I Broke His Rule to Get Near Him, So the Billionaire Made Me Count novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Lock
Mari opens a valve without her lock on a dead test line, on camera, on purpose, and the owner of the terminal sends for her; in his glass office he will not fire her, names the price of the rule, and she puts her hands on his desk and says "One."
I opened the valve without my lock on it, in front of a camera, on purpose.
Every gate at Brockman Marine Terminals has the rule painted on it in red.
YOUR LOCK. YOUR KEY. YOUR LIFE.
Four names are painted under it, because four men burned on Dock Six ten months ago.
I broke the rule so the man who owns the dock would send for me.
It was ten past two on a Wednesday morning.
The line I stood over was a test header, drained and blinded and tagged dead.
I had checked it three times, because I had picked it so nobody could be hurt but me.
My red padlock hung on my belt where it always hangs.
I looked up at the camera on the pipe rack.
I turned the handle all the way open, and I counted to ten out loud, slowly, so the microphone would catch every number.
Then I stood there with the bleeder running dry and waited.
Across the yard, under the lamp at Dock Five, Teo had seen the whole thing.
He shook his head at me once and turned his back.
It took less than five minutes.
The guard who came for me was twenty and nervous and called me ma'am.
"Lozano," he said. "Mr. Brockman wants you in his office."
"He's up all night," he said. "He said now."
The path to the office tower goes right past the Dock Six gate.
I put two fingers on the third name as I passed, the way I had every night for eleven weeks.
R. ESCOBEDO.
My father's name is not the one on my work badge.
Nobody on the night crew had ever asked me why I touched the gate.
The sixth floor was dark except for one office.
The whole east wall of it was glass, and past the glass the tank farm shone white against the black channel.
Royce Brockman sat behind a long desk with his sleeves rolled to the elbow.
On his monitor, I was standing over the valve.
He didn't look up.
He watched me count to ten, all the way to the end, and then he stopped the clip.
"Lozano," he said. "Eleven weeks. No write-ups. Teo says you have the best hands on the Friday crew."
"Thank you, Mr. Brockman," I said.
"That wasn't a compliment. Do you know the rule?"
"Yes."
"Say it," he said.
"Your lock. Your key. Your life."
"And what happens to the person who breaks it?"
"They're off the dock the same night," I said.
"Yes." He still hadn't looked at me. "Do you want to tell me you forgot?"
"No."
"Good. A person who forgets looks at the valve."
He turned the monitor so I could see myself frozen on it, my face tipped up toward the lens.
"You looked at the camera," he said.
Then he looked at me.
He was taller than he is on the news.
He had gray at his temples and pale eyes.
The inside of his right forearm was one long, shiny burn scar from wrist to elbow, and he didn't hide it.
Behind him on the wall hung a paper calendar, the free kind a bank gives away.
Every square back to last December was crossed out in red marker.
January twenty-ninth was circled twice.
That was his sentencing date.
He stood and came around the desk.
"Come to the glass," he said.
I went.
He stopped behind me, close enough that I felt the heat of him through my jacket.
"Say the fourteen steps. From the top, out loud."
"One," I said. "Call the control room and name the line."
"Go on."
"Two. Confirm the line is isolated."
I felt his hand then, flat between my shoulder blades.
He wasn't pushing.
It was just there, large and warm, and it held my whole back still.
"Go on," he said, lower.
My voice stayed level until step nine.
"Nine. Put your own lock on the valve, and keep your own key in your pocket."
It cracked on the last word, and I hated that he heard it.
His hand didn't move.
"Nine again," he said.
I said it again, and this time it held.
"Good," he said, into the back of my hair.
My stomach dropped, and he had not touched me anywhere else.
When I finished, I turned around.
He didn't step back.
"I should fire you tonight," he said.
"Then fire me."
"The rule has a price," he said. "I have not collected on it from anyone since December, because nobody has broken it since December."
His eyes held mine.
"You did it on purpose, with the whole shift in earshot. I want to know why."
I had a speech ready for that, eleven weeks old.
It came out of me as, "I wanted to see what you would do."
"Now you know."
He went around me to the desk and leaned a hip against it.
"I'm not going to fire you," he said. "I am going to collect."
"Collect what?"
"Put your hands flat on my desk, and I'll show you."
"If you walk out that door instead," he said, "you keep your job. Not one person will ever hear about tonight. I mean that."
I could have left.
I had gotten what I climbed those stairs for, which was Royce Brockman looking straight at me.
I looked back at him.
I hated every second of wanting this, and I wanted it anyway.
I walked to the desk, and I laid both palms on the wood.
It was warm where his arm had been.
He stood behind me and said, quietly, "Count."
"One," I said.
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