Chapter 7: Ten million reasons

Cassano walked to the center of the apartment and stopped. He looked around the way people do when they own things, slowly, without hurry, like the space already belonged to him.

He was not a large man. He didn't need to be. The kind of authority he carried had nothing to do with size.

"Small place," he said. "For two people hiding."

"Nobody is hiding," Bruno said.

Cassano smiled without showing his teeth. "That depends on who you ask."

He moved to the couch and sat down, setting his hands on his knees. He had the posture of someone who gave orders at dinner tables and received them at none. His suit was dark and expensive. His shoes were the kind that cost more than a month of rent. Everything about him was fishy.

His eyes came to me. "Mrs. Simpson."

I didn't correct the name.

"I hope my visit isn't inconvenient," he said.

"You didn't ask before coming," I replied.

"No." He acknowledged it without apology. "I suppose I didn't."

Bruno moved to stand slightly between us, not aggressive, but deliberate. Cassano noticed and chose not to react to it.

"I'll keep this brief," Cassano said. "I want my money back, Bruno. The full amount. With interest."

"The money was moved without my knowledge."

"That argument stopped being interesting eighteen months ago."

"It's still the truth."

Cassano tilted his head. "The truth." He said the word like it amused him slightly. "You know what I find interesting about the truth? It never once put ten million dollars back in my account."

Bruno said nothing.

"I've been patient," Cassano continued. "More patient than most men in my position would be. But patience has a ceiling." He uncrossed his legs and leaned forward slightly. "And I am very close to it."

"I'm working on recovering the funds."

"You've been working on it since Monaco." Cassano glanced toward the window. "And yet here you are. In a one-bedroom apartment. Sharing it with a woman whose husband, as it happens, owes me a conversation of his own."

I went still.

His eyes moved back to me slowly.

"Your husband is not a careful man," Cassano said. "He made promises to people above my level and then borrowed resources he had no way to repay. I find myself in the middle of that, as I often do."

"I don't know anything about Richard's business," I said.

"I believe you." He said it simply, without cruelty. "That's not why I mentioned it."

"Then why did you?"

Cassano looked between us before answering.

"Because the two situations are connected," he said. "Richard's debt. Bruno's missing money. The records that prove where everything went." He paused, letting that settle. "Those records are in the same place."

Bruno's posture shifted slightly beside me.

"Where?" he asked.

Cassano smoothed the front of his jacket. "I'm told Richard has been holding onto documents from the Monaco deal for a long time. I always assumed it was leverage. Insurance against people like me coming to collect." He looked at me directly. "But I wonder now if he was waiting for something specific to happen before using them."

I held his gaze. "Like what?"

"Like someone willing to go and get them for him." He paused. "Or for someone else."

The apartment was quiet.

I understood what he was suggesting before the sentence was finished. The way he kept looking at me, like I was the most useful person in the room, told me everything I needed to know.

He wasn't here to threaten Bruno.

He was here for me.

"I'm not retrieving anything for you," I said.

"I'm not asking you to." Cassano stood, adjusting his cuffs with the ease of a man completely unbothered by the tension in the room. "I'm simply observing that you are the one person Richard would allow close enough to find what I need. What you choose to do with that observation is entirely your own decision."

He walked to the door without rushing.

At the threshold, he paused and looked back at Bruno.

"Seven days," he said. "After that, I stop being patient. And I become something else entirely."

The door closed behind him.

The apartment felt different after he left. Smaller somehow, like the walls had moved an inch in each direction while he was standing inside them.

Neither of us spoke for a long moment.

I became aware that I had been gripping the edge of the counter hard enough to feel it in my knuckles. I released it and straightened.

"He came here for me," I said.

"Yes."

"He already knew I was here. He knew my name. He knew about Richard."

"Yes."

I looked at Bruno. "You knew he would."

He didn't deny it. "I suspected Cassano would connect the dots once he found me. I didn't know how quickly."

"That's not reassuring."

"I know."

I walked to the window and looked down at the street. Cassano's car was already gone. A clean exit, no lingering, no drama. The street looked perfectly ordinary again, like a man hadn't just sat on my couch and suggested I break into my abusive husband's life to steal financial documents for him.

"Those records," Bruno said from behind me. "If Richard has been holding them this long, it's not just leverage against Cassano."

I turned. "Then what is it?"

"Richard doesn't keep things unless they serve him directly." Bruno's voice was careful now, like he was working through it as he spoke. "Cassano is powerful, but Richard isn't afraid of powerful men. He's afraid of exposure. Of losing control over the version of himself he shows the world."

"So the documents are protection."

"Yes. But not only that."

I waited.

Bruno looked at me directly. "Something in those records connects back to you, Phoebe. I don't know what yet. But Richard has been holding onto them since before you left him. That's not a coincidence."

I opened my mouth to argue, then stopped.

Because Richard had said it himself, standing in this apartment, looking straight at Bruno.

You really think you know what you're getting into here?

At the time I thought he meant the living arrangement. The inconvenience of a strange man in my space.

But Richard never wasted words on small things.

He had been warning Bruno off something specific.

Something that involved me.

My phone buzzed on the counter.

I crossed the room and picked it up.

A message from Richard. No greeting, no buildup.

"How was the meeting?"

He had been watching the building the entire time.

He had seen Cassano arrive. He had waited. And now he was letting me know exactly how closely he was paying attention.

I set the phone down without replying and looked at Bruno.

"He knows Cassano was here," I said.

Bruno nodded once.

"Which means he's been watching you too," I added. "Not just me."

"Yes."

"So everything happening in this apartment," I said slowly, "Richard already knows about."

Bruno held my gaze for a long moment.

"That depends," he said, "on how long he's known where I was."