Page 8 of Claimed By the Boss
“You’ll be hearing from my lawyer, Mr. Volkov.”
The door closes.
I lean back in my chair and look at the city through the window.
Roman comes in at twelve forty. He has the look of a man who passed something in the corridor and drew accurate conclusions, and he’s professional enough to keep those conclusions off his face.
“Alexei,” he says, setting a phone on my desk. “He’s called twice.”
I pick it up.
Alexei answers before the second ring. He has been doing this for thirty years, stationing himself near phones, and I’ve never decided whether it’s diligence or anxiety.
“Petrov faction is moving on the northern routes again,” he says. “They’ve got Morozov in their pocket this week, which means two council votes going sideways before Friday’s dinner.”
“Morozov changes direction when the wind does.”
“The wind is currently blowing east, and we have a dinner in four days with seven men who want to know that the leadership of this organization is stable. They want a face at that table, Zane. Not a structure. Not a filing. A woman sitting beside you who knows how to hold a room.”
I think about the woman who walked into my office twenty minutes ago with a folder and steady hands and told me I would be hearing from her lawyer.
“She’ll be there,” I say.
“You’re certain.”
“I’m certain.”
A pause on his end. The careful kind. “She understands what the dinner requires?”
“She will.”
I end the call and set the phone down.
Roman is watching the window the way he does when he has something to say and has not yet decided to say it. I let him have the moment.
“She’s going to find a lawyer,” he says.
“Yes.”
“And when the lawyer tells her what we already know?”
Outside my door, through the wall and the floor plan and the ordinary sounds of an afternoon in this building, she’s sitting at her desk. Reading contracts or running the calendar or doing whatever she has decided to do with the rest of this day, because she’s still here and we both know why she’s still here, and it has nothing to do with the contract and everything to do with eleven days and a balance that doesn’t move on its own.
“Then she comes back,” I say. “And she does the job.”
Roman nods once. Moves toward the door.
“She’s not going to make this easy,” he says.
I pull the afternoon’s schedule toward me.
“No,” I say. “She’s not.”
5
CELINE
I go backto my desk.
