Page 35 of Damián

Including Zara and her mom.

“Yes, make sure it’s handled by Wednesday,” Elijah says, cutting off my internal freak-out. He turns around with a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Oliver, you’ve been out.”

“I was. Did you need something, or am I just here so you can admire my outfit?”

Elijah fills his whiskey glass and takes a sip. “I have a problem on the docks that needs to be resolved now.” He throws me a notebook, and I catch it mid-air. “Last three pages. A shipping container arriving from Bogotá needs to bypass the standard customs sweep on Red Hook. I need your mind on it.”

I open the notebook and skim through the last three pages. “Pier 4? Isn’t Daniel running that sector? Just have him route it through the agricultural bypass.”

“Daniel is no longer with us… He and his family stopped breathing this morning,” Elijah says, his tone so flat he could be telling me the weather.

Oh, God… his family too?

My stomach turns, and I feel like puking, but instead, I roll my eyes. “What for? You know how hard it is to find good help these days?”

Elijah laughs. “Incredibly difficult, son. Which is why he died. You know we’ve been looking into the rat that’s been passing info to the agencies. Well, after some digging, I discovered Daniel sold some sensitive information to one of our competitors.”

It takes everything in me… every ounce of survival instinct I have gathered over the past fifteen years, not to scream. Instead, I force the corners of my mouth to curl upward.

“You’re right, Dad. Besides, Daniel was always a fucking idiot anyway.”

“Indeed. So, the container?”

I check the numbers and lines of the shipment. “You can’t use Red Hook for a while. The area’s been crawling with cops ever since our shipment was blown on the day of the masquerade. Reroute the ship to the Brooklyn Navy Yard and tell the harbor master you have a perishable cargo of exotic hardwoods that needs immediate quarantine inspection. Pay off the night-shift inspector and swap the container tags while the real wood is in holding. The cops will be too busy looking for Daniel’s missing shipments to check an agricultural quarantine.”

Elijah writes it down. “Brilliant, as always. Thank you, Oliver.”

“Don’t mention it,” I say, standing up. “Are we done? I have a headache, and I’m extremely bored.”

“We are done.”

I wave goodbye, but I don’t look back.

I walk out of the office, down the long hallway, past Martin, and up the grand staircase. I walk slowly, like I’m tired and indifferent to everything around me.

I walk into my bedroom and lock the door behind me.

Once locked inside, I see that my dinner and a bottle of wine are already set on the table for me. I ignore it; instead, I walk into my en-suite bathroom, making sure to also lock this door.

I get into the big glass shower, reach in, and turn the water on full blast.

I don’t even bother to take off my damn shoes or my jacket… I just step under the water. Then my knees buckle, and I hit the tiled floor hard, pulling my knees to my chest.

The laugh I had given my father in the office claws its way back up my throat, morphing into a ragged, pathetic sob. I clamp both hands over my mouth to muffle the sound, but the tears come too fast, blinding me.

Daniel’s family… they were innocent… and now they are gone, and it’s all because of me.

Because I passed a tip.

Because I exist in this house.

CHAPTER 5

DAMIÁN

Iam in the middle of a fantastic dream involving a beach in Puerto Rico and a very cold beer when an earthquake wakes me up. I expect to open my eyes to a crumbling ceiling, but instead, I see a tiny creature in Spider-Man pajamas hurtling toward me.

“Wake up, tío!”