Page 5 of His Assistant

Unfortunately, she’s also become the shiny new toy on the executive floor. She’s young and pretty, not that I’ve paid much attention to her looks. Half the men in VP positions keep finding reasons to swing by her desk for a look. Associates who should know better linger with files that could’ve been emailed. Arthur Klein calls me twice in one afternoon to ask if “the new girl” is taking messages.

I roll my eyes and remind him he doesn’t need more bad press where young women are concerned. And she’s not a girl. Going by her graduation date, I’d put her at twenty-five or twenty-six, though she carries herself like someone much older.

Rafe walks in without waiting for Sofia to announce him. He barely glances at her desk on the way past, like she’s an inconvenience between him and my office.

He closes the door behind him.

“I see the new assistant’s still working out.” He chuckles.

I barely look up at him. “Is that supposed to be a dig at her or at me?”

“Definitely at you. Your last assistant lasted what? Nine days?”

“Ten.” I smirk. “But it was a rough ten days. I assume you didn’t come here just to harass me.”

“Well, I suppose that depends on what you consider harassment.” He sighs, dropping a thin file on my desk. “Calderone’s lender is pushing into Astoria.”

I glance up from the property acquisition file. That gets my attention. “What business?”

“Small restaurants. A market. Two repair shops. Nothing terribly important.”

“Then why mention it?”

“Because one of the restaurants leases from us.”

Enzo Calderone runs the second-biggest organized crime outfit in New York. Second only to mine. It kills him to always come in behind me. He’s worked tirelessly for years to change that and comes up empty almost every time.

This is a new angle. Stupid, maybe, but I’ve never considered him particularly smart.

“What’s the name of the lender?”

He opens his own file and peruses it for a second. “Marino,” he finally answers. “Benito Marino.”

“Is that a real name, or an alias?”

“I’ve never heard of him.” He shrugs. “But his signature is on a bunch of legal documents, so he has to be at least somewhat legit.”

“Put someone on him,” I instruct. “We need to know what we’re up against if Calderone is trying to edge us out of our own territory.”

“You got it, boss.”

He says it casually, but his expression stays tight. He has more bad news, and he doesn’t want to tell me. I’ve known Rafe long enough to know when he’s holding back on me.

“Just spit it out,” I tell him.

“The Newark shipment missed its window,” he finally admits.

I let his words settle a moment. A delayed shipment has the potential to be disastrous. It can stall all our other processes for days, even weeks. This is not something I want to deal with right now.

“Did it even go through customs?” I ask.

“Not yet,” he answers shortly. “It’s disappeared from the logs. No one can find it. A shipment like that doesn’t just go missing.”

“I’m well aware,” I answer through clenched teeth. “Who knew the route?”

“Too many people for us to find conclusive answers without an extensive investigation,” he answers warily. “I’ve got the time if you want me to focus on it, but I’m worried it’s the beginning of bigger problems.”

I nod, and consider this for a second.