Chapter 16: Suspended Pending the Audit

Ada's POV

The man at the front of the line was one of Tullio's, a big man with a flat nose.

He put out a hand to stop me before I reached the gate.

"Sorry, Doc," he said. "Underboss's orders. Nobody goes out tonight."

"I'm not a prisoner."

"Of course not. It's for your protection. Mr. Tullio says you have enemies."

"I do," I said. "He's one of them."

The men behind him shifted.

Footsteps came across the gravel behind me, fast and even.

Rocco stopped at my shoulder, and Gia was a step behind him with two of the house guards who had not been Tullio's for a long time.

"Move the cars," Rocco said.

"Boss, your brother said..."

"My brother said it in my house, to my guards, about my guest. Move the cars."

The big man looked at the guards, and at the four men behind him who had stopped looking certain.

Then he looked at Rocco's face.

"I'll have to call him," he said.

"Call him from the street."

The cars rolled back and the gate swung open.

I walked through it with my purse over my shoulder.

Nobody stopped me, and Rocco did not follow.

He only said, behind me, "Ada. Where?"

"To a hotel. Then Carson's office at nine."

"Why?"

"Because the partners meet at nine," I said, "and because this time I'm walking in by the front door."

I heard him exhale.

"I'll be at the front door," he said.

I didn't answer.

But I didn't tell him not to come either.

At nine the next morning, Rensselaer Wealth's twelfth-floor conference room had a long glass table and thirteen chairs.

Twelve were full.

I stood in the doorway in the gray suit I had bought at a thrift shop for my hearing and never worn again.

Rocco stood behind me in a black overcoat.

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