. Every instinct I've honed over two decades of enforcing the Syndicate's will tells me to hold this line, to keep control, to never cede authority to anyone.
I look at the defiance blazing in her blue eyes, the stubborn tilt of her chin, the pen gripped in fingers that refuse to tremble.
"Fine. Joint determination. As for the authorities, when it's cleaner to let the law handle them, we do. When it's not, we handle them ourselves. Does that satisfy your curiosity?"
She smiles. Small, victorious, the corners of her mouth curving in a way that reshapes her entire face and does devastating things to the space behind my ribs. She knows she won. She wants me to know she knows.
The morning turns to afternoon. I order food from the Italian place three blocks down the road. We eat while arguing about liability clauses. She pulls apart a piece of focaccia with her fingers and uses it to punctuate her arguments, waving olive-oil-slicked bread at me while she dismantles my position on information exclusivity.
"You're good at this," I admit, watching her tear into a clause about intellectual property rights with the same precision she brings to investigative reporting.
"I've been negotiating with powerful men my whole life." She dips the bread in oil, her expression shifting, a shadowpassing across her features before she clears it. "Usually I was negotiating for my survival. This is actually refreshing."
"Refreshing."
"You're not trying to own me. You're trying to protect me." She meets my eyes across the desk, her gaze steady, the blue darkened by an emotion I can't name. "There's a difference."
I go still. The words land in my chest and stay there, warm and heavy.
"You believe that?"
"I'm starting to." Her voice drops, the words barely above a whisper, and for a moment the negotiator disappears and the woman underneath surfaces. The woman who cried in my arms three days ago. The woman who asked me why I didn't leave.
The moment stretches. Neither of us breathes.
Then she shakes it off, squares her shoulders, and flips to the final page. Her eyes scan the last clause and I watch her face when she reaches the word I've been waiting for.
Freedom.
Upon elimination of the Malone threat, the Protected Party shall be provided with a new identity, financial resources sufficient for independent establishment, and complete freedom from all Syndicate obligations and associations.
