Mr. Yancey had apparently decided I was bad company. After trying to casually discuss Richard Sabella and his possible racketeering on several occasions, Mr. Yancey had taken to conversing solely in grunts and head nods. So, after a morning of stony silence, I was relieved to finally pull up the maintenance queue on the ancient computer downstairs and have some time to roam around the building.

There seemed to be some issue or another on every floor of the building, but I narrowed in on the jammed air conditioning vent on the eighth floor. The law office with the busted vent was directly next door to Sabella Security Solutions, and with Richard Sabella and Lindsay out of the office all afternoon, I knew it was finally my opportunity to get inside and get what I needed.

I felt bad for sexing the information out of Lindsay. I’d been casually bringing up her work schedule, Richard Sabella’s daily routine, and the kind of business they handled for days, usually post-fuck, trying to nail down when I could get inside the office and look around. And finally, I’d found an opening.

Part of me was relieved that the job was nearly done—assuming I could find the information I needed. But another part of me would be sad to leave Lindsay. She was good company and sexy as hell, a rare combination. But almost everything between us was based on a lie. I’d been using her for information about her boss, which wasn’t exactly the foundation of a great relationship.

The thought caught me off guard. What did I care about the foundation of a relationship? I’d never had a girlfriend. In fact, it was rare that I slept with the same woman more than twice. But here I’d been with Lindsay almost every night for a week.

Thoughts of Lindsay took a backseat as I hammered the lawyer’s air conditioning vent open. It was a simple fix that anyone with a basic toolbox could have fixed, but the clean-cut lawyer in his ten-thousand-dollar suit didn’t look like the do-it-yourself type. He sat in the office the entire time I worked, feet kicked up on his desk, eyeing me as though he thought I’d try to steal the crystal paperweight off his desk.

When I was finished, I packed up my bag and slipped through the heavy wooden door and into the lobby of Sabella Security Solutions, which also shared a room with a bank of elevators. This was convenient because it meant most everyone who worked in the company paid no attention to people who passed by their offices—assuming they were headed to or from the elevators—least of all a maintenance man. It was easier than I ever would have imagined to cross the lobby, walk past Lindsay’s empty desk, and turn the handle of Richard Sabella’s office.

The door was locked but working maintenance had its perks. I pulled out the large key ring that dangled from my bag and searched for the master key to all the doors on the eighth floor. It slipped into the lock like a dream, and I was in.

The office was dark, all the blinds pulled, so I flipped on the lights. They all flickered once and then buzzed to life except the one closest to the window, which remained obstinately dark. I suddenly remembered Lindsay mentioning something about a light in Mr. Sabella’s office causing him troubles. It would make a great cover story if anyone caught me in his office.

I lowered myself into his plush leather office chair and stared at the desk in front of me. There was a computer monitor with a black screen, a keyboard, and a mouse pad. That was it. I’d expected there to be papers and folders to riffle through. At the very least, I hadn’t expected things to look so clinical.

I jiggled the mouse and the screen came to life, all blue except for a white text bar in the center of the screen, asking me for a password. I knew nothing about computer hacking, but Antonio had sent me with a USB that was apparently able to work some kind of magic. All I had to do was plug it into the computer, and it would sort out the rest. I was dubious that it would be able to crack the password on the computer of a mafia member who also owned a security company, but I would cross that bridge when I came to it. I plugged the USB into the computer, sat back, and waited.

The screen went black and then white text began scrolling up from the bottom, a series of numbers and dashes and spaces and backslashes. My previous work for the Bianchi family involved mostly physical violence, so computer-related espionage felt more than a little out of my element. I watched the screen fill with text and then keep going. I stared at it until my eyes began to water and then cross. Finally, I stood up and opened the window, unable to look at the hieroglyphics for another second.

The room was so bright with natural daylight that the fluorescents above me were rendered useless, so I only noticed the fluorescent directly above me flick to life and then go dark again because I was rolling my neck on my shoulders trying to stretch out the early stages of a headache. Just as the flicker began taking up space in my brain, a faint ding rang out from the computer behind me, and I swiveled around. Richard Sabella’s desktop was open.

Holy shit, I was in.

I sat down in a state of disbelief. How? How did a hacking program in a USB manage to crack his password? He ran a security company, for God’s sake. I tried to press down my disbelief and enjoy the success, but even as I began searching through files and looking through his calendar, something felt wrong. It didn’t make any sense. If Richard Sabella really did have top secret information on his computer, wouldn’t he have gone to great lengths to protect it?

I wheeled away from the desk, the chair banging into the wall behind me, and stared at the computer as though it were a bomb set to go off any second. Perhaps, it was a trap. Maybe he made his computer easy to crack into because the entire room was being surveilled. He would kill whoever found any information before they had time to do anything with it.

I glanced around the room in search of any cameras I may have missed on my first sweep of the room, but I didn’t see anything. As my eyes grazed over all the corners, the light above the window flicked again. I could see why it would be annoying. Even if it refused to turn on and stayed dark, that would be better than the flickering, which only reminded you there was a problem. It was strange no one had managed to solve the problem.

Suddenly, I had a thought.

The idea was still in its early stages as I climbed onto the rolling chair and then up onto Richard Sabella’s desk. The drop ceiling was made of the same gray-speckled tiles that were in every office building across the entire United States, and I pressed up on the one next to the offending light. It lifted easily, and I swiped my hand through the air and along the metal framework holding everything up, in search of something, anything unusual.

