Everyone Feared the Mafia Boss Who Never Let Anyone Touch Him Until His New Assistant Silently Fixed His Tie

By three o'clock that afternoon, the sky had turned the color of greasy iron.

The executive floor was quiet, but beneath the surface, the machine was moving. Frankie Vance had disappeared with four men in two black SUVs toward Hammond. Leo Mercer was sitting in his office with the blinds drawn, his phone glued to his ear as he tried to trace the money trail before Arthur’s forensic accountants arrived.

Arthur had spent two hours behind his closed door.

At three-fifteen, he came out.

He was wearing his suit coat now. His dark hair was combed back, wet from the sink, and he was carrying a heavy leather briefcase.

He stopped in front of Paige’s desk.

"Cancel the four o'clock," he said.

"The four o'clock is Alderman Burke," Paige said, looking up. "If I cancel him twice in twenty-four hours, he’ll double the inspection fees on the south pier."

"Burke can wait," Arthur said. "I’m going to Hammond."

"Frankie is already in Hammond, Mr. Gallagher."

"Frankie is an idiot," Arthur said flatly. "He looks for men with his gun instead of his head. I need to see Callahan before Frankie finds him."

He paused. He looked down at her tablet, then at her small, pale hands folded over the edge of the desk.

"Come with me," he said.

Paige froze. "Excuse me?"

"You read the manifests," Arthur said. "You know the ledger numbers better than Leo does. If Callahan’s got books in Hammond, I need someone who can spot the fake entries in five minutes instead of five hours."

"I am an administrative assistant, Mr. Gallagher," Paige said carefully. "My contract specifies office duties at forty-two hundred North Michigan Avenue."

"Your contract specifies whatever I tell you it specifies," Arthur snapped. "And your salary just went up twenty percent."

Paige calculated the numbers instantly.

Ninety-two thousand plus twenty percent was one hundred and ten thousand four hundred dollars.

That was enough for the memory care unit, the cognitive modifiers, and a private room with a window that faced the courtyard gardens so her mother didn't have to stare at the brick wall of the laundry building.

She stood up.

She reached for her gray cardigan, draped it over her shoulders, and picked up her leather tote bag with her laptop inside.

"The company car is downstairs?" she asked.

Arthur stared at her for a second, a strange, dark light flickering deep in his pale eyes.

"Yeah," he said softly. "Downstairs."

They took the private elevator down to the basement garage.

The garage was a cavernous concrete vault beneath the building, smelling of diesel exhaust, cold concrete, and rubber tires. Standing beside a black armored suburban were two men Paige had seen around the building—heavy-set men with wide shoulders and coats that hung too low on the left side.

When Arthur approached, both men straightened instantly. One of them, a man named Miller with a broken nose, moved toward the rear passenger door to open it.

"Back off, Miller," Arthur said.

Miller stopped instantly, taking three quick steps backward until his spine hit the concrete pillar.

Arthur opened the rear door himself. He stepped aside, leaving a six-foot gap between himself and the door frame.

"Get in," he told Paige.

Paige didn't hesitate. She stepped past him, her shoulder brushing the air six inches from his chest, and slid into the deep leather seat.

Arthur got in after her, sitting on the opposite side of the broad bench seat, as far away as the vehicle allowed.

The heavy door slammed shut with the thick, airtight thunk of three-inch bulletproof glass.

As the SUV pulled out of the basement into the gray Chicago rain, Paige pulled out her tablet and opened the Hammond manifest files.

Beside her, Arthur sat with his knees apart, his broad back pressed against the leather, his eyes fixed on the rain streaming down the side window.

He didn't speak for ten miles.

Then, without turning his head, his voice rose above the low hum of the snow tires on the wet asphalt.

"Why aren't you afraid of me, Bennett?"

Paige didn't look up from her screen. "Fear is a luxury, Mr. Gallagher."

"Is that right?"

"Yes," she said smoothly. "People who have time to worry about what might happen to them usually have someone else paying their bills."

Arthur turned his head slowly. In the dim light of the tinted windows, his profile looked like it had been cut out of granite with an dull axe.

"Who’s paying yours?" he asked.

"I am," she said. "Which is why I’m here."

Arthur looked down at her fingers. She was tapping out a line of numbers on the tablet screen, her hands perfectly steady even as the heavy vehicle bounced over the iron expansion joints of the Skyway bridge.

He remembered the touch of those fingers on his throat twenty-four hours ago.

He had expected poison. He had expected the quick, cold flash of steel that he still saw every time he closed his eyes in a dark room.

Instead, she had simply given him room to breathe.

"Callahan isn't at the Hammond drop," Arthur said softly, turning back to the window. "He’s at a farmhouse three miles south of the line. Belonged to his uncle."

"Then why did you tell Frankie Hammond?" Paige asked, her fingers pausing on the screen.

"Because Frankie talks to Leo," Arthur said. "And Leo talks to the people who bought Callahan."

Paige felt a cold, sharp drop of water slide down her spine—not from the rain outside, but from the realization that she was sitting in a sealed steel box with a man who was using his own underboss as live bait.