Chapter 22: Deal Done
"Renner co with
to the office."
He nodded once and rose from his seat, smooth as oil.
Mira’s hand stayed on my elbow, "Sweetheart, give
ten minutes. Don’t wander."
"Wasn’t planning to."
I really wasn’t. This room felt like a tank full of nice fish that all had teeth of piranhas.
She turned slightly and her voice lifted, just enough, Mira didn’t do loud stuff. But the room caught it easily, every conversation softening at the edges so she could be heard.
"Before I forget. Everyone."
The room went quiet.
"This is my nephew. Lukas." Her hand squeezed my elbow. "He’s my family. I want that understood."
A small ripple moved through the seats. The woman in the silver dress lowered her glass slowly. The two n who had bowed earlier exchanged a single very fast look.
"If anything happens to him," Mira continued, in the sa calm tone she’d used to order lamb chops, "anything at all. A bad word, a bad eting, a bad coincidence. I will treat it as a personal matter. I think most of you know what that ans. For those who don’t, ask the people who do."
A man near the front went a little pale. He looked into his glass like it had answers.
"That’s all. Carry on."
She turned away.
However, the room did not carry on. It sat very still for several seconds and then, slowly, conversations resud. Every single eye in the place tracked
as Mira walked
toward the back, and not one of those eyes was looking at
the way they had thirty seconds ago.
Before, I’d been a scrawny kid in a yellowed collar shirt.
Now I was sothing they were terrified to even bump into in a hallway.
I kept my face still. Years of pretending I was fine when I wasn’t. Turns out that prep work paid off in unexpected places. I let her steer
through the room, expression set to the sa mild unreadable thing I used at family dinners.
Mira’s hand on my elbow gave
a single quick squeeze. Pride, I guess.
I’d done my one job. I’d kept her face on.
...
Her office was at the back, and the second the door closed the temperature dropped a few degrees. Clean dark wood, a heavy desk, one window painted black.
Instead of a club office that I expected, I found a workroom.
Mira opened a drawer, set a small black tray on the desk, and looked at .
"Show him."
I reached into my jacket and put the bar on the tray.
Renner did not visibly react. His eyes moved over it once, and that was the only thing about him that moved. Then he picked it up. Tested the weight. Turned it. Examined the stamp under the lamp on the desk. Ran a thumb across the serial.
He set it back down.
"Preserved gold," he said.
I blinked. ’Damn, he got good eyes.’
"What can you do with it?" Mira asked.
"It’ll be a bit slow. The right buyer is a private collector with old taste and a clean room. If there are forty-three, as you ntioned, we are looking at a two to three year placent window done correctly."
"Commission?"
"Eight percent. A finder’s fee on the buyer side that doesn’t touch your nephew’s number. The bonus cos out of my margin, not his." He replied.
"Bonus?"
Renner finally looked at , "Three hundred thousand to the young man. From ."
"...Excuse ?" I was a bit surprised.
"Goodwill. We will be working together for so years. The first transaction sets the relationship. I would like ours to start well."
Mira’s mouth twitched. "That’s generous."
"It’s business."
"Mm."
He inclined his head, slipped the bar into an interior pocket of that charcoal jacket, and stood, "I’ll have the first numbers in eight days. The commission letter and the bonus to your nephew within forty-eight hours."
"Thank you, Renner." Mira said.
"Madam." He nodded at . "Sir."
He left, and the office door closed behind him with the quietest click. The whole transaction had taken maybe four minutes.
I stared at the desk where the bar had been, "...That’s it?"
Mira sat on the corner of the desk and gave
a slow, satisfied smile. "That’s it, sweetheart."
"He just took it. No paperwork. No receipt. Nothing."
Mira explained calmly, "Renner is a master of this, Lukas."
Still, I was a bit sceptical, "And there’s no proof I gave him anything. No proof you did either."
"Mm. There is." She tapped her own collarbone, light, with one nail. ". I’m the proof. He won’t go against , and nobody he sells through will go against him. Paper just makes it easier for outsiders to break in. We don’t use paper."
"That’s terrifying."
"That’s competence, sweetheart."
"It’s both." I shrugged, feeling much better.
"Yes."
She straightened up and shook out her shoulders. "Alright. Bar’s in motion. Now, the fun part. What do you want to do with the money."
I’d been thinking about it the whole drive over to Nera. "I want a new place, apartnt, house, whatever suits . Though, sowhere not in my current building. And food, a lot of food. I think I’m a foodie now."
She raised one eyebrow, slow and skeptical, "You’re a foodie."
"Yeah." I nodded.
"Sweetheart, I have eyes. You’re built like a man who has been doing manual labor in the cold for six months. When did this happen?"
’Apocalypse training and a gene prir that’s restructuring my muscle fibers, Aunt.’ i looked away. "...Discovered exercise."
"Mm." She did not believe
even slightly. But she also clearly decided this wasn’t the hill, because she just shook her head once and let it go. "Fine. New ho and food. I can help with both. Starting with the ho, because I’m not letting you spend another night in that apartnt. Get up."
"Right now?"
"Right now."
...
The colony was forty minutes out of the city. Riverstone Park, the gate said. The houses started getting further apart in that way that ant rich, and then further apart again in that way that ant seriously rich.
People like
who spent their ti in small apartnts didn’t have the luxury of space and land.
Fortunately, this wasn’t the very top, Mira had been clear about that. The top of the ladder, she said, attracts attention you don’t want. I could understand that.
Riverstone was middle-upper. Doctors, senior partners, second-generation founders. People with money but not so much money that anyone tracked their movents. They lived here.
We pulled up to a side street where a woman in a cream blazer was already waiting beside a small navy hatchback.
She brightened the mont she saw the Auriga, "Mrs. Mira."
"Helen." Mira gave a faint nod.
The agent took us in with one practiced glance, and her eyes did a small interesting thing as they went from Mira’s tailoring to my collar shirt and back.
She smiled. "And this must be the lucky young man."
I opened my mouth to clarify, cause clearly she misunderstood the situation. But Mira put one finger lightly on my forearm.
I closed my mouth.
"He is," she said warmly. "He’s been very patient. You see, I’ve been promising him a proper place for a while. Today we deliver."
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