36. Rhaim

36

RHAIM

T hat morning on my way out to the suburbs, I sent Lia's PI my traditional text to forward along, and then got a wild hair and told him to go to her apartment and wait around to follow her instead, on the off chance she went anywhere or did anything interesting.

My hope was that she'd sleep in and maybe read one of the books she liked, but I had a feeling she wasn't the restful type. Who knew, maybe now that I knew her secret, she'd go out and buy herself actually fun things to sleep in, rather than pajamas.

I didn't plan on watching her all the time—but I liked knowing that I could.

I liked her knowing that especially.

I didn't want to say I got high from being around her, because over the course of my four and a half decades on this planet, I had had access to some very excellent drugs—but the knowledge that she wanted to do everything I commanded came pretty fucking close. I'd played rough games before, but I'd never experienced the compliant type, and I had no idea how satisfying it could be.

And I liked the idea of there being something between us I could count on, as everything else in my life—because my life was Corvo Enterprises—was about to be tossed in the air.

I parked my Tacoma a little down the block from the house I was interested in.

House on either side is empty. Wife's already left. Two kids, too

Sable texted me, using the home's Ring system to keep track of outgoing traffic.

Should be just him now. And the six other nearest security cams are presently on a loop.

Good

I texted back, ready to get out.

How's your girl?

Before I could respond she added,

She's been putting some pretty gushy stuff up on her page.

I made a face at my phone, irritated that Sable was also tracking Lia's Instagram feed. But I couldn't tell Lia to cut it out, because I had a feeling if she knew I knew, she'd be mortified—and I did want to give her some private spaces that were safe, online at least.

Also, I wanted to let her feel like a girl. She'd had to spend her whole childhood so seriously, by virtue of being her father's daughter and her erstwhile European tour.

Reading was apparently fun for her—and it was a better hobby for her than homicide, so who was I to judge?

And then a text came in from Lia's PI.

She's at some sort of old folks' home.

Keep following her

I texted him.

Fine

Sable huffed when I didn't text her back. I switched lines.

Do me a favor and listen in on police bands, in case I fuck up.

Sable was quick on the draw after that.

Awww, is true love making you soft, Prince Charming?

No, but I am doing this in broad fucking daylight

I complained to her, then put my phone into my pocket and got out of my car.

The first thing I did was pitch a tennis ball into the backyard of his neighbor, so the Airedale next door would chase after it instead of bark at me. Then I walked straight up to Mr. Piznos's front door, let myself in quietly, and heard 80s hair metal blaring from down the hall, where I knew his office was.

I walked back there slowly, down a hall full of family photos, making a detour into a boy's room that smelled like teenager. I pulled out my handkerchief and picked up a baseball bat there out of habit, then appeared at the man's office door.

"Working from home's amazing, huh?" I asked. I'd dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, and I gave the baseball bat a meaningful thump against my shoe heel.

"What are—who—" The man panicked, scrambling backwards from his keyboard, then he squinted. "Do I know you?"

"I think you do," I said, coming into his office to casually lean against his wall. "We've been at a couple of the same events in the past few years. But, more importantly at this juncture, I know all about you."

Samson had sent me this man's details not long after our conversation, along with proof the man was a bigamist. I had no idea why Samson knew these things, but I'd had Sable run over it—his intel was definitely solid.

I jerked my head at the wall outside. "Do any of the sweet people in these photographs know about your second family?" I asked, then eyed him narrowly. "Just an hour away, man, that shit must be tense. What if your sons join the same intramural baseball team?"

I could see the man squirm. "What the fuck do you want, Mister Selvaggio?"

"Same thing you do. To win the game." I used the bat to point at his computer. "I want you to be the person responsible for auditing Corvo's books at the stock exchange—and I want you to pretend you're fucking blind when you do it."

He recoiled. "You think you can blackmail me into covering up your past for you?"

"Yeah, I do," I said. "Because right now, Corvo's rolling in it. People won't want you to look too hard, they'll be so excited to get a piece of our action."

"There's no way?—"

"I'm not asking. I'm telling," I said, standing straighter. "If you know anything about me or about Corvo, anything horrible you might have heard in the distant past, maybe told as a joke because it's exciting—it's all true. So you're going to nut up and help me make a lot of people a lot of money."

"And if I don't?" he snapped, despite the fact that I was the one holding the baseball bat.

He had some balls—I supposed he had to have them, to play the game he was running. "If you don't, we'll air your dirty laundry. I've seen a copy of your prenup—if this lovely wife here," I said, gesturing to his tastefully appointed surroundings, "finds out you've been unfaithful, it pretty much lets her light your life on fire and burn it to the ground. But you know what I'm more curious about? Speaking of arson—" I leaned forward slightly, using his son's bat like a cane. "Is if you had to pick a family, just one family, you know, to get through all of these trying times with you...which one would it be?"

He inhaled deeply at that, and my private phone buzzed. I held out a hand for silence, while I pulled it out of my pocket, opened the screen, and saw a message from Lia's PI.

I think you should know, I'm not the only one following her.

And for a second, I was not myself, nor responsible at all for what I'd do. My mood darkened like the sky before a tornado, my muscles all clenching in quick succession, my jaw setting the same as my shoulders. I let out an inadvertent growl. I wanted to take it out on something, I didn't care what, and I was already holding a bat.

Who.

The fuck.

Was following.

My little girl.

I refocused my attention on the matter at hand with effort—and found Mr. Piznos's attitude had changed while watching me glower. "How far back is clean?" he asked, looking quickly between me and the bat.

"The past decade is fucking starched," I snarled. "Earlier than that, you just take what I give you, and don't ask questions."

"I can work with that," he said, and nodded quickly. "We good?"

I visibly made myself calm down. "Yeah. We're good," I said, taking his son's baseball bat to his living room and tossing it, fingerprint-free, on the couch, before letting myself out his front door.

He and I were fine. But whoever was messing with Lia ? I yanked my phone back out of my pocket and commanded the PI: Get plates.