Page 5 of Ruthless Arrangement

The record of my latest failed attempt to reach him still displays on the screen:Dear Mr. Varela,I’m reaching out regarding a profile piece for the Chicago Investigative Journal focusing on your business success and community impact.

Polite. Professional. Utterly ignored, just like the five previous messages I’ve sent to various official channels since getting the assignment. He’s playing with me. He knew my name. He knew I had the file. He’s letting me dangle, enjoying my frustration. The bastard.

“Damn it,” I mutter, collapsing onto my couch. A caffeine-withdrawal headache hammers behind my eyes, and my spine feels fused into a painful hunch. I need a shower, actual food, and twelve hours of uninterrupted sleep. Maybe an exorcism to get his face out of my head.

What I need more is a breakthrough. Something concrete linking him not just to shady deals, but to the suspicious brake failure that sent my father’s car into the river six years ago, just months after the Journal let him go for digging too deep.

Harrison’s deadline looms. I’m four days away from having to present my first report, and so far I have jack shit. “Get me something substantial,” he’d growled when I checked in yesterday. “Not just public records. I need an angle, Song. Something with teeth.”

Something with teeth. I glance back at my wall of connections, my eyes snagging again on a close-up of Varela. Those eyes. Sienna wasn’t wrong; they look right through you, even in a photograph. The patterns are there, tantalizingly clear: he’s built a legitimate empire that serves as a perfect shield for whatever lies beneath. His public persona as a successful businessman, philanthropist, and neutral mediator is immaculate. No arrests, not even a parking ticket. But the gaps in the public record speak volumes, dark spaces where money and influence flow unseen. Spaces big enough to hide a murder.

My phone buzzes, startling me. It’s lying face down on the coffee table, the vibration making it skitter. A text from Sienna:Checking you’re still alive. Blink twice if Varela’s goons have you tied up in a basement.

Despite my exhaustion, a small smile touches my lips. Sienna’s humor and grounded cynicism have been the only things keeping me sane since she appeared at my desk that first day, my designated guardian angel in this descent into hell. I text back:Still breathing. Drowning in research. No goons yet, just Varela’s ghost.

Her response comes immediately:Give it time. Staying late at the office finishing a piece. I’m swinging by after with reinforcements (Korean food & wine). No arguments.

I don’t have the energy to argue, anyway. I set my phone down and stand, stretching muscles that protest loudly. Suddenly, the walls seem too close, the strings and papers suffocating. The air prickles against my skin like unseen eyes are tracking my movement. I shake my head. Paranoia. Harrison warned me. Sienna warned me. Varela gets under your skin. The memory of that microphone icon flashing on my phone screen surfaces unbidden. Maybe it isn’t paranoia.

I walk to the kitchen, fill a glass with water, and drink it down in long gulps. The calendar on my refrigerator is a gift from my mother, featuring serene Korean landscapes. It reminds me I missed our weekly Sunday call. My stomach tightens, the usual knot of guilt. I’ll have to call her tonight, make up some excuse about work deadlines. Not entirely untrue.

My mother worries constantly. “You have your father’s eyes,” she told me once, sadness clouding her own. “Always looking beneath the surface. Be careful what you find, Lea.” She supported my choice to follow Dad into journalism, but I know she carries the weight of his death, the unanswered questions, even more heavily than I do. His press credentials hang framed above my desk as part shrine, part reminder, part omen.

I run a hand through my tangled hair, grimacing at its greasy texture. Shower first, then back to work. I need to refine my approach, craft one last attempt to reach Varela before Harrison’s deadline forces me to go with the circumstantial threads I have.

Thirty minutes later, freshly showered and marginally more human, I sit cross-legged on my couch, notebook in hand, drafting a new outreach strategy. My damp hair drips onto the paper, smudging my already messy handwriting. Appeal to his ego? Hint at information I don’t actually possess? Threaten to publish what I have? How do you bait a predator like Nico Varela, especially when he already knows you’re coming?

A sudden, insistent knocking on my door makes me jump, sending my notebook flying.

“Lea! Open up! Food waits for no obsessed reporter!”

Sienna.I lost track of time again.

I hurry to the door, unlocking it to find her standing there, loaded down with paper bags emitting delicious smells and wearing a concerned expression that shifts to impressed curiosity as she takes in the state of my apartment.

“Whoa, okay,” she says, stepping inside and setting the bags on my kitchen counter. “Intense setup, Song. You weren’t kidding about diving deep.” She moves further into the room, eyes scanning the walls covered in notes, photos, and strings. Her gaze lands on the dense cluster related to Varela. “Damn, Lea. This is…meticulous. The string theory approach, I like it. You’ve really mapped this out visually. Impressive organization for just three days.”

“It’s how I process,” I say, feeling a flush of pride mixed with the awareness that it still looks crazy.It is organized, though.

“Clearly.” Sienna turns to look at me, her expression shifting back toward concern, but now framed differently. “Okay, impressive dedication, but when did you last see your bed? Like, actually horizontal, eyes closed, REM cycle sleep?”

I wave the question away. “I’ve napped.”

“On the couch, I’m guessing? With your laptop balanced on your stomach?” She unpacks the bag with containers of Korean takeout, a bottle of crisp white wine, and a pint of salted caramel ice cream. “You need actual fuel, not just caffeine and whatever delivery app was closest to your thumb.”

The smell of jjajangmyeon makes my stomach growl traitorously. I haven’t realized how hungry I am until this moment.

“Fine,” I concede, grabbing plates from my kitchen cabinet. “Food break. But then I need to get back to work. I’m close to something, Sienna. I can feel it.”

She hands me a container and a fork. “Close to a breakthrough, or close to needing institutionalization?” she teases, but her eyes flick back to the wall, admiration still clear. “Seriously though, the number of photos you have of him is thorough.”

“Hilarious.” I take a bite and moan at the explosion of flavors. Proper food. Maybe Sienna has a point about fuel. “They’re for reference,” I mumble around a mouthful.

“Reference for his tailoring, or his criminal empire?” She settles onto my couch, plate balanced on her knees. She gestures with her fork toward the wall. “So, talk me through this masterpiece. What connections are strong enough to justify all this?”

“It’s the pattern,” I say, joining her, needing her to see it, needing her to understand the logic behind the chaos. “Varela’s public record is immaculate. Too clean. But look at the ripples, zoning variances for his associates sailing through while others get shot down, judges giving suspiciously light sentences to people seen at his club, businesses suddenly folding under pressure only to be snapped up by shell companies that trace back to his investment group.” I point toward one cluster. “Like Jim Rawlings, the zoning commissioner? Out of nowhere, he buys a vacation home in the Caymans last year. On a city salary.”

Sienna raises her head, her fork pausing halfway to her mouth. “Okay, that’s shady. Nice catch connecting that timing.”

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