[Tantalism] 🕶️ Jobs

[tanuno]

[Tantalism] Gangster Girl Gabriella's Story 227-230

She isn’t finished. Her eyes lock on mine. “Ask yourself this: why hasn’t Luka slapped cuffs on you? There’s an Interpol extradition order. It’s not his job to care if the evidence is real or something we fucking fabricated.” A sharp smirk cut across her face. Our hands meet in a hard, silent clasp. “Two,” she pushes on, her voice low and relentless. “Luka and his little syndicate haven’t seen a dime since Andropov became a potato. He paid them personally, in cash, in dark rooms. Even I never saw it happen.” “They need me to inherit,” I said, the pieces clicking into place like bullets loading into a magazine. “They need you to take it all,” she corrected, her gaze unblinking. “And they need you alive long enough to do it.”	Miriam has organised a new hotel, and tonight is the last in Luka’s aunt’s establishment. I can’t help myself. When Miriam’s gone into her room and all is quiet, I head back to the bar. To the Kenyan. “You’re not in a relationship are you?” he says in a tone of voice that suggests his life would be over if we were. I shake my head. He makes me another martini. “If you are, I want pictures.” His name is Kwame. He tells me this like it's a gift, leaning across the bar, close enough that I can smell the lime on his hands. "Kwame," I repeat. Testing it. "Say it again." So I do. Slowly.
	He comes around from behind the bar without a word to anyone, takes my hand, and I lead him upstairs because it turns out he doesn't know where my room is and I do. That small power feels good. We take the stairs rather than the lift. Less noise. Less waiting. Less time to think about whether this is stupid. It is stupid. I do it anyway.

Inside my room, I don't turn on the main light. Just the small lamp on the far side of the bed, the one that throws everything amber and soft. He looks good in it. Of course he does.

I tell him he needs to be quiet, but not gentle. He shoves me up against a wall and eats me. He’s a bit rough and it’s a bit magnificent. I stifle a squeal and a thousand moans.

 

[tanuno]

[Tantalism] Gangster Girl Gabriella's Story 231-232c

I pull him down and we are quiet. Not just silent—we are a study in quiet. The darkness magnifies every small sound: the groan of the mattress springs taking our weight, the sharp, quiet intake of his breath as he settles against me, the rustle of the sheets as I shift my leg.

I press my mouth to the solid curve of his shoulder to keep a sound in, tasting salt and clean skin. He turns his face into my hair, his exhale hot against my scalp. We move with a slow, deliberate care, like we are trying not to wake someone in the next room, or like we are the secret itself, trying not to be found.	Oh man...this is soooo good. He's absolutely taken control and is pounding me like there's no tomorrow.

"Don't stop...please don't stop..."

 

[tanuno]

[Tantalism] Gangster Girl Gabriella's Story 232d-234

At some point I hear Miriam's shower. The pipes groan faintly through the wall. I go still. Kwame freezes with me, reading the silence, and then the corner of his mouth lifts and we have to cover our mouths with my hand to keep from laughing and that is somehow the best moment of the whole night.	We finish. I stifle my orgasm. Drop to the floor and take him in my mouth. Afterwards he lies on his back and stares at the ceiling. I lie beside him and do the same.

 

[tanuno]

