“Yeah?” She sounds a little breathless. A little excited.
“Tonight. I’m going to be pent-up. I’m going to be angry. And I want to take it out on you.”
She stares at me, lips parted. She’s so fucking sexy with her auburn hair and pink lips and pale creamy skin. “I can do that.”
“Good. I’ll send a car for you. Be ready at nine.”
“Okay. Yeah. I’ll see you then.”
She turns and leaves the room.
I watch her ass and feel my pulse quicken.
I give myself a little bit to get it together before I call Darin. He’s in town but not in the office today, he’s out meeting with other potential clients. “Yo, brother,” he says.
“Hey, man. Listen. Can you come in later?”
“Sure. What’s up?”
“I just want to talk about that account.”
He pauses. “Good news?”
“Just come in.”
“Sure thing. See you later.” He hangs up.
I spend the rest of the day second-guessing myself. I keep wondering if I’m doing the wrong thing, if I’m needlessly betraying and setting up my own friend. I feel like I’ve given him enough outs, enough reasons to want to stop this whole thing, but he keeps pushing forward.
I’ll give him one more chance. I’ll make my case and make it clearly. If he’s not interested and still wants these men as an account, I’ll take them on and I’ll let Valerie do her thing. That’ll be his choice.
But fuck, the choice hurts. I hate that I have to make it, but I won’t back down from it.
He comes in around four-thirty. He slips into my office and sits down heavily on a chair. “Shit,” he says. “Busy day.”
“How many did you see?”
“Five,” he says with a laugh. “Signed two. You’ll like them.”
“Really?”
“Yep. Legit guys, big corporate accounts. Fat payrolls. That sort of thing.”
“Sounds like heaven already.”
He smiles but it’s an empty gesture. “So. You want to talk about Carmine. Let’s talk about Carmine.”
I take a deep breath and nod slowly. “Look. I want to be careful about these guys.”
“That’s obvious.”
“I know you’re set on taking their money. But I think we should consider maybe passing. What kind of fund do we want to be, anyway?”
“I want to be the kind of fund that’ll take money and make more money,” he says. “Look, Jacob, I get it. You don’t like the guys. You think they’re shady or whatever. But believe me, if you did your research, you’d know they’re for real.”
I frown a little bit. I had done my research. That was all I’d been doing since that meeting. From what I can tell, their front companies are real. But everything stinks about them. For example, only PO boxes are publicly listed. And there are no phone numbers anywhere, no mentions of their actual names, nothing. The registered agent is some lawyer out in Hoboken, which is about as cliché as it gets.
“Okay, fine. But if there’s any question at all, do we really need them? It sounds like you’re doing just fine.”
He closes his eyes for a second then slowly opens them. I can see the anxiety and annoyance clear all over his face. He’s not trying to hide how he’s feeling at all.
“If you want to block this, say so. But I want to move forward. I’m sick of this stupid second-guessing. We’re just going to piss these guys off and lose clients for no damn good reason.”
“I hear you,” I say. “I just—”
“Make up your mind,” he snaps.
I stare at him for a second. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so angry with me, and it’s really hard to make sense of.
I mean, if these guys really were just regular, hardworking Italian-Americans that want to keep themselves private, I don’t see why he’d insist on pushing so hard. We could move on from these guys and still flourish. They won’t change our lives.
But if they were mafia…
That would explain his insistence. He doesn’t care if I’m against it or if I’m uncomfortable. He just wants to move ahead.
“All right then,” I say. “Let’s sign them.”
He relaxes. He even smiles. “Really?”
“Fuck it. If that’s what you want, we’ll do it.”
He brightens up at that and stands up. “Fuck, yeah, man. This is a huge score.”
I force myself to smile. I don’t understand this excitement, because really, it’s not that big. I mean, it’s a solid amount of money, but not enough to fight over.
“I trust you,” I say, standing. He comes around my desk and gives me a big, hard hug. I laugh and slap his back. “We’ll make these guys a fortune.”
“That’s what I want to hear, my brother.” He grins and fakes punching me in the gut. I hate when he does that. “Look, get them all sorted, I’ll get the cash. We’ll start making these dudes rich.”
“Absolutely.”
He moves away from my desk and over to the window. He’s smiling but slowly his smile starts to fade. “So look, you’re going to give these guys to that girl, right?”