Little did I know that Donatello himself requested I come along.
“You be on your best fucking behavior,” my father warned from over the steering wheel. “You even look at him the wrong way, and I’ll beat the shit out of you. Don won’t put up with you like I do. Just stay the fuck out of his way.”
I fully intended to. Up until that point, I’d only caught a brief glimpse of my father’s elusive boss. A man who wore a gray dress shirt and addressed me with a directness so different from the way most adults spoke to me.
Would this second meeting be similar? As our destination appeared on the horizon, a tendril of unease shot through my belly, compounding my dread. It was a fitting day to meet with a monster, in retrospect. A web of clouds obscured the sun, and everything looked an ominous gray, wilting in punishing heat.
The second we left the car, sweat dripped down my neck, soaking through the stuffy dress I’d been forced to wear. Gino had boasted with pride at being able to afford it—purely because of the generosity of his powerful new boss.
I couldn’t understand the allure one man could command so easily. Donatello Vanici. Gino uttered that name with the reverence usually reserved for a king.
Or a God.
The location of his office seemed anticlimactic in comparison. Just a squat series of buildings strewn across a desolate field, enclosed by an ugly metal fence. The main building featured an equally colorless interior with plain walls and linoleum flooring.
Unimpressed, I’d counted the ceiling tiles above as I followed in Gino’s wake. When he entered through a doorway, I thoughtlessly did the same…
And I froze mid-step. A new flavor tinged the air, reminiscent of cigarette smoke, cologne, and musk. Breathing it in, I knew instantly that it was the scent of a new creature, more than just a man.
He was a predator.
I shivered before I even saw him, feeling every hair on the back of my neck stand on end. It was the same way I’d felt on a school trip to the zoo a week prior. “Don’t look the animals in the eye,” my teacher had warned. “They may be in enclosures, but you don’t want to trigger their natural urge to hunt…”
As we neared the lion’s enclosure that day, I understood exactly what she meant. The animal’s glinting eyes tracked my every move. If it truly wanted to pounce, a thin sheet of glass couldn’t protect me.
The same instinctive warning haunted me in Donatello’s office. He’s different, it claimed, a creature best inspected from afar.
His size was the first detail I noted, swallowing nervously as I did so. Massive, like a wall of muscle, he sat behind a desk almost as tall as I was, staring down the world with a calculating focus. A rich navy, his tailored suit—overall, a much better outfit than our first meeting—enhanced the color of his eyes, a hue so dark, it touched on black.
Beautiful, I remember remarking in awe. It was the first time I realized someone could embody two opposing things at once. Donatello Vanici had beautifully dangerous eyes.
“Glad you could come,” he said in crisp Italian. The rough cadence of his voice bolstered my predatory comparison—as nuanced as the most ferocious roar. He didn’t utilize Gino’s brash method of curses paired with shouting. His authority went beyond swagger.
“It’s nice to meet you again, Safiya,” he declared next, seeking me out despite my hiding place behind Gino. I froze beneath the scrutiny, more confused than afraid. Most adults treated me as though I were a part of the furniture, equating my silence with stupidity. Usually, I had to wave and pantomime to get any attention.
Not with him. His gaze lingered over me, much like that lion’s, proving that our first meeting was not a fluke. He was different, more perceptive than anyone I’d ever met.
“Do you know why I invited you here?” he asked.
I shook my head instinctively, but I wasn’t his focus.
My father shuffled closer to the desk, his head bowed in deference. “No sir,” he said, but it was a tone vastly different from how he spoke to me. Groveling. “I thought it might be take your brat to work day, or something.” He choked out a harsh laugh that his employer didn’t return.
“Not quite.” Donatello folded his hands before him, and I suspect he deliberately let the seconds tick by before stating, “Optics. The Hortega have been like fucking vultures. Apologies for the language—” he cut his eyes toward me, though Gino scoffed.
“The brat’s mute. She can’t repeat shit, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
At that point in my life, I’d heard every curse word under the sun from him. Still, something inside me had swelled with a strange mixture of awe and alarm at the way Donatello Vanici uttered just one. Fucking. In his world, curses were lapses in judgment meant to be apologized for. Every word had a purpose to him. A place. A meaning. Conversation was his very own game of chess, played expertly with a skill most took for granted.
“Hortega?” Gino sounded sloppy in comparison, mangling the pronunciation. “You mean the Cartel.”
“Yes, the cartel.”
Anger was another aspect where this man differed from my norm. In Donatello, rage was a slow-moving storm. He never even had to raise his voice to convey it. His eyes darkened first, much like rain clouds, as his lips flattened into a stern line.
“Their raids have been more targeted than usual,” he continued in a voice as sharp as lightning. “They’ve been attacking nearly every shipment. Almost as if they know exactly when and where they’re coming in.”
A strange emotion colored his voice. Suspicion? My mother sounded similar when she asked if I’d made a mess, despite being well aware of the answer.
Picking up on the same mood, Gino shifted in place, running a hand down the
