Chapter 2 - THE FILE ON TESSA REED
By 9:00 a.m. the following morning, the storm had passed, leaving the city under a pale, frosty sky.
Gael Costa sat behind the massive mahogany desk on the top floor of the Costa Tower, the headquarters of his vast legal—and illegal—logistics empire. Dressed in a fresh charcoal-grey three-piece suit, his dark hair immaculate, he looked every bit the billionaire tycoon.
On the glass desk before him lay a single Manila folder.
Marco stood across from him, looking exhausted. "Everything you asked for, Boss. Tessa Reed, age twenty-four."
Gael opened the folder.
A small, grainy photo of Tessa stared back at him. She was smiling faintly in a high school yearbook picture, her dark hair tied back in a messy ponytail, her eyes bright and full of hope. It was a stark contrast to the hollowed-out, exhausted creature who had collapsed on his sofa hours earlier.
"She’s clean," Marco reported, reading from a notebook. "No criminal record. No family ties to any rival syndicate or rival family. Her father died three years ago from pancreatic cancer, leaving her with over a hundred thousand dollars in medical debt. Her mother suffers from severe rheumatoid arthritis and lives in a low-income assisted facility in Queens."
Gael’s fingers traced the edge of her employment history. Diner waitress. Florist assistant. Night-shift cleaner.
"She works three jobs," Marco continued. "Sleepless average of four hours a night. Drives a rusted twenty-year-old hatchback that barely runs. Lives in a fourth-floor walk-up apartment in Spanish Harlem."
Gael closed the folder with a quiet snap.
"Why didn't you let me eliminate her last night, Boss?" Marco finally risked asking, his voice laced with genuine confusion. "You've killed men for standing too close to you in an elevator. She put her head on your chest. You should have broken her neck."
Gael leaned back in his leather chair, steepling his fingers beneath his chin. "Tell me, Marco... what happens when Dr. Sterling touches my arm during a medical exam?"
"Your blood pressure spikes to lethal levels," Marco answered immediately. "Your heart rate hits one-eighty, and you violently dislocate his shoulder."
"And what happened last night when Rossi touched my jacket?"
"You broke his wrist in three places."
Gael looked out the floor-to-ceiling windows toward the city skyline below. "When Tessa Reed fell against my chest... my pulse dropped to sixty-two beats per minute. My mind went completely quiet. The fire in my skin vanished."
Marco stared at his employer as if Gael had just spoken in ancient Greek. "That’s... that’s impossible. Medical experts said your tactile aversion is an incurable neurological trauma response from your childhood."
"I don't care what the doctors said," Gael said, his voice dropping to a low, commanding rumble. "She is the only person on this earth who doesn't cause me physical agony. Which means she belongs to me."
"Boss..." Marco warned gently. "If the Moretti family finds out you have a weakness—a civilian girl you care about—they will use her to destroy you. Donati Moretti is already looking for revenge after we took over the docks."
May you like
Gael stood up, buttoning his jacket. The cold, lethal killer returned to his eyes in an instant.
"Let them try," Gael whispered. "Send two discreet security teams to watch her apartment. She is not to be touched, harmed, or approached by anyone. And tell Mr. Lin that I have just purchased his wholesale flower business."
