40. Rhaim

40

RHAIM

I t took Nero about thirty minutes to send his blonde down to fetch me. He was slipping in his old age and with his cancer.

"Did you think that I wouldn't notice?" he demanded the second I got off of the elevator.

"Notice what?" I asked disingenuously.

He made a snarling sound. "You made Lia Corvo's investor relations officer?"

Lia's new position was a late edit to the press release Nero had authorized earlier in the day. I'd told the PR team they didn't have to check with him, they'd taken me at their word, and now I'd have to make sure I hadn't gotten any of them fired.

Nero stormed from side to side of his massive office space, like a lashing tiger's tail. "My daughter isn't an organ grinder's monkey, Rhaim—you can't make her the face of this enterprise."

I took a step forward. "Why not?"

"Because I'm telling you not to," he snapped, and then his mood took a darker turn. "This will be worse for her than cleaning toilets."

"Would you prefer I take Junior under my wing?" I asked, and he silently glared. "She has fifteen percent of Corvo currently, Nero. We're asking our upcoming investors to spend hundreds of millions of dollars—they're going to want to know where she stands."

"Bah!" he said, like a roar, sounding like his former self—and I remembered all the times when I was younger I'd quaked in fear around him because I knew he was going to make a rash decision.

It almost always turned out to be the right one, but the speed with which he made up his mind and the violence he was willing to pursue his goals was always frightening.

I had learned how to become who I was from the best.

"You don't understand!" he shouted.

"Because you won't tell me!" I shouted back. I wanted to force him, to hear it from his own lips, what the hell had happened to Lia that had broken her.

"You had one job—" he said, enunciating each word, and I cut him.

"No, Nero," I growled. "I have twenty fucking jobs here, I always have, and I always will. And you gave her to me to babysit? Like my time wasn't valuable? Fuck you."

"You want the real reason? Fine!" he spat. "You were the only one everyone would be scared enough of to keep her safe!" He gave me a look of infinite betrayal—and for the first time I felt like I might have gone too far. "I didn't want anyone playing games with her, Rhaim."

His eyes sought mine out and I was worried he'd read my intentions towards Lia my face, every black truth that my heart carried. "I'm not playing a game," I said, the same as I had just told her. "She's smart. I can teach her to be useful. And she's loyal. We'd be stupid not to use her?—"

"You know as well as I do that her presence will be like blood in the water. There's entire news organizations out there already researching what she had for lunch today—and you did that to her," he said, coming forward to jab his finger into my chest. "Not me. You."

I remembered belatedly how easy it'd been for Sable to get hold of Lia's Instagram—and at the thought of anyone else seeing that softer side of her but me, my throat closed shut. "I needed someone to put a younger spin on things. To make it seem like Corvo has its finger on the pulse. Adding another old white man to the team wasn't going to impress anyone and?—"

Nero ran his fingers through his thinning hair, pacing to his bar while shaking his head from side to side, so that I could see the shinier skin of his burn scar on his neck. "You don't know her like I do. She doesn't do well with stress."

I couldn't take back the press release without humiliating Lia—surely he wouldn't make me. "She's like you, Nero. She wants to work. And she cares about Corvo."

"She's like me, eh?" he asked, beginning to mix liquors at large volumes. "Maybe in certain ways. But not enough."

"Put her on payroll. I'll keep her safe. I swear it."

From everyone else.

I waited for his decision like I had a thousand times before, tense, anxious, and some fucking part of me trained to be eager, because moments like these were usually the ones that led to blood and chaos.

Nero inspected the contents of his glass as if for clarity, and then looked to me above it. "You think you can get the best of me because I'm a dying man?"

His tone was casual, but his mood was not. I knew whatever I said next needed to be the right thing. "No—I'm still in denial about that." It was the truth, and I hoped he could hear it in my voice. I took a step closer to him to plead my case. "I mostly just wanted to fuck over Freddie."

He snorted, and finally took a sip. I fractionally relaxed, feeling the storm of his anger passing. "Yeah, he's called me twelve times already. I haven't picked up yet." He set his glass down and traced the rim of it with a contemplative finger. "You know, not that many years ago I would have had you shot."

"Not that many years ago, I would've helped you shoot me. But my name was also on the press release. If I die, things could get awkward fast," I said, coming up to his bar now that I was at least partially forgiven. "I promise I'll keep her safe, Nero."

He shook his head slightly again, and then put his hand out to lightly cuff my head, ruffling my hair, something he hadn't done in...twenty years? It was something I would never have tolerated from any other man.

"It's not just her I'm worried about, bestiola," he said when he was through, with a heavy sigh. "In some crucial moment she will fail you, and you'll be left wondering why you didn't take my advice."

I knew that was as close as I'd ever get him to admitting there was something wrong with Lia—if our prior conversation hadn't pried it out of him, nothing would.

"You know me. I prepare for all eventualities."

"You'd better," he grunted, and then waved me off. "Get outta here."

I turned and quickly walked to the elevator, and waited until the doors were closed before straightening my hair out.