[Tantalism] Gangster Girl Gabriella's Story 235-238

Afterwards he lies on his back and stares at the ceiling. I lie beside him and do the same. The lamp throws a warm disc onto the plaster. Outside, the city makes its low nocturnal sounds. Somewhere down the hill, a boat horn. Closer, the faint percussion of a bar still open. "You're leaving tomorrow," he says. Not a question. "Yes." "That's a shame." It is. I don't say so. I trace a line on his forearm instead, following the muscle, and he watches my finger move the way you watch something you're already filing away as a memory. "Your friend," he says carefully. "The one you didn't want to wake." "What about her?" "She's not your girlfriend." "No." "But she's something." I think about the way she greeted me. The crying. The ‘I love you’. "She's very something," I agree. He accepts this without pressing it. He has an early shift. I tell him this before he tells me, which makes him laugh quietly into my neck. Then I say it plainly: you have to go.	He doesn't argue. That's the thing about Kwame—he understands the shape of things without needing them explained twice. But he does try to say goodbye properly. He starts on my lips and my forehead. The he works his way down my body to all my pleasure spots. He works his way down with a kind of patient, unhurried attention that makes me press my eyes shut and grip the sheet. "Stop," I say, giggling, not meaning it. He doesn't stop. My shoulder. The inside of my wrist. My ribs. "Kwame." He looks up, grinning. Stands. Presses one last kiss to my kneecap like it's a formal conclusion, dresses, and he's gone. The latch clicks softly. The room is immediately smaller.
	I think about the room with the drain in the floor. I think about Mila. I think about how Miriam's hands shook around that glass. I think about Luka, who has an extradition warrant he hasn't used, which means he's using me for something else entirely, and that something else is still being assembled, piece by piece, in rooms I haven't been invited into yet. I sit up. Pull my knees to my chest. Tomorrow we move hotels. Miriam has arranged it, which means it's clean and thought-through. She is meticulous about those things. She has kept herself alive for years in proximity to men who kill people for administrative reasons. That takes a particular kind of discipline I have never fully had. My phone is on the nightstand. Three messages from a number I don't recognise. All sent within the last hour. All identical. *We should talk.* I stare at them for a long time. Then I screenshot them, close the app, and set the phone face-down on the nightstand. Outside, the boat horn again. Closer this time, or maybe the night has just gotten quieter around it. The city settling. Giving in. I turn off the lamp and lie back in the dark and tell myself I'll figure out who sent those messages in the morning. By the time I've finished telling myself this, I'm already running through the short list of people who might have this number. It's a very short list. Three names, maybe four if I'm being generous about what counts as a person None of them are safe. Sleep, when it comes, is shallow and full of corridors.

Morning comes in sideways through a gap in the curtains and I'm already awake when it does.

I shower, dress a bit provocatively for a quick visit to the hospital. I have concluded it’s time to stop playing the dumb blonde and take full control.

 

[tanuno]

[Tantalism] Gangster Girl Gabriella's Story 239-241

I like to watch. My name is Jakov. My Auntie Nada liked it when I watched her. She liked it a lot. I’ve seen photos of her from a long time ago, blonde, very pretty. She used to leave the door a little bit open on purpose. I’d sit on the top stair where the carpet ends and watch her do things to men who were doing things to her. She knew I was there. Once she looked right at me over a man’s shoulder and put her finger to her lips.

I speak very good English now, and I’ve got a good job installing TVs and closed-circuit surveillance equipment. People let me into their houses all day long and show me where their bedrooms are. I get lots of work from hotels which I like very much, because hotels are full of people who don’t draw their curtains properly.

GABRIELLA'S REVENGE 3

PLEASE WATCH THIS VIDEO WITH AUDIO.

Video's Context:

Gabriella visits her abusive gangster husband in hospital. He is in a vegetative state after a heart attack and a stroke, brought about by having crazy sex with his secretary when he was high on cocaine.

Medical advice suggests he can hear her and comprehend what's going on around him.

After suffering appalling sexual abuse from him and his friends, she decides it's time to get her own back. She visits him and taunts him, knowing he can hear her but is powerless to retalliate.

She now has the power.

 

[tanuno]

[Tantalism] Gangster Girl Gabriella's Story 242-245

y mum used to say horrible things about Auntie Nada. Called her names just because she liked being with men.

Whore, she said, slut, filth.

I never understood that. I mean, didn’t my mum like being with men? She must have liked it at least once to have had me. When my mum died Auntie Nada was the only person who’d have me.

	I like blondes. Because of Auntie Nada, I suppose. There’s a lovely blonde girl in my town at the moment. Very pretty. Her hair is almost white in the sun. I’m in love with her. I follow her everywhere.
	She loves walking around with next to nothing on, showing off her body. She stands on her balcony in the evenings with a glass of something and looks down at the street like she’s waiting for someone to look up at her.

She knows, she does know, she must know, she’s asking for it really when you think about it.

She wouldn’t do that if she wasn’t in love with me, I’m sure.

 

[tanuno]

[Tantalism] Gangster Girl Gabriella's Story 246-249

She smiles sometimes when she’s out shopping and I think that’s for me too, though obviously from across the road so she doesn’t embarrass herself in front of people.

Last night I watched her on her balcony for forty minutes straight. She was only wearing a bikini.

But then — funny thing! — someone fired a gun and she got a fright and ran away inside. The police were there very quickly and there was a lot of fuss, flashing lights, neighbours in dressing gowns on their balconies.

