"Careful, I scratch and bite." Her face inches from his, patiently waiting for him to give in.
But, he doesn't give in, not yet. He takes one step closer and bends down to whisper in her ear, "you'll beg and crawl too.... I promise."
______________...
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Jisoo starts working in blissful solitude for the next three weeks, makes four excellent discoveries by doing things her way, and presents a case to her superior officer on why she does not, in fact, need a new partner.
That request is not approved.
Her new partner is a rookie, just out of training in Australia and eager to impress her. If they were in Korea, he'd be trotting along behind her and calling her sunbae and fetching her coffee and lunch. But they're not, and he's not completely inept so she doesn't actually want to treat him like a child. When she tells him they're going to meet with a contact of hers, he doesn't ask any questions. And when Mariana the wife of one of the Lorenzo's new recruits - tells them the only way to stop Don Lorenzo is to kill him, the boy doesn't flinch.
Agent Christopher says, in his Australian accent, that perhaps the way to go about this is to kill the capos. She explains to him why that's a fucking terrible idea and would start a war none of them wants, he huffs a little. He says something about how the mafia gets away with murder and someone ought to murder them back.
She thinks she likes him.
She warns him about bribes and tells him he'll absolutely be approached by members of all families, and that if she finds out he's taken one she will have him stripped of his title and job and deported back to his hometown, wherever the hell that is.
They go for drinks one night after work and he shows her on a map. They calculate the distance between Seoul and his small town. He asks her about growing up in Korea. He asks her what her parents did. Apparently his father was a criminal, caught up in some construction and money laundering scheme that sounds hastily thrown together and poorly executed. They laugh about the fact that their fathers were complete opposites.
He proves useful, too, when he finds a document hidden in plain sight in public record. Jacob Moretti's bought himself a place outside Rome. Far outside from Moretti territory. Edged up against a Lorenzo vineyard.
The Morettis aren't this sloppy. Or this outwardly antagonistic. They don't threaten to take territory or power. They just do it. Quietly. Methodically. Not like this.
"Maybe they wanted us to find this," Agent Christopher says quietly, and Jisoo isn't sure what she thinks about his assessment. "Who do we need to talk to find out?"
That, she's not sure of. She can't very well just text RM and ask. He wouldn't tell her and also she's the one who made the last request. She won't do it again. And she can't have him thinking she needs his help to do her job. She doesn't. She never had before and she doesn't now. Even if he does send in anonymous tips to help her - she's not stupid; she knows they come from him - or goes and gets her partner out of the way simply because she's implied she doesn't like the man.
She should delete his number and remove all her impulse to talk to him at all.
Agent Christopher asks if she'd like a cigarette break. She is very tempted to say yes to that, too. But she's got to prove to herself that she can resist things, so she says no and chews on the end of a pen as she compiles a report on Jacob's latest move.
