Silver Stilettos

8 | getting out and getting in

His shout wasn't deafening, but the silence that followed resonated like a hundred pops of a gun going off all around us. Reed sank to the floor, arms wrapping around his knees. He still clutched the wooden box in his hands. Looking up at me, he said, "I want out. I've figured stuff out and I can't do it by myself. And I don't have anyone to talk to about this."

"What about your friends?" I hesitated, glancing behind me at the empty hallway. Part of me wanted to crouch down next to him, but the larger part was telling me to leave him and his mess alone. I was getting in over my head if I thought I could help him, I thought to myself, finally deciding to stop wavering in the doorway.

"My friends?" Reed scoffed. "They don't want to hear it." His eyes were sharp as I moved closer. "I don't want you telling them."

Again, the worry ran through my mind that he was lying to me, trying to pull wool over my eyes in order to get me more involved in his game. "What makes you think your family is mafia?" I asked, folding my legs under me to sit cross-legged in front of Reed.

"It's not like I woke up one morning and decided, Mayuri. It's the little things. I think I've always known. It's been the subtext of our family for years."

"Your mom works for the city. She's on the council." I shook my head in disbelief. It was hard to imagine his mom as anything other than an office worker.

"The mob always has people on the inside."

"Yeah, but...your mom?"

He scoffed and looked away. "You don't believe me."

"I don't know what to believe. You're scaring me."

Reed didn't say anything, just pushed the wooden box over to me. "Take it."

I started to push it back, but his hand reached out to manacle itself around my wrist, so tight that I almost cried out. I stared into his eyes, taken aback by his stark look of pain.

"Take it," he repeated, his words thick and desperate.

Almost mesmerized by his voice, I slid the box to my side. "You promised me answers. You said you figured stuff out. What stuff?"

"You're willing to believe me now?"

I hesitated before answering. "I don't know about believing you. But I'm willing to listen. Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."

"You're quoting Sherlock Holmes to me."

Grudgingly impressed with his knowledge, I nodded, folding my arms across my chest.

"My father, my real father, is dead. My stepfather―who is also my uncle, my dad's brother of all people― is always away on business, usually overseas, but she never tells me anything, so who the fuck knows? My mother works all the time and my older brother is in jail for drug running."

My face must have revealed my shock, because Reed smiled grimly and played with the silver hoop on his nostril. "I know. It sounds fucked up."

Not just fucked up. Unreal. It sounded like something from trashy daytime t.v.

"So you think your uncle is involved in something shady?"

He didn't answer me directly. "My mom is the finance director for the city. She's around a lot of money every day. She has the opportunity to―"

"Cook the books?" I asked, cutting off his sentence.

"Fiddle with the accounts," he finished.

"Like, embezzling?"