Chapter 5
Gabe gave a short, rough laugh. “Boss, Carmine’s cooking is good, but it isn’t mandatory. Maybe she’s on a diet. Maybe she’s vegan, or whatever the hell they call it now. You want me to have him make tofu?” “It isn’t a diet,” Zo murmured. The clock read 6:45 p.m. On the screen, Tessa was preparing to finish her shift. She was moving more slowly than usual. Unsteadily. Zo watched as she entered the small utility closet and retrieved her coat and the olive-green canvas tote. When she arrived each morning, the bag was flat. It hung almost empty from her shoulder. But when she left every evening, it bulged. Not completely full, but weighted by something distinctly rectangular at the bottom.
If she was not stealing money and she was not stealing data, then what was inside the bag? Zo watched her punch out. She placed the tote over her shoulder and winced slightly when the strap dug into her collarbone. Then she pushed through the heavy exit door and vanished into the night. The anomaly began to drive him insane. In Zo’s world, a secret was leverage. A secret was a weapon. If someone inside his house was hiding something, it represented vulnerability. Zo Rossi did not tolerate vulnerabilities. He did not sleep that night. He sat in the darkness of his study while blue monitor light washed over his face, replaying footage from the mudroom. Morning. Bag flat. Evening. Bag full. Every day. He enlarged the image, studying the shape pressing against the canvas. Rectangular. Hard-edged. Books. Folders. Cash from another source.
The cynicism that had kept him alive through 2 turf wars and an assassination attempt roared inside his head. She is playing you. She found a blind spot. She is moving something directly under your nose. Zo made a decision. The observation phase was over. Friday night arrived with a brutal freezing downpour, the kind of rain that felt like needles and turned Chicago streets into black ice. Inside the Rossi estate, climate control maintained a comfortable 72°. Zo waited in the shadows of the service hallway, positioned just outside the mudroom camera’s view. He wore a dark tailored suit without his usual tie, the top button of his shirt undone.
