Page 59 of Conning the Billionaire
“Don’t take pictures. Assume you’re being watched whether anyone is in the room with you or not.”
Kylie nodded. “My appointment is in five minutes, and his office is on the fourth floor. It’ll take me a few minutes to climb the stairs.”
Micah frowned. “Building codes require disability access.”
She snorted. “Grande owns the building, and the Philly city council wouldn’t dare say a damned word to him. He probably has it designated as historical or something.”
“If anything happens, text me or call,” he said, leaning over the steering wheel and twisting his neck to peer up at the grungy seven-story building they were parked in front of. “I’ll come right up. I’ll be there in seconds.”
That would not work. “Right-o.”
“And be careful.”
“Jeez, Micah. You’d think I was important to you or somethin’.”
He sat back and glanced over at her. “I wouldn’t want anyone to get hurt on my account, especially a woman. I’m not a liability. I’m the guy you call when you need a rescue. I’m the one who comes screaming in with a helicopter to pluck people out of a potential kidnapping when a meeting with a Russian bratva goes wrong.”
Kylie scrutinized him. “That was oddly specific.”
Micah resumed staring out the front window of his car. “Or something like that.”
Right.
“I’d better go. Salvatore Grande doesn’t like it if you’re late.”
Kylie stepped out of Micah’s car, placing her high-heeled pumps precisely on the sidewalk so she wouldn’t bobble and pulling her light jacket more tightly around her body. The late October breeze funneled between the decrepit office buildings. A paper jack-o’-lantern taped to the glass front door was already tattered by the wind, even though Halloween wasn’t for another week.
Hundreds and twenties filled the crisp envelope clutched in her hand. Rita had dropped off the girls’ contributions at the hotel desk early that morning, and Kylie had added all the money she had left to make up for not working that week.
Inside, mildew fumed in the air even though the summer heat and humidity had ended a month before. The chipped paint on a radiator Kylie passed as she climbed the stairs revealed layers of the different colors it had been painted, like the colored stripes of the earth after a rock slide.
The door leading to Salvatore’s office was the only one in the building that didn’t have a window. It was nothing but solid steel, and the sign beside it read Grant’s Nursery Business Office.
Grant, instead of Grande.
Salvatore shouldn’t Anglicize his name like that to hide his Italian heritage, but Kylie was sneaking around with the last name of Miller on her fake driver’s license, too.
And a supposed first name of Kylie. Some days, she almost got used to it.
Kylie looked up into the lens of the small black camera pointing at the spot in front of the door, and she waved.
The door in front of her clicked and buzzed. Kylie pushed it open.
Inside, a middle-aged woman, Kylie’s third cousin Maria Pia, sat behind a nice desk that wasn’t too fancy. Maria Pia’s glasses reflected her computer screen, which showed the empty hallway of the feed from the closed-circuit TV camera outside the door. A spiral notebook and pen lay beside the black landline phone, and the edges of a rectangular piece of glass stuck out from under the top sheet of paper.
Kylie slapped a smile on her face. “Hi, M.P. How’s your day going?”
Maria Pia shrugged. “Same old, same old. I’ll tell Mr. Grande you’re here.” She clicked a button on her mouse. A dark box appeared in the reflection in her glasses, and she typed something. “You can have a seat, Chiarina. Mr. Grande is currently on the phone.”
Kylie’s high heels sank into the thick carpeting as she walked over to the other side of the room and sat in one of the well-cushioned chairs against the wall. She took her phone out of her purse to check her messages.
“Um.” Maria Pia held out a basket. “No phones in the office with Mr. Grande.”
“Oops, I haven’t been to the office in so long, I forgot. I’ve been making it to St. Augustine’s for Mass every week.”
Maria Pia nodded sagely. “That’s good.”
And so, Kylie was reduced to staring at the walls and the paintings hung on them.
