Leo, finally satiated, races to me, a ball of yarn in his mouth.

“Fine, but just this once,” I say, taking it from him and tossing it across the room. He dashes to retrieve it and bring it back, dropping it at my feet.

“No, I said once,” I say. He answers in Cat Language, which could probably be translated as throw the damn ball, you bastard. Of course I do, and he chases after it happily.

My phone goes off and I groan. It’s not my work cell phone, but the crappy burner I got from Cash two weeks ago.

I pull it out of my back pocket and answer it.

“What’s up?” I say, knowing it has to be something huge, or else he wouldn’t have called. Sure, the phone may be untraceable, but it’s best to keep communication to a minimum anyway.

“We have a problem.” This is my least favorite phrase in the entire world. Right behind “we need to talk.” Cash always has the same tone of voice when he speaks. Fucking cheerful, even when delivering bad news.

“What?” I say, taking the ball from Leo and tossing it again. He can go on for hours like this, and sometimes he’ll wake me up in the middle of the night to play.

“That stupid secretary Baz has been banging is a liability. I have reason to believe she’s not going to keep her mouth shut.” I knew this was going to happen. I told him, but Baz can’t resist a pretty face and a great pair of tits. Lets his cock get in the way of everything. This isn’t the first time he’s fucked things up. Jesus Christ.

“Then tell him to get the fuck out of it. And to stop thinking with his dick instead of his head.” Cash laughs. So fucking cheerful. All the damn time.

“I’ll get right on that. But do you think we should still go through with it?” he says. I nod, even though he can’t see me. Leo meows because I’ve been taking too long to throw his ball. I pick it up and toss it as far across the room as I can.

“Yes, we’ve put in too much time to pull out now. We don’t need her anymore. Just extract Baz and go ahead. We should be golden, but if anything goes wrong, you know what to do.”

“Got it. See you soon.” I hang up without saying goodbye.

“I’m surrounded by idiots,” I say to Leo. He blinks at me and paws at his ball. “Not you, of course.” He meows again.

In the morning I don my suit and tie and shoes that squeak when I walk. In hindsight, it was smart of me to get into a job where my uniform covers any number of sins, including my multitude of tattoos. If my regular customers knew anything about them, they’d never let me touch a cent of their money, which would be a shame.

“Good morning, Grace,” I say as I walk past my assistant. I’m sure she’s in love with me, but I’ve never pursued anything. Once again, not a good idea to mix business and pleasure. She’s a bit too buttoned-up for my tastes anyway; all perfectly-lined lips and hard angles and stiff hair. I like my women with a bit of a wild streak in them.

“Good morning Mr. Brand,” she says, patting her hair to make sure nothing is out of place. She may not be my type, but sometimes I wonder what she’d be like if I got her home and tugged on that hair a little bit. Smeared her lipstick. Ripped her skirt. But then I might lose her as an employee and she’s a damn good assistant.

She hands me a printed version of my schedule for the day. Meetings with clients, with just a few spare hours to work on paperwork and make calls. Yet another shitty day.

“Mr. Beaumont is here for you,” Grace says in a quiet voice, gesturing to the man in the waiting room. He’s early, the bastard. I haven’t even had time to drink my coffee and eat the scone I know is waiting on my desk, courtesy of Grace.

“Tell him I’ll be ready in a moment,” I say, and Grace knows exactly what this means. I head to my office and set my briefcase down. Mr. Beaumont’s file is already on my desk, along with a few others I have waiting for me. I examine it while sipping my coffee and eating the scone. Beaumont’s a new client, but an important one. I’ll need to take special care with him.

I brush any crumbs off my suit and double check my appearance in the mirror in my bathroom. I’m one of the only people here who have an en suite bathroom, and I’m also the youngest. Because I’m damn good at what I do. I’m damn good at a lot of things.

I send a signal to Grace to show him in.

She ushers him through the door and asks if he needs anything. He sits down and tells her he’d like a glass of water, which she fetches from the table in my office. One of her main jobs is to keep the coffee coming, and the pitcher full of ice water. She’s also in charge of fulfilling all guests’ requests. These are powerful people and they expect to get what they want.

We start off with the preliminary small talk. It’s all the same. What brings him here, what he hopes to achieve, how risky he wants his investments to be. All standard for a financial advisor. But my questions veer off quickly.

“How far are you willing to go?” I ask, and he knows exactly what I mean.

“Can you promise me everything will be off the books?” I nod.

“Mr. Beaumont, I’m damn good at what I do. I take rich men like yourself and make them richer. My means may be… unorthodox, but I get the job done. And you’ll come out smelling like a rose.” All the language is subtle, nothing directly alluded to. But that’s how we have to play it. You can never be too careful.

“That sounds like what I’m looking for. How much will you need?” I write down a figure and slide it across the desk so he can read it.

“That’s a start. But I have the feeling the more profit you’ll see, the more you’ll want to put in.”

He looks at the figure and nods.

“When do you need it?” he asks.

“As soon as possible.”

“I’ll make arrangements.” This isn’t his first rodeo. Only those who are referred and vetted make it to this meeting.

I wish him a good day as we stand and shake hands and he says he’ll contact me as soon as he has the money together.

He leaves and I tear up the note with the figure on it. No paper trail. I have a few minutes before my next meeting, so I turn on my computer and bring up the electronic file on him that I didn’t have on my desk. The one Cash worked on for me. I didn’t get a chance to look at it before this morning.

It contains more than just his financial records and bank accounts and basic personal information. This has just about everything, including pictures.

I scan the information, taking all of it in for future reference. As far as they go, Mr. Beaumont is one of the worst. From child labor to buying off government officials to using shoddy materials and selling them at a premium. He’s done it all with his discount clothing company. A few years ago, I would have been disgusted, but now it’s just par for the course. I scan the rest of the information, noting that he has a twenty-year-old daughter, but don’t notice anything until I get to the pictures.

I scroll until I see one of Mr. Beaumont on his boat with his wife and daughter.

Red hair. Wild red hair blows across her face, partially obscuring her brilliant green eyes. Her lips are drawn into a smile as she tries to push her hair back. Her parents are stiff. Posed. Mannequins. In contrast, she nearly leaps out of the picture.

Saige Juliette Beaumont.

I hadn’t accounted for her in my original plans, but now I have to reevaluate everything. I need to get to Mr. Beaumont, and she just might be the way to do it.

Two

I meet Cash down the street from his apartment. Unlike me, he enjoys the finer things in life and has decided to occupy a place in the nicer part of the city.

“You look wrecked,” he says by way of a greeting. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was a compliment.