Everyone—me, his rivals, the police—would assume Richard Sabella, one of the biggest names in tech security, would keep his secrets well protected in his computer. But the fact that I had been able to break into his desktop made me doubt this assumption. There was no way he would leave sensitive information so unprotected. In fact, it was beginning to seem more likely that he would do his best to defy expectations. Rather than hide his information in a computer where anyone anywhere in the world, with the necessary tools and capabilities, could hack in and access it, he would keep a hard copy. It had worked for every other generation, why not now?

I felt good about my theory, but my confidence did begin to wane as I swept my hand blindly into the ceiling space and didn’t feel anything. I was probably touching years of mummified rat droppings for nothing. Then, just as I was preparing to replace the ceiling tile and go back to searching the computer, my fingers hit something thin and plastic. It toppled over and immediately the light buzzed to life, blinding me. I jolted in surprise, nearly toppling off the desk, but managed to catch myself before I crashed to the floor and drew the attention of everyone in the office.

I blinked a few times, letting my eyes adjust to the suddenly functional fluorescent a few inches from my face, and then reached up for whatever I’d hit. I pulled it out and studied it under the light. It looked like a plastic tile, but I recognized it immediately as an external hard drive. I’d seen Lindsay using one just like it the day before to store the digital scans of her paintings. This one was much larger, though, nearly as big as my palm. So, my theory had been partially right. Richard Sabella wasn’t keeping information in a little black journal, but on a separate hard drive. I was still going to count it as a win.

I replaced the tile in the ceiling and was stepping off the desk when I heard a deep, angry voice coming from the lobby.

“That meeting was absolute bullshit. Highway robbery is what it is. Do they want us to work for free?”

The clock on the wall said it was only three in the afternoon, so how could Richard Sabella be outside his office door right now? Lindsay said she and her boss would be out all afternoon. His voice grew louder, and I barely had time to land on the floor, bury the external hard drive in the bottom of my maintenance bag, and stand up before the door opened.

“Schedule another meeting with them if you want, but I won’t—”

His eyes met mine and whatever he’d been about to say stuck in his throat.

“I’ll call you back.” His words were a growl, and then the phone was in his suit pocket. He glanced around the room, his eyes swiveling, head entirely still, like an owl before it swoops down to collect its mouse. His eyes snagged on the functioning fluorescent and then set on me. “What are you doing here?”

I adjusted my grip on my bag and began moving towards the door. “There was a maintenance request in for your light. I fixed it.”

He didn’t budge as I neared him, his body blocking the door. “No one told me about any scheduled maintenance.”

I shrugged. “I just follow the orders.”

His eyes narrowed further. “Of who?”

“Head of maintenance.”

He tilted his head to the side. It felt obvious that another current was running under our conversation, the truth thinly veiled by social decorum. I only wondered which of us would mention it first.

As I stood in front of Richard Sabella, close enough that he could have reached out and choked me, I stared at him, my face flat and expressionless. “Is there anything else you need worked on?”

He pursed his lips and glanced up to the light again. He was wondering what I’d found up there, if anything at all. Then, he lowered his gaze to me and slid out of my way.

“That will be all for today.”

When I stepped past him into the lobby, I realized Lindsay wasn’t at her desk, which was fine because I didn’t plan to stay and chat, anyway. I tightened my grip on my bag, which was now one of my more cherished possessions, and walked across the lobby, headed for the stairs rather than the elevator. I needed to get out of his office as quickly as possible. It would be only a matter of minutes before Richard Sabella climbed up onto his desk and removed the ceiling tile in search of the hard drive. And after that—or perhaps before, I didn’t know—he’d notice his computer screen was turned on and unlocked. My cover was officially blown.

I kept anticipating pounding feet behind me on the stairs—Sabella’s goons chasing after me. But there was nothing except my echoed steps on the concrete. When I reached the basement, it had only been a few minutes, but already things were unusual.

Mr. Yancey was standing outside the mailroom door, which I’d never seen before, hands on his square hips. I walked past him to the maintenance closet next door to drop off the maintenance bag, but not before stuffing the external hard drive in the waistband of my pants.

“What in the hell did you do?” Yancey asked when I returned, his milky eyes furious, pupils large. When I didn’t answer right away, he repeated the question. “What did you do?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He shook his head, his fleshy jowl clenching in frustration. “I knew you were going to be a problem. The moment you walked into my mail room, I knew you’d cause me nothing but trouble.”

I pushed past the old man and stepped into the mail room to gather my stuff. I didn’t want to stick around the building any longer than necessary. Maybe I’d also have time to run by Lindsay’s condo and say goodbye.

“Sabella called for you,” Mr. Yancey said, interrupting my thoughts.

I froze for a second, and then swiveled around to stare at the old man. “What did he say?”

“He wants to see you.”

Like hell. Did Sabella really expect me to mosey back into his office like nothing had happened, so he could take me out and shove my body in a closet? Not a chance.

“I told you to keep your head down,” Mr. Yancey said. “I told you to focus on your work and stay away from Richard Sabella.”

“I guess I’m not good with authority,” I said.

Mr. Yancey opened his mouth to say something, but then the phone rang. Never taking his eyes off me, he picked it up, waited a few seconds, and then sighed. “Yes, he’s here.”

My fists tightened at my sides. Was the bastard ratting me out? Before I could grab the phone out of his hand and slam it back down, he continued.

“He is headed your way, Mr. Sabella. He’ll be there in five minutes.”

He hung up the phone and we stared at one another for a second. Then, he raised his sloped shoulders and shook his head. “Are you waiting for a red carpet or something? I just gave you a five-minute head start. You better use it.”