Page 6 of Pietro

The smart ones always say that. Then they see blood on a shipping manifest or hear the wrong conversation and suddenly they're full of questions.

I stand, letting her get the full picture. Wrinkled Armani, sleeves rolled up over forearms marked with scars. Blood on my knuckles from the wall. Three days of stubble because I haven't been home in longer than that. Everything about me screams danger, violence,run.

She tilts her chin up. Defiant. Like she's daring me to try to scare her.

"Sit." I nod toward the leather chair across from my desk.

She sits with controlled grace, knees together, back straight. Her fingers find a resting position on her thighs. No nervous energy. No tells. Either she's got ice in her veins or she's very good at pretending.

I drop back into my chair, pull a resume from the pile Liam left. Nora Kelly. Twenty-three. Administrative assistant. Boston. The paper feels thin, the history full of gaps. What is she hiding? Then again, no one with a clean past walks through my door. "Why Chicago?"

"Fresh start." Her voice stays level. "Sometimes you need distance from old mistakes."

Old mistakes. The way she says it, careful and controlled, tells me there's a story there. I have my own and it’s enough. I don't need hers too. I need someone who can manage shippingmanifests without crying when they realize what we're really importing.

"The position requires unusual hours." I pour myself another drink but I don't offer her one. "Sometimes you'll need to be here at three in the morning to handle customs documentation. Sometimes you'll work sixteen-hour days when shipments stack up. The pay reflects that, but the work's demanding."

"I can handle demanding."

I lean forward, elbows on the desk. "Can you handle this?" I slide a blood-stained manifest across the mahogany. One of this morning's casualties, documenting a shipment that went sideways when the Murphy family decided to make a statement. "Sometimes our business gets messy."

She picks up the paper, examines it with the same detachment she'd use for a grocery list. "The blood obscures some of the numbers here." She sets it down, meets my eyes. "But I can work with the digital copies. I assume you keep backups?"

My jaw tightens. No trembling hands. No wide, scared eyes. She’s holding a man’s blood and asking about fucking data backups.

"We keep backups." I study her face, looking for the crack, the tell that she's about to bolt. "The last three secretaries quit within a week. One lasted three days. What makes you think you'll do better?"

"Because I need this job." The first hint of something raw bleeds through her professional mask. "And from what I can see" she glances at the scattered papers, the chaos of my desk "you need someone who won't run at the first sign of trouble."

She's not wrong. The operation's hemorrhaging money because I can't keep the legitimate front running smoothly. Can't keep anyone in this office long enough to maintain the facade that keeps the feds at bay.

"The salary listed was forty-five thousand." She straightens her shoulders. "I want fifty-four."

The laugh escapes before I can stop it. "You see this office, see me, and your first move is to negotiate up twenty percent?"

"You need me more than I need you." Her chin lifts again, that defiant tilt that sends an unfamiliar jolt through me, something hot and sharp that has nothing to do with anger. "Your operations are failing without proper administrative support. I can fix that. Fifty-four thousand is reasonable for someone who will stay."

Brass balls on this one. Sitting here, looking like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, while negotiating with a man who had someone's blood on his manifests this morning.

"Prove you can type." I pull out one of the legitimate shipping documents, the kind that actually needs proper formatting. "Ninety words per minute, you said?"

She moves to the computer terminal at the side desk without hesitation. Her fingers fly over the keys, transcribing the document with mechanical precision. No errors. No hesitation. Even when I move to stand behind her, close enough that she must feel my presence, she doesn't falter.

"Time." She turns in the chair, looks up at me. This close, I can see the gold flecks in her green eyes. Smell something clean, like soap and wind. "Ninety-two words per minute."

I'm standing too close. Close enough to see the pulse at her throat, quick but controlled. Close enough to notice the faint mark on her collarbone, almost hidden by the high neckline. Like someone grabbed her there.

Fresh start. Old mistakes. A woman hiding bruises who doesn't flinch at blood.

My voice is a rasp. "You running from something, Miss Kelly?" The question is a blade, sharper than I meant it to be.

Her eyes flash with fear and anger before the mask slides back into place. "Aren't we all?"

That's exactly what I don't need. Another complication, another person to fail. But she's the first applicant who hasn't run screaming. Who negotiated up instead of accepting whatever scraps I threw her way.

"Fifty-four thousand." I move back to my desk, needing distance from whatever charge fills the air between us. "You start tomorrow. Eight a.m. sharp. Liam will handle your paperwork, explain the basic protocols."

I extend my hand across the desk. A barrier. The deal is done.