Page 71 of Her Boss

“This Salazzo prick’s throwing a stick in the spokes of your uncle’s plans, unless Chester wants to regularly make it worth Salazzo’s while. Your uncle may be a lot of things, but a bitch who rolls over for some shit ball little thug? Nope.” I retrieved an envelope from my left desk drawer, sliding it across the desk toward her. “Which is where you come in.”

I watched her for a moment. What she said in the next few seconds was going to be absolutely critical to us having a chance, any chance at all, of getting ourselves out of the shitstorm we’d found ourselves in.

I knew that she could pull it off—the plan, such as it was, being relatively straightforward.

But that assumed, of course, that Salazzo didn’t sniff out that something was going on… which was even money, at best. But it wasn’t the time to tell her that. I needed her confidence, and undermining it with what-ifs and hypotheticals wasn’t going to do either one of us any favors.

Only a delusional idiot would say we wouldn’t need at least a little bit of luck to avoid the whole thing blowing up in our faces.

Perhaps literally.

You have to take the risk.

“That park you found. The one that prick likes to do his little strolls in? That’s the place.”

Her throat worked, but she said nothing, her pretty gaze fixed upon me.

“Nine o’clock tomorrow night.”

Apparently, Genie had been utterly frustrated in her initial search for patterns when it came to the target. Salazzo seemed to know he was being watched and kept his nose squeaky clean.

Until she’d noticed something.

The man was always gone from his office on Thursday evenings. That in itself wasn’t that unusual as most offices were unoccupied in the evenings.

But in Salazzo’s case, he seemed to work nights.

That alone wouldn’t have been enough, because it was completely unknown where he went on Thursday nights, or if he went anywhere at all.

But by a stroke of random chance, my lieutenant, Viola, had remembered shaking down one of Salazzo’s bagmen, some asshole named Timmy who’d been harassing the customers of one our clients’ businesses.

Surprisingly, she’d actually gotten something useful out of the sonofabitch.

He’d told Viola that his boss—Salazzo—sometimes went ‘to the park’ on Thursdays. The man swore he didn’t know which park or exactly when though.

I took a guess on which one it might be. 53rd and Pike had a little stretch of greenspace, only a few acres at best. The place had a stone torii gate at its east entrance too, which was odd, but helped me remember it was even there. I’d sent Viola down there, just to have a look.

Sure enough, Salazzo was there, like clockwork, on Thursday evenings.

I already had the long-range photos of the asshole there, and while it was something, it just wasn’t enough. I had no real leverage. Yet. “He won’t know who you are, so that’s working for us at least. And you need to not think about the wire. If you do, you’ll stiffen up—and you’ll give yourself away. Don’t complicate this, but don’t look too eager to get this over with either. Just approach him and deliver the message. You’ll tell him that it’s from Chester.”

Her voice had taken on a hint of reediness. “What will it say?”

I shrugged. “Demanding he give up the racket, and that if he doesn’t, he gets a boot in the teeth. Or something. I don’t remember all of the words. The specifics aren’t important. It’s Salazzo’s reaction to it that we care about. Got me?”

Her face paled, but she was still with me. “You want me to just… walk up to this asshole and give him that message? What if his reaction is shooting me? Or worse?”

“That’s not happening. You’re going to have to trust me on this.”

“With my life?”

I gave her a long, hard look. “You’ve been trusting me with your life since the day you decided to stay working here. Even after I told you what I really wanted out of you.”

Genie nodded slowly. “Okay… okay.” She took a deep breath, squaring her shoulders, determination flashing in her pretty eyes. “I’m ready, I think.”

I smiled. “Good. Let’s get to work.”

And God help you if she gets hurt.

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