Page 237 of Merciless Daddy
She ignored it and placed the case on the conference table.
“Your men kept me at the gate for nine minutes,” she said. “That was not our arrangement.”
“They are careful.”
“They are stupid. Careful men check credentials once. It’s the illiterate who keep staring for minutes, trying to work out what all the squiggly shapes mean.”
One of the guards bristled.
Donatella looked at him.
“What?” she asked.
The guard looked away.
“That’s what I thought.”
She turned back to Gianni.
“You said the transfer would be ready.”
“It is.”
“The witness protocol?”
“Prepared.”
“Cancellation language?”
“On the terminal.”
“Independent legal review?”
Gianni’s gaze moved toward me.
“Yelena understands the documents.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Something unpleasant flickered through me.
She sounded like Dante.
Worse, she sounded like a woman accustomed to entering rooms full of men and finding all their errors before she removed her coat.
Gianni gestured toward the equipment case.
“Show her.”
Donatella entered a code. The locks clicked.
Inside, black foam cradled a Halberd hardware token the size of a small book. A steel seal covered the main housing. A certificate strip ran along one edge, marked with serial numbers and tamper indicators.
My stomach went cold.
“No,” I said.
Donatella’s eyes moved toward me.
