cuts and bruises. Can’t make an omelet without cracking a few eggs, right?”
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. I honestly cannot.
I thought this club… Well, I knew it was a meat market of some kind. But I thought there was a certain jaded innocence to the place. That when it came down to it, it was just another place for guys to hook up. In this case, rich guys and models. Everybody gets what they want, everybody goes home satisfied. It wasn’t my kind of world, it was artificial and weird, but I didn’t think it was this awful.
I didn’t realize the kind of transactions that might go on here.
My checkbook is in my hand, and I reach for a pen on his desk. “Two hundred forty thousand, then. Make it an even quarter-mil.”
That laugh, that horrible laugh.
“God-damn you’re quick on the draw! I should’ve called you first, instead of bugging poor ol’ Finn! Look at you. Make sure you got enough zeroes there, okay? Damn. I might take the rest of the day off. My client is gonna be pissed.”
The sound of the check ripping from the book is the loudest sound I’ve ever heard. I push it toward him, and he picks it up. He looks like he might bite it. Instead, he folds it and puts it in his pocket.
“Now, as much as I’d love to run out and cash this thing, I think, as a businessman, it’s only fair that I let my client know he’s been outbid. Give him a chance at a counteroffer. That’s fair, isn’t it?”
“What? Fuck no. Jimi, that money is so we drop all of this. If you’re going to be shady, give me the check back.”
“Give it…back?” He laughs again, and I am so tired of him laughing, I am sick of it. “Oh no, no, no, Mr. Raines, I am not giving this back, unless my client does make a counteroffer. Tell you what, though. I’ll speak to you, instead of Finn. How about that? That nice? I know I scare the boy, although I don’t understand why, we’re as close as family.”
“Family doesn’t sell you out.”
He shrugs. “Maybe we come from different families, you and I. I’ll be in touch, Mr. Raines.”
25
Finn
“Oh damn, did we miss Colby?”
The older of the two men looks past me, into Colby’s office. I’ve left the door open; I like having the sunlight pouring in, I’ve decided.
I don’t know these two, and nothing is on the calendar.
They don’t look like businessmen…at least, not the tightly-buttoned kind who come to visit Colby to ask for favors or receive their orders. These guys are much too relaxed for that.
The older one—I’d say he’s in his forties, maybe even his late forties, although he’s aging quite well—looks down at me where I’m sitting at the desk and grins. “You must be the new secretary.”
So nonchalant, I’m caught off-guard. I can’t, of course, explain where Colby is, but I offer him the standard, “I’m afraid he’s out this morning.”
“Probably passed out,” the older man laughs. “Right Hawk?”
The smaller, younger man looks at me curiously. “You’re Finnian.”
Do I blanch a little? Do I draw back in my chair?
It’s not exactly like I’m supposed to be a secret—hell, I’ve been accompanying Colby everywhere in my capacity as his assistant—but the way the younger man addresses me, I feel like he knows something about me. Something that other people don’t know.
Has Colby gone around telling people about me?
I put on my friendliest, most professional face. “Do you gentlemen have an appointment?”
“Appointment!” The older one laughs and claps the younger on the shoulder. “Look at him! He’s fitting right in. That’s right, Finn, you keep us troublemakers out of the office. Protect your boss, okay?”
The younger extends his hand to me. “I’m Hawk. This noisy old man beside me is Daniel. We’re Colby’s friends.”
Oh my god. I didn’t recognize them…but they clearly recognized me.
From the club.
From that first night.
My heart races in what feels like panic. Yet, clearly they are trying to be friendly. I shake Hawk’s hand—it’s soft, like he has never done a day of work in his life. A delicate hand, like that of an artist.
He doesn’t let go of my hand. In fact, he uses this handshake as an opportunity to step closer to the desk, like he’s getting a better look at me.
I suddenly feel very gnarled and twisted, like a little troll.
Daniel says, “Hawk, you’re doing the thing.”
“What thing?”
“Too much eye contact.”
“I am not. Am