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He takes the bag off her head, his broad palm lingering against the crown of her skull just a moment too long, like half of the fond pat given to a cherished pet. With the thick black cloth removed, suddenly she has light, and her vision back, and can take in the contents of the room he's brought her to. Her hands are still bound behind her back, however.
“That's better,” he says. “Isn't it?”
He's smiling down at her, just the faintest upward curve of a wide, narrow-lipped mouth, but she cannot see his eyes. She imagines they're still cold, concealed behind dark-tinted sunglasses. He lingers in front of her, body turned just slightly away, before making the full turn and walking around the heavy desk that dominates the room to sit on the opposite side.
The chair she's been seated in is bare metal, flimsy and uncomfortable. The one he lowers himself into appears plushly upholstered in dark red fabric, the breadth of the arm rests making it appear just as heavy as the desk. Beyond these few items, the only other furniture in the room consists of two small tables and several bookshelves, but each item is heavy, bulky. Large pieces with the sort of solid appearance that makes a person think of strength. This is a man who won't display his weakness, not in his surroundings, and certainly not in his demeanor.
“You already know a thing or two about me, isn't that right?” he asks. “You wouldn't be here if you didn't know how to dig. Got a nose for the real juicy bones, huh, pup? But that's not important.”
Of course it's important; of course he's shitting her.
“We're not gonna talk about me. We're gonna talk about you. Let's get down to your business, Jade Harley.”
She flinches, nearly imperceptible, but she knows he catches it. Small as her tell might be, his is even more subtle, just the littlest twitch of his mouth. It would be comforting, to see that he isn't a wholly impenetrable fortress of a man, this shadowy figure she's spent months digging into the existence of, if it weren't for the way that bare flicker of expression only makes him look all the more knowing, all the more predatory.
“What do you want to know about me?” she asks. “No, that's not right. You know all about me, too.”
“Right on the money, little lady,” he tells her. “Ready to see just how deep the rabbit hole goes?”
“I'm ready whenever you are,” she shoots back, challenging even in the face of complete disadvantage.
“I'm not going to underestimate you.”
She's expecting a snarky comment, is expecting the same casually flippant attitude he's exhibited thus far. This comment is far too serious, no humor present as he slices her open with few words. He's reading her mind; she can't stand to be written off, and it seems he knows it.
“I wouldn't want to end up like the East Street Gang, huh?” he asks, and it's humor again, dark and self-deprecating, but of course the deprecation is a front, a wafer-thin facade concealing his utter self-assurance. “You didn't leave a bit of that to chance.”
“Of course I didn't,” she says. “They were competition.”
“You have underlings,” he shrugs. “You could've sent someone else to do your dirty work. But you didn't. How did it feel, putting a bullet in Christov yourself?”
She pauses, the tip of her tongue to the roof of her mouth, not so much unsure of her answer but unsure of which version she wants to give him. It felt good. She knows firearms, can dismantle and reassemble hers with smooth, speedy precision, likes the smell of oil and of gunpowder and likes the weight of a gun in her hand when it's familiar to her, as friendly as puppydogs. She liked taking care of Christov. He deserved it. She doesn't know if she wants to tell this man as much, isn't sure if it's in her own best interest to allow him to see her as ruthless.
“But it wasn't very personal, was it,” he continues, not waiting for her answer. “You favor a rifle. It's one thing to stick a knife up under somebody's ribs, but it just isn't the same to perch on a rooftop and take pot-shots. There's hardly anyone more cowardly than a sniper.”
“Is not,” she insists, before she realizes the words are out of her mouth.
She can't take them back. She has to salvage this.
“There's nothing cowardly about being a sniper,” she says. “Your life is still at stake, that doesn't change just because you put some distance between yourself and whoever wants to kill you. And it's just as much responsibility, if not more! It takes a lot of skill to hit a target from two hundred yards, and even more to do it cleanly, through a man's vitals. Are you telling me you can do it better than me?”
He stares at her, she can feel it even though she cannot see his eyes. She knows a lot about his organization, knows how many subsections of the city's underbelly answer to his beck and call. But she doesn't know if he has any skill with a rifle at all.
