Chapter 2 - The Job With Three Rules
The address Dante had given Sophia did not belong to an office tower.
It belonged to a three-story limestone building on a quiet street in River North, with no company name over the entrance and cameras hidden beneath black iron balconies.
At 7:58 the following evening, Sophia stood outside in jeans, boots, and the only wool coat she owned that did not smell faintly of club perfume.
She had not danced that night.
For the first time in a year, she had spent six o’clock giving Lily a bath instead of putting on stage makeup.
Mrs. Patel had watched her change clothes twice.
“You are going to a job interview or a duel?” the older woman had asked.
“Possibly both.”
Mrs. Patel had frowned. “Then wear the boots. Easier to run.”
Sophia had laughed despite herself.
Now Luca opened the front door before she touched the bell.
His bruised knuckles reminded her of the man at the club.
“What happened to him?” she asked.
“He’s alive.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“It’s the answer I’m authorized to give.”
Sophia stared at him.
Luca sighed. “You are going to make this place exhausting.”
“Good.”
He almost smiled.
Dante waited upstairs in a library that looked as though nobody had chosen a book by color. Shelves climbed to the ceiling. A fire burned behind glass. On the desk sat a neat file, two cups of coffee, and the same photograph of James.
Dante stood when she entered.
Black shirt. No tie. Sleeves buttoned at the wrist. Calm enough to be infuriating.
“You came.”
“You knew I would.”
“I hoped.”
“Don’t romanticize it. Somebody tried to reach me with a knife.”
“He was carrying it. We do not know yet whether he intended to use it.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“No.”
Sophia remained standing.
“Why was James paid to marry me?”
Dante did not ask her to sit again.
Instead, he opened the file.
“Your father was David Mitchell.”
She blinked. “You investigated my dead father?”
“I investigated a set of shell companies. His name appeared in records from fifteen years ago.”
“My dad repaired commercial HVAC systems.”
“That was his job when he died.”
Sophia’s throat tightened. “What was it before?”
Dante slid a newspaper clipping across the desk.
CITY AUDITOR RESIGNS AFTER PROCUREMENT DISPUTE.
The photograph showed a younger version of her father leaving City Hall.
Sophia read the first paragraph twice.
“He worked for the city?”
“For six years.”
“He never told me.”
“You were eleven when he resigned.”
“He died when I was thirteen.”
Dante nodded.
“What does this have to do with James?”
“Your father found evidence that a group of contractors were billing the city for work that was never completed. Some of those companies were controlled by Vincent Caruso.”
She knew that name.
Everyone in Chicago knew some version of it.
A developer. A nightclub owner. A philanthropist whose charitable foundation appeared in photographs with mayors and athletes.
And, according to Tanya, a man whose name you never said loudly in the Velvet Room.
Sophia looked toward Dante.
“You and Caruso are enemies.”
“Yes.”
“So this is revenge.”
“Partly.”
“I appreciate the honesty.”
“You won’t always.”
He tapped the filing with her forged signature.
“After your father died, the evidence he collected disappeared. Caruso spent years looking for it. Four years ago, James Mercer began dating you.”
Sophia’s chest tightened.
“No.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t.” She pointed at him. “Do not use that voice with me.”
Dante’s expression remained steady.
“We traced payments from a Caruso consulting company to James beginning three months before your first date.”
Sophia sat down because her knees demanded it.
Three months before.
She remembered James appearing at a coffee shop near campus, joking about stealing her table because every other seat was taken. She remembered him walking her home in the rain. She remembered their first Christmas in an apartment with a radiator that clanked all night.
Was all of it purchased?
“Why stay four years?” she whispered.
“We don’t know.”
“Why have a child with me?”
“We don’t know.”
“Why steal my savings?”
“That money did not go where you think.”
She looked up.
Dante turned another page.
Her twenty-seven thousand dollars had been transferred into Mitchell Family Services, then moved through two additional companies before landing in an escrow account.
“For what?”
“We’re still tracing it.”
Sophia closed the file.
“No.”
Dante waited.
“I’m not doing this where you drip information at me whenever you decide I’ve earned the next page. If I work for you, I see everything involving my name, my daughter, James, and my father.”
“That may expose you to information you cannot legally repeat.”
“Then don’t hire me.”
A long silence.
“Anything else?” he asked.
“Yes. Three rules.”
One corner of Dante’s mouth moved. “You are setting rules in my office?”
“I’m setting rules for my life.”
He leaned back against the desk. “Go on.”
“One: Lily is not leverage. Ever. Nobody watches her without my knowledge. Nobody moves her. Nobody uses her to make me cooperate.”
“Agreed.”
“Two: you don’t touch me unless I say it’s okay or I’m in immediate danger.”
Dante’s eyes held hers. “Agreed.”
“Three: I am your employee, not your property. I decide where I work, what I wear, and whether I ever set foot in the Velvet Room again.”
That one took him longer.
Sophia raised an eyebrow.
Finally Dante said, “Agreed.”
“Good.”
“My turn.”
She folded her arms.
“You do not lie to me about danger.”
“I don’t lie.”
“You lied to your grandmother about losing your cleaning job.”
“That was different.”
“It always is.”
Sophia hated the accuracy.
Dante continued. “If I say a location is unsafe, you do not go there alone to prove a philosophical point.”
“Reasonable.”
“And you stop assuming every kindness is an attempt to purchase you.”
“That sounds less like a job rule.”
“It is not.”
Their eyes met.
Sophia looked away first.
Dante slid a contract across the desk.
The salary was exactly what he had promised. Taxes included, which surprised her. Health insurance. Child-care allowance. Tuition reimbursement after six months.
“You made this legitimate.”
“I have legitimate businesses.”
“Some?”
A faint smile. “Enough.”
Sophia picked up the pen.
Then she stopped.
“Why did you really notice me?”
Dante’s expression changed.
For the first time since she had met him, he looked uncertain.
“Your last name,” he said. “At first.”
“And after that?”
“You told me power wasn’t permission.”
“That impressed you?”
“No one had said it to me in years.”
Sophia signed.
Dante took the contract but did not look down at it.
“Welcome to work, Ms. Mitchell.”
She stood.
“Don’t make me regret it.”
“I was going to say the same thing.”
Luca appeared in the doorway holding a tablet.
His face had gone serious.
“Boss. We found what the escrow account bought.”
Dante took the device.
Sophia moved beside him.
A photograph filled the screen.
It showed a storage unit door.
The renter’s name was James Mercer.
The authorized secondary user was Sophia Mitchell.
And the access log showed her identification had been scanned there three times in the past month.
Sophia stared at the dates.
“I was at the Velvet Room all three nights.”
Dante looked at Luca.
“Then somebody has a copy of her ID.”
Sophia thought of Lily asleep across town.
May you like
Her new job had lasted less than five minutes.
Already, somebody else was wearing her name.
