Page 40 of Taking Savannah
"That was my father's bottle," she says, looking at the label.
"It was buried on the bottom shelf behind the gin. I moved it."
"He'd bitch about using it for twenty minutes and then join us." She finishes the glass. I pour again without asking because that's what you do when someone's about to lose their father and they're sitting at your bar trying not to think about it.
Bam takes the stool beside her. I pour him one too. He picks it up and holds it without drinking. His eyes haven't stopped moving since he walked in. Door, window, me, Claudio, Charlotte, Emilio, back to the door. The man blinks about once every six seconds, which I know because I counted, and the fact that I'm counting a stranger's blink rate tells me Gigi's paranoia lessons are alive and well in my nervous system.
Claudio sits at the far end. Charlotte takes the stool beside him, crosses her legs, and leans into his side. He puts a hand on her knee, and she covers it with hers.
Emilio stays standing. He's doing the thing where he fills the silence with himself, talking, gesturing, making the room feel occupied so nobody has to sit with the quiet. He tells Dahlia about the bar, how I found it, how I cleaned it, how I’ll be running it as long as I want to.
I pour for Claudio, a vodka, neat. Water for Charlotte because she doesn't drink during the day and I've learned her patterns.
"How long has this bar been here?" Dahlia asks, running her finger along the counter.
"Longer than any of us. I just cleaned it up."
"It used to host visiting dignitaries," Claudio says from the end of the bar. "Aurelio would bring allies and business partners down here for drinks after dinner.”
"Huh, guess I really never paid much attention to what he did," Dahlia says. She's not bitter about it. She's stating a fact the way you'd state the weather.
I recognize that voice. It's the one I used for six months after Gigi died. The one that keeps everything at the same volume, so nothing unexpected punches through.
"So." Dahlia picks up her glass and looks at me over the rim. "You're the one who heard the conversation at the club."
"That's me."
"And you're fucking my father's ward."
I don't flinch. Emilio, to his credit, doesn't either, though his knee stops bouncing for a full second which is basically a flinch in Emilio language.
"Also me," I say.
"Hm." She finishes the last of her drink off. "Good. He needed someone. He's been a disaster for years."
"Hey," Emilio says. "I'm right here."
"I know. That's why I said it." Dahlia looks at him with an expression that's half fondness and half exasperation, and I realize they know each other. Not just in passing, not just as family acquaintances. They grew up together, or near enough, and the dynamic between them has the worn-in feel of siblings who fight and love each other in the same breath.
"She threw a lamp at me," Emilio tells Dahlia. "The first time we met. A floor lamp. Brass."
"I already like her more than I like you."
"Everyone likes her more than they like me. It's becoming a pattern."
"It's not a pattern, it's natural selection." Dahlia's mouth does a thing, an almost smile before her eyes grow sad and it dies on her lips.
Charlotte steers the conversation. She asks Dahlia about the drive in and how her and Bam are enjoying their space.
Bam answers with one word. "Long." Charlotte nods, waiting for more. Dahlia adds that they drove for hours and Bam refused to stop when she needed to pee because they had a time crunch.
"Alexandra's pulling together a briefing for tomorrow," Claudio says, and the room shifts. "Kreiss's hard drives had more data than we expected. The trafficking pipeline we shut down connects to a larger network. She's mapping it."
"How large?" Dahlia asks. The daughter is gone. The woman asking this question has heard operational briefings before and knows which questions matter.
"International. Multiple countries. Multiple pipelines. Institutional-level funding." Claudio pauses. "The word she used was network, not operation."
"Lovely. So you killed the branch manager, and the corporation is still open for business."