“You don't always kill from far away,” he says, not answering her question. “You killed Michaelson from five, maybe six paces away, at best.”
He knows about Michaelson. Jade didn't know that man's name until six months back, though he'd been on her radar for no less than six years. He's right. She held that pistol in her hand, looked him in the eyes from so close she could see the whites of them, could see the flare of his pupils going wide and staying dilated, let him see her face before she did what needed to be done.
“You didn't shoot him in the vitals,” he says. “Not right away, anyway.”
That's another shock, another liquid chill dripping along the back of her neck. She was alone, that night. The number of people who should know this she can count on the fingers of one hand. That man, she rendered him gut-shot, at first. Let him clutch at his belly before she shot him in the knee, made him kneel and whimper and wallow in the pain, made him wish he was dead. He deserved it. More than Christov, more than the other vile gangs whose leadership she took out and whose infrastructure she absorbed, more than all of them he deserved it. He knew that, before she deigned to shoot him between the eyes.
He's staring at her again. She can already mark the precise tilt of his head, the specific angle to his face that means she's being evaluated.
“I did,” she agrees, because she knows something is expected of her and with her arms restrained, there's little else she can do.
“You were ruthless,” he says. It isn't a question.
“You could say that,” she replies. Her voice is still bright, still trends toward her usual cheery tone, but she isn't denying it. She did what she had to do. He deserved so much worse.
“I admire that,” he continues. “You have a not-inconsiderable operation of your own, with thoughtful organization and effective middle management. Those are respectable leadership skills you've been showing off.”
She shrugs, one shoulder more than the other, thanks to her hands being bound. That's doing what needs to be done, too. She doesn't doubt that she's smart, was always told – so long ago – that she was a bright little girl. But this isn't intelligence, this is necessity.
“More than all of that, though,” he says. “You're strong. It takes someone strong, to watch her grandfather's execution – the death of the only family she was ever close to – and come out on the other side only fractured, hardly broken. Least of all as young as you were.”
She can feel her jaw clenching, knows acutely how her frown is drawing down the corners of her mouth, can feel the way her restraints bite into her arms when she tenses and tries to ball her fists. That's not his place. He shouldn't talk about that.
“It sounds like you do know an awful lot about me!” she says. “And just what does all of this information do for you?”
“That's a good question,” he says. “Now that the formalities are out of the way, I'm going to tell you how this is going to go.”
And then he pushes his shades up, the corners of the frames burrowing into thick, back-swept blond hair, and his eyes are so bright after their concealment. They aren't as cold as she expected. She's almost disappointed.
He gets up from his chair, slow, unhurried, and walks around to where she's seated. He kneels down beside her, reaches behind her and she hears the whisper-snick of the knife before he slices the first cord of her restraints. She can feel the bonds coming apart, can feel the blood circulating more easily through her veins as he releases her. Even when he's done he stays there, not quite on her level, but lowered infinitesimally beneath her.
“You're going to work for me,” he says. There's no question to it; as far as he is concerned, this is the only potential future reality. “And I'm going to keep you strong, and fast, blade-sharp and bullet-quick. And you'll never age another day more in your life.”
She isn't sure how she feels. The experience transpiring even now feels midway between a job interview and an interrogation, and she wonders what would happen if she tried to turn him down. She doesn't want to. She knows how deep his tendrils reach, has seen through blinders the miles of his influence. She's wanted to get at the top of that shifting pyramid of power for months. She doesn't want to tell him no, but she wants to have the choice.
“I don't even know who the hell you are,” she tells him. Her hands are in front of her now, massaging out the soreness in her arms.
“The members of my organization, they call me the Chairman,” he tells her. “You, though...”
He trails off, thoughtful, and she hadn't noticed when one of his hands came to settle on her knee. She should be afraid of him, maybe. She doesn't have her guns, is only so skilled at hand-to-hand combat, and for all she truly knows he could incapacitate her in one move. He has the build – those muscles aren't just for show, he trained himself into the subtle bulk he's sporting. But she feels far too serene, sitting here in this expensive room with its heavy, expensive furnishings, feels like a tab slotted effortlessly into her native groove.
“You'll be my operative, Harley, the empire's right hand. You, you can call me Bro.”
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