Page 71 of Take Her

“Why, Ms. Ferreo,” he said, in a catcalling tone, pushing back the chair to take in the view closing behind me—and he seemed disappointed to have not caught me in there with Rhaim. “Whatever were you doing in your boss’s office?”

“Who the fuck are you?” Rhaim wasn’t here. I could curse freely, and the occasion seemed to call for it.

“We haven’t met yet,” he said, standing to offer me his hand, which I did not take. “I’m Bobby, a friend of Junior’s, he told me to meet him here—said he had someone to introduce me to.”

I made a show of crossing my arms, just as Freddie Junior came in. I was revolted again by his presence, but he didn’t seem to catch it. He took in the situation immediately, and, I noted, seemed completely unsurprised.

“Bobby!” He tsked, and the man laughed, and shrugged, coming out from around my desk. “I’m so sorry, Lia, Bobby lacks manners,” he said, with a smile that didn’t lift his eyes. “Is the big man here?”

He was not—which I was sure they very well knew.

“And what are you working on, besides?” Bobby asked, flipping idly through the brochure I’d made for the distillery. He looked over to Junior, flashed him the front of it, and Junior’s eyes widened.

I knew I couldn’t breathe a word about the IPO, or all hell would break loose—but I also knew that as long as I was trapped here alone with the two of them, I didn’t feel safe.

“The distillery,” I said, circling behind my desk to occupy the space, putting it between me and them. “And making it profitable again.”

“Your dad’s giving you the distillery?” Freddie Junior asked, with what looked like affront.

“No—it’s Corvo’s,” I said, to hopefully shut the door on further interactions.

Junior thumbed through the pages, then gave Bobby a pointed look. “If you run something here, it’s as good as yours,” he said, before handing it back to me. “Drinks?” he asked again—and I remembered I’d ignored his text the other night.

“I don’t drink,” I said, shaking my head.

“And yet you run a distillery?” he said, sounding amused.

“I don’t,” I protested.

“Hmm. Then seltzer? Iced tea?” he pressed, with the same smug grin on his face, presumably trying to seem charming, but everything about his presence was having the opposite effect on me.

I know where the bodies are buried—I know where the bodies are buried—I know where the bodies are buried. I repeated the phrase Rhaim told me inside my head like a magic spell.

It helped, but it wasn’t enough, because if I saw Freddie Junior out of the corner of my eye, in profile, or heard him clear his throat in a certain way—I swallowed air, trying to keep my breakfast down.

“I’m really busy, and I’ve got a lot of work to do,” I demurred, gesturing at the desk in front of me.

Freddie Jr waited, then shrugged. “Another time, then,” he said, before jerking his chin at Bobby. “Come on.”

“Have fun filing,” Bobby said, with a leering grin.

I held on to my shit until they were both out of Mrs. Armstrong’s office, but then I fell into my chair, lightly shaking.

If I could barely stand up for myself around my cousin, how the hell was I going to manage to see his dad?

30

RHAIM

The main thing you should know about Wall Street is that financial crimes don’t count.

Mostly because they’re committed by white people and shit’s deeply unfair, but also because on some level, the crime is the point of the whole thing.

It’s all one giant gambling ring that the entire country’s bought into, relying on the knowledge of investors and investor relations groups, comprised of a fleet of men and a handful of women, very few of them brown or Black, who get to decide whose stakes rise or fall based half on significant amounts of math and half on your ability to elicit a certain special feeling in their tummy.

And while there are no guarantees, at a minimum to succeed you will need one of at least three things: an actually good product or concept, the ability to tell lies on top of your dead mother’s grave, or to have made the right connections along the way.

Which was why I was here at a secluded table in a quiet restaurant, meeting Nicholas Samson the Third, of the eponymous Samson Investment Corp.