Chapter 3 - THE BLACK CARD
The break room smelled of stale coffee and industrial bleach.
Paige sat on a plastic folding chair, staring at the matte-black card while Arthur paced the cramped room, wiping his forehead with a paper towel.
“You’re going,” he said, pointing a shaking finger at her. “I don’t care if he wants you to clean his gutters with a toothbrush. You are going to that address. Do you understand who that man is?”
“I know who he is, Arthur.”
“Roman Gallow. Extortion, racketeering, probably a dozen bodies buried under the new stadium. I read the news.”
“Then you know he doesn’t leave loose ends,” Arthur snapped. “He told me not to fire you, so you’re not fired. But if you don’t show up Friday, he comes back here. And if he comes back here, he isn’t coming for the steak.”
Paige rubbed her forehead.
Her wrist was throbbing mercilessly. She unbuttoned her cuff and examined the compression bandage.
She needed a new one.
She needed ibuprofen.
She needed a different life.
She was not stupid. She knew the stories about the Gallow family. They ran the port, the unions, and the underground gambling rings that catered to the city’s elite.
Roman was the youngest son, the one who had taken control after his father and 2 older brothers were killed in a car bomb 5 years earlier. He had stabilized the family business with terrifying, quiet efficiency.
He was not a man who made quirky little deals with waitresses.
Unless he was simply a creep.
But the look in his eyes had not been predatory.
It had looked like accounting.
A cold, hard ledger of debts and credits.
She had ruined $6,000 worth of property.
Therefore, she owed him $6,000 worth of labor.
At home, Paige placed the card beside the chipped mug that held her emergency cash. Her apartment was one room above a shuttered tailor shop, with a radiator that hissed through winter and a window overlooking an alley. It was not much, but everything in it belonged to her. She called her closest friend, Elena, who worked nights at a neighborhood clinic. Elena told her to photograph the card, share her location, and leave if anyone tried to isolate her. Paige promised. Then she opened a search page and read everything she could find about Roman Gallow.
The articles disagreed about almost everything except the dead. His father and brothers had died five years earlier; their killers had never been publicly identified. There were photographs of charity galas, port-development ceremonies, and a courtroom where Roman had walked out without charges. Paige could not decide whether he had offered her work to punish her or because he knew exactly what Arthur would do to someone with no power. She folded her black shirt over a chair and slept badly.
Elena insisted they make a plan. Paige wrote down the address, Roman's name, Luca's description, and the time she was expected to arrive. She put copies in two places. It felt melodramatic until she remembered the way Arthur had looked when Roman raised his hand. Elena reminded her that courage did not require pretending a dangerous situation was safe.
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On Thursday Paige asked Arthur for the written policy governing employee injuries. He laughed at first, then grew irritated when she repeated the question. She left without an answer, but she kept a note of the conversation. Whatever happened on Friday, she wanted a record of the life she had before Roman entered it. She was not going to let a stranger, however powerful, become the only person who could describe her story.
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