Page 21 of Baby for My Ex’s Dad

“Then request a meeting through the portal,” I say, “like a director. That’s what directors do.”

He laughs, wounded and charming, aiming for both and hitting neither. Then he leans in, too close, cologne and champagne memory, and says, “I always liked you better than anyone knew, Thea,” and leaves. I sit at my desk listening to the elevator swallow him.

Objectively rejecting him isn’t working. Fine. I can’t fire him. I couldn’t even get him to return the good stapler he borrowed in March.

But I know a man who can, and there’s more he should know. Months of meeting logs, signed packages, travel that didn’t match calendars, invoices I flagged and got waved off of, all of it in archive boxes and shared drives that nobody knows better than I do, because I built the filing system.

Max wants his audit. I want Klaus out of my building and off my desk corner. For once, the smart thing and the satisfying thing are the same thing.

I check the floor. Empty. Elevator quiet. I pull up the archive index I made my first month, the one with color coding legal called adorable right up until they needed it, and I start a new folder on my secure drive and name it, “CLOSEOUT, GALA, MISC,” because boring names are camouflage. Another thing this place taught me.

Then I start pulling files.

Right away, in the first box, there it is again. Meridian Atlantic Services. Invoice after invoice, paid on time, every month, to a company with a letterhead and a logo and not one employee I’ve ever met.

I pull every one of them. Then I keep going, because if there’s one ghost in this filing system, there are more, and I’m the only person alive who knows where they sleep.

10

MAXIM

Alexei Sokolov keeps me waiting seventeen minutes in his own restaurant, which is the first message of the afternoon, and the cheapest.

The place on Mulberry Street hasn’t changed. White cloths, dead quiet, a dining room that hasn’t served a stranger in fifteen years. Two of his men stand by the coat check pretending to be furniture. A third stands behind Alexei’s chair, a big man, bald, the scalp crossed with ridged scars, a face pulled at one cheek so it rests in the suggestion of a smile.

Kirill.

He doesn’t speak. He watches me sit, and the resting smile deepens by a millimeter, and he goes back to being a wall with eyes.

“Maxim.” Alexei has aged into a fat silver cat of a man, rings on both hands as if he needs to prove his wealth. As if his suits don’t prove it already. “It has been a long time. You look well. The travel agrees with you.”

“What was it, the Brodowski wedding?”

“Ugh, that affair was a bald-faced effort to squeeze guests for money. Envelopes at the ready for money? A cash bar? Beyond tacky.”

I nod once and add a smile to soften things. “Alexei, you wanted a conversation, and I doubt it is about an old wedding.”

“So direct. Sit, eat something. They made the pelmeni.” He gestures at a table set for a feast neither of us will touch. When I decline with a raised hand, he sighs, a man disappointed by the manners of the age, and folds his hands over his belly.

“Very well. Business. I’ll tell you what everyone in this city already understands, old friend. Four years is a long time. Things drifted. Your piers, your routes, your beautiful clean trucks, they have been lonely without a real hand on them. I’ve been, let us say, attentive to the neighborhood in your absence. A good neighbor.”

“A good neighbor,” I repeat.

“The best. And now you’re home, and there’s confusion, and confusion’s bad for everyone’s business. Men get ambitious in confusion. Accidents happen in confusion.” He turns a ring on his finger.

“So, I propose clarity. Peace, Maxim. Full peace, guaranteed, my word on it. Your organization keeps everything north of the container terminals. The ports themselves, the berths, the union locals, the customs relationships, these come under my roof, where in practice they have already been drifting.”

He spreads his hands. “You keep your company, your buildings, your beautiful legitimate face. I keep the water. Everyone sleeps well. This is not a demand, understand. This is a gift between old men who remember when this city was harder than it is now.”

The ports in exchange for peace. He’s offered me the wallet from my own pocket and called it a present, smiling, in front of his silent dog, in a room he owns. The choreography is the message. You are a guest now, in your own city, and guests receive terms.

I let the silence sit. Kirill’s eyes don’t move from me. Somewhere in the kitchen, a pan rings once against a stove and goes quiet, and Alexei waits.

“I heard you were unwell last spring,” I say. “Your heart. I’m glad to see the recovery took. A man should have many years to enjoy what he’s built.” I stand and button my jacket. “Thank you for the hospitality, Alexei. The pelmeni smell excellent. I’ll give your proposal the consideration it deserves.”

His smile doesn’t fade at my non-answer. I nod to the room, I don’t nod to Kirill, and I walk out past the coat-check furniture into the afternoon. I’m in the car before I let my jaw unclench.

“Well?” Lev says, pulling into traffic.