Page 6 of Matteo

Following behind Jason, I let him lead the way. Director Jacob Lance kept his office dark as if he were sitting in his own personal corner of hell.

We rarely ever saw him out in the main office building, and I hated getting called up here. The man gave me the goddamned creeps.

Imagine that being a grown ass man, an FBI agent no less and having to deal with a man everyone called Dracula behind his back.

“Good evening gentleman,” the director said once we were inside.

Slowly, I braced myself as I closed the door before turning around.

It was smokey as hell in this office and all you could see was an ember burning on the tip of the cigar, I knew he was smoking.

I was surprised that there weren’t smoke alarms blaring demanding we all exit the building.

“Evening, Director,” I mumbled ready to go, the sensation of something creeping and crawling, rolling up and down my spine.

“I suppose you’re both wondering why I’ve called you up here,” he stated, puffing on the cigar again.

I could barely see my hand in front of my face, just the glow of the damned ember. Reaching to my neck, I wiggled the tie around it wanting to loosen it a bit. I felt as if I were choking from the thick heavy sweet miasma.

“We were,” Jason said next.

“I hand-picked the two of you,” the director spoke again before another drag on the cigar happened. “For a task force that will be targeting the Ito crime family.”

“Who are they?” I asked.

“Yakuza,” Jason said from beside me.

Clearly, he knew something that I didn’t, but I let it slide.

“For now,” the director spoke softly once more. “You’ll be simply observing. Gathering intel and reporting back to me.”

“Sir?” I finally questioned.

A pregnant pause filled the air. “Yes, Zacharra?”

Director Lance said my last name with such a disdain sometimes, I wondered if he hated my guts. We hardly ever interacted with each other, so I shook it off.

“How many people are being assigned to this task force?”

“As of right now, it’s just the two of you. I’ve paired you and Agent Nakumara, due to the fact that he speaks fluent Japanese. I know the two of you have history together.”

I coughed, pulling at the tie that seemed to be trying to strangle me. The Director continued.

“I trust that won’t be an issue for either of you?”

Everything seemed to go silent, I couldn’t hear anything until finally Jason cleared his throat and replied. “No, sir. It won’t be a problem on my end.”

I nodded, even though it was dark. “Not a problem, sir.”

“Good. I have my secretary getting files ready for the two of you for Monday morning. Gentleman, I don’t have to tell you that this needs to be kept to yourselves.”

Jason and I finally exited Lance’s office. I gulped in the air the first chance I could. Neither of us said a word, even as we passed the secretary’s desk who had already left for the evening.

Getting onto the elevator, we were quiet still. It wasn’t until we were stepping off to go in the opposite direction that I suggested something I hadn’t done in a long time.

“Mmm…Jason,” I spoke.

“What?” He snapped, his hands going to his hips.

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