Page 148 of The Fates We Tame

“One.”

I’m all alone on this fucking stool wishing I was anywhere other than here.

“Happy New Year,” Clutch booms and the clubhouse explodes around me.

More hugging. More backslapping. More shouts of making this year special.

“Happy New Year,” Switch shouts in my ear as he finally lets go of Sophia and pulls me into a hug. “Let’s make it a fucking good one, yeah?”

I admire his optimism. The last twelve months were rough on him and his woman. “To better things,” I say.

I hug Sophia and kiss her unscarred cheek. “Happy New Year, sweetheart.”

She grins. “Thank you. Do you have any resolutions?”

“Meh. Not really,” I say. “You?”

Switch leans against the bar. “She’s got a color-coded list.”

“But the biggest one is I want to ask the club to let me build a real estate portfolio for them,” Sophia says. “Plus, it’s an easy way to wash cash.”

“I like the way you think,” I say. “I’d be interested in hearing more.”

“Good,” she says. “Because I have a whole presentation that?—”

“It’s New Year’s Eve, Sparrow,” Switch says. “Well, New Year’s Day now. It’s a party. No presentation talk tonight.”

She looks up at Switch. “You’re no fun.” She looks back to me. “I suppose he doesn’t want me to tell you I was talking about you yesterday morning either.”

“You were?”

“My brother is having some issues with someone trying to hack into their system.”

I love the way she says it so nonchalant. Like her brother isn’t Alessio Viscuso, head of the New York Cosa Nostra.

“Pretty sure you shouldn’t be telling me that,” I say.

Switch pulls Sophia back against him and nuzzles the back of her ear. “I said no work, babe.”

Sophia grins and ignores him. “I told him I’d ask you if you’d come take a look at it for him. It appears his tech team aren’t as capable as you are, and I think that might piss him off a little.”

“Pretty certain my president might have an issue with me helping out another criminal enterprise, but I’ll run it by him,” I say.

Sophia places her hand on my arm. “Thank you. I’ll make sure he owes you for it.”

And there’s the natural shrewd businesswoman. Sophia may have lost her memory, but she knows at a visceral level how this game is played.

The noise of the clubhouse starts to bug me.

I’m grateful my club is happy, but I retreat to my office in the back of the kitchen.

I’ve been asked many times why I set up here in the old pantry, and they all think I’m just a nerd who wanted a cubby.

But the truth is so much more than that.

First, no wall is an exterior wall. If anything happens to the exterior, like when the Italians fucking bazookaed us, nothing will happen to my set up.

Second, if by some miracle someone manages to break into the clubhouse, they’ll start with the offices on the other side of the club. Church, maybe. The treasurer and club secretary offices. By then, I’ll have been notified through all the alerts I set up, and help will already be on the way before they have the time to find all my computers.