Page 3 of Ruthless Arrangement

He doesn’t look surprised.Why would he? He doesn’t know me.

Or does he?

As the door rotates, bringing us parallel, a slow, chilling smile spreads across his face. Not warm. Not friendly. The smile from the photograph. The smile of a man who owns the game. Recognition flickers in his cold, dark eyes. Not of a stranger, but of someone expected.

The glass partition slides away. Face-to-face for a fraction of a second, the lobby’s muffled sounds yielding to the city’s hum. His voice, low and smooth, cuts through, meant only for me.

“Careful there, Miss Song.”

He knows my name.How?The question steals the air from my lungs. A dizzying wave washes over me, making the polished lobby tilt.

His intense, assessing gaze flicks down to the manila folder clutched against my chest. The VARELA file. His smile widens, a predatory curve that makes my stomach plummet.

Then the door completes its turn. He is past me, stepping into the lobby, vanishing as I am deposited onto the damp sidewalk.

I stand rooted to the spot, the revolving door whispering shut, Michigan Avenue crashing back in with its horns blaring, people hurrying past. My muscles feel locked, unresponsive. He knew my name. He saw the file.

“Holy shit!” Sienna emerges a moment later, eyes wide, fixed on where Varela had entered. “Lea! Did you see—? That was Varela! How the hell? Did he talk to you? Did he just address you as Miss Song?”

I’m getting dizzy, spiraling.Numbly, instinctively, I reach into my satchel for my phone.Need normalcy, connection. Calling someone. My mother? No.

My thumb hovers over the screen. As it flickers to life, a tiny icon looking like a stylized microphone flashes briefly in the top status bar. There for less than a second, almost imperceptible, then gone.

“What was that?” Sienna asks, her reporter’s eyes missing nothing. She’d seen it too.

“I…I don’t know,” I stammer, voice thin. “A glitch?”

Assume everyone is listening.Sienna’s warning slams back.A glitch? Or confirmation? Is my phone compromised already? Is he listening now?

I look back toward the imposing skyscraper Varela had just entered, its doors now spitting out oblivious workers. The anonymity I’d craved, the chance to investigate from the shadows, had vanished before my first day had barely started. I feel stripped naked, exposed, and hunted.

The game hasn’t just begun. I am already marked. And Nico Varela is holding all the pieces.

CHAPTERTWO

Nico

The bladeof light slicing through the room catches the edge of my whiskey glass, casting amber shadows across the smooth, cool surface of the polished mahogany table. I turn the glass slowly, watching the interplay of darkness and illumination. It fits. This whole damn city, the clusterfuck brewing for this meeting, even the woman still cooling her heels downstairs. Control. It’s always about control.

Below me, Purgatorio has come to life. The heavy bass, bleeding through even these soundproofed walls, is a distant heartbeat reminding me of the empire I’ve built. Up here, in my private conference room, a different kind of music is about to play. The grating noise of rival egos, forced into line by the only authority they both dread. Me.

And then there was her. Lea Song. Emerging from the elevator lobby just as I arrived. Clutching that manila folder, my folder, placed in her hands as I’d orchestrated through the pliable publisher. The look on her face when she recognized me? Priceless. Fear, yes, but something else beneath it. Defiance? Intrigue? That flicker in her dark eyes, a refusal to simply shatter, sparked something within me. A challenge. Mine. Let her wonder how I knew her name. Let her feel my attention land on her, a pressure point she can’t ignore, before her first day is even an hour old. Good. The game has already started.

I adjust my diamond filled platinum cufflinks, which was a gift from my uncle Alessandro on my thirtieth birthday. “Power,” he had said, “is in the details others miss.” The platinum’s cool presence on my wrists anchors me, physical proof of the authority I wield. I run my finger along the smooth edge, feeling the engraved ‘V’ that marks them as mine. Everything in my world is marked as mine, eventually. Even ambitious junior reporters digging into their fathers' ghosts. Especially them.

The double doors open, Marco conducting his customary sweep before admitting the two sources of my current irritation. Animosity radiates between them, a palpable static charging the air. Diaz barely contains his restlessness; Kostya carries his resentment like a cheap cologne. Inconvenient. Two snarling dogs disrupting the equilibrium, expecting me to settle their backyard squabble. Predictable.

“Gentlemen.” I don’t rise. My stillness anchors the room. “Dispense with the pleasantries.”

Marco closes the door, taking his position. The air crackles with their resentment. Diaz drops into a chair like it owes him money. Kostya lowers himself more deliberately, already composing justifications I have no interest in hearing.

Before either can speak, I cut them off. “Your disagreement,” I state, the word dripping with disdain, “has become a liability. It affects profits, complicates logistics, and worse, it makes noise.” I let that hang in the air. Noise attracts the wrong attention. My attention.

I take a deliberate sip of whiskey; the silence amplifying their failures. Their postures shift as Diaz bristles and Kostya tightens. Good. Let them feel the weight of their incompetence before I provide the solution they don’t have the intelligence to devise themselves.

“Fortunately,” I continue, my voice smooth, “I have formulated a resolution.”

At my nod, Marco places identical folders before them. They open them, scanning the contents. Predictable disbelief flickers across their faces, quickly followed by shock as they realize the depth of information contained within: operational details, vulnerabilities, opportunities they thought secret. My information. It’s always startling to them how much I know.

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