Page 43 of Kept

The man who enters my office is tall, thin, and remarkably pimpled despite being well into his late twenties. He also perpetually dresses in a collection of layered 90s t-shirts and khaki pants, wears a set of thick glasses, and I’m not sure he can grow a beard. A battered leather messenger bag is slung across his chest. For all intents and purposes, he looks like a college bum that should be lurking around the campus library trying to pick up co-eds, not the genius multimillionaire he actually is.

“Jack, thanks for coming.”

“Of course, Don De Luca. Mr. DeAngelo said it was urgent. Let me get set up here.” He plops down in the chair across from me and sets up a MacBook on the shiny desktop. He unrolls a long cable and plugs into an internet port on the wall. Jack insists that nothing uses WiFi. After connecting a palm scanner and a retinal scanner, he begins to log into our secure cloud.

My father insisted that only paper books be kept. But for fuck’s sake, nobody uses paper books. That in and of itself is suspicious. I keep meticulous, normal electronic records of our legal transactions. Jack has created a highly secure cloud to store our other data in. In addition to the passwords, as in multiple, it requires his palm scan and either mine or one of my brother’s retinal scans. I pull my chair around to his side of the desk.

“Okay,” he begins, pulling up a confusing and colorful graph. “You’ll see that profit remained relatively steady and increased at a reasonable pace for the last six years. This dip here,” he points to a small loss, “is when the casino was built. But you’ll see that there was a steady 5% increase in profit above baseline since it’s opening.” He points to another spot.

He clicks open a few more spreadsheets. “Ah, here it is. Now, for the last year, you’ll see a small, but consistent decrease, less than 1%. These dips,” he taps the screen with his pen, “here, here, here, and so on are more isolated episodes where profits decreased by at least 10% in a month.”

I recognize some of those dates. Some were reasonably benign—businesses leaving the state or closing outright and losing their protection revenue. An episode where one of our nightclubs was raided by immigration and many of our dancers’ very expired visas were found. One very prominent police raid, costing us a shit ton upfront and even more chasing down loose ends and, for the most part, buying them off.

“What are your thoughts?” I ask him.

He pauses. “I’ve spent a lot of time watching money move around the stock market and change hands in general. I’ve spent years watching your money move around. This isn’t random, it’s too frequent, too consistent. Honestly, you’re just not that unlucky, sir. But I also can’t explain it. I’m just the numbers dude.” He shrugs.

I nod. “Thanks for coming out, Jack.”

“No problem, Don De Luca. Anytime. You know that.” He begins the almost equally intricate process of locking the accounts and laptop, then packing all of his equipment back into his messenger bag.

CHAPTER 22

Sarah

After a long, luxurious shower, a petite, plump woman with heavily highlighted brown hair knocks on my door.

“Hi. I’m Marie.” She’s holding several white paper shopping bags, which she proceeds to hand to me. “When you’re done dressing, I’ll be out here to show you the way.” She steps back and closes the door quietly, leaving me staring blankly at it in confusion.

Turning my attention to the bags, I find they hold all of the ballet equipment I asked for. Tights and leotards and warmups, even six brands of point shoes and all the things to customize them. A small note is taped to the top box.

Apologies, your preferred brand was not in stock locally, but I have pairs on order. I got one of every other brand I could find instead. Hopefully this is satisfactory.—Marie

Holy shit.

I dress, tie my hair up, pull on a set of sweats that I didn’t ask for but she thoughtfully provided, and find her in the hallway as promised.

“Shall we?” She sweeps her arm down the hall.

“Lead the way. Especially since I don’t know what’s going on.”

She laughs. It’s a genuine, cheerful sound, and I decide that I like her. “A better room will be set up to your requirements, but for now, everyone is meeting in one of the smaller ballrooms.”

“Rooms? As in there is more than one?”

She smiles. “Mhm. Six to be specific. But one has a giant Persian rug in it and a table that seats 25, so that’s the formal dining kinda by default.”

“Oh, well that’s clearly the sensible thing to do.”

Marie laughs again.

“So, also, who is everyone?”

“Your partner Robert, an adorable girl named Bella, and Madame LeReoux, who may be the scariest woman I’ve ever met, which should be telling, given my overall employment status.” She winks at me, as if there is an inside joke I’m now privy to.

“Wait. Antoinette LeReoux?”

“The one and scary.”

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