And anyway after that happened guess what else happened because this is important this is really important because it shows how much better at this than them I am. While all those policemen were milling about downstairs with their radios crackling away doing their big important job of standing around looking at each other guess what else happened: two other people came out from behind different cars further down the street where they’d been hiding watching her too WATCHING MY GIRL watching MY GIRL’S BODY WITH THE BIKINI ON IT. And guess what happened next go on guess. The police arrested them. The two other ones. Not me. Not ME. Not even CLOSE TO ME. They didn’t see me because I hid behind Mr Okafor’s verandah. He’s my friend because I fix his Sky box for nothing.

And I watched while they arrested two other people who had also been watching her from across the street with binoculars! Not the man who fired the gun — someone else!

ha ha ha ha ha ha

And it wasn’t even them who fired the gun either apparently because later on somebody else entirely got arrested so those two poor sods were just unlucky weren’t they just two ordinary blokes minding their own business having a quiet look at a girl MY GIRL on a balcony which is what any normal man would do isn’t it which is what ANY NORMAL MAN WOULD DO.

 

[tanuno]

[Tantalism] Gangster Girl Gabriella's Story 250-252

So after she’d run inside from the gunshot noise obviously because anybody would run inside from that wouldn’t they. Anybody would be frightened wouldn’t they, anybody would want somebody strong around wouldn’t they somebody who could explain things calmly somebody who could say “don’t worry darling it’s only some silly idiot showing off don’t worry darling nobody’s going to hurt you while I’m here don’t worry darling come here come here let me hold you and keep you warm and safe.”

Sorry. I needed to talk to her so much so much so much so much so much so much so much so much so much so much so much… So I followed her. I think she was heading to the strip club, and I’m not allowed in there any more. The strip club. Where girls take their clothes off for money. Where girls let men watch them. Where girls LIKE being watched. Where girls are HAPPY being watched. Where girls UNDERSTAND being watched. And she'll be surrounded by horrible men who'll tear her clothes off and do dirty things to her. TO MY GIRL.

I’m not allowed in the STRIP CLUB. Not allowed. BANNED. I used to work there installing their system, and I had a spare CCTV camera left over from another job, so one evening when everyone was busy out front I put it in the girls’ changing rooms so I could watch from home on my laptop with all my other feeds.

They caught me because one of them found it while she was changing. She got really upset which I didn’t understand because she’d just danced around WITH NO CLOTHES ON for all of Split to watch and, if they were at the front, touch.

Anyhow, they hurt me in their back office with something heavy wrapped in cloth so it didn’t leave marks anyone would ask about. Then I had to go to jail for a little while.

 

[tanuno]

[Tantalism] Gangster Girl Gabriella's Story 253-256

	It’s funny seeing her up close and in person . So much better than all those CCTV shots I get from her hotel room. So soft. Silky. My favourite picture shows her rubbing herself on a pillow.
	Anyhow, last night she was wearing those shortest little shorts and that tiny little bikini top she’d been wearing on the balcony. She smelled like coconut oil up close. I spoke to her outside a bar. Auntie Nada always said I should be honest, so that’s what I did — told her everything straight out. Told her how sexually attractive she was. And I was sincere about it. I told her she wasn’t safe. She said something like 'no shit' and screamed.
She screamed before I’d even finished asking and some big man came out of the bar, so I had to run away down behind the bins into an alley where nobody saw me go past. Do you think it could be my claw hand? I don’t want to go back to jail again. So I ran home, put Auntie Nada to bed and hid in my basement. The one with all the screens in it.	There are two things that really bother me: 1. That girl, MY GIRL, went back to her hotel and let a man with DARK SKIN have sex her. I saw it all. I’d have kept her safe. I’m the same colour. The same. She should want that. She should want me. SHE SHOULD BE WITH ME.

 

[tanuno]

[Tantalism] Gangster Girl Gabriella's Story 257-260

	They lie together and smile, and I know she’s thinking of me she has to be thinking of me.
I watched that FILTHY FOREIGNER’S hands on her, his DARK SKIN against hers, and I felt my stomach turn to acid.	That FILTHY FOREIGNER’S HANDS and MOUTH groped all over her, his DARK SKIN against her soft white. Soft white. Her breasts. Pussy. Bottom. She had to PRETEND to like it. Even when he COVERED her in his disgusting FOREIGN seed.
	I had to scrub my eyes with it, had to watch the other replays, the clean ones, just her alone in her room, just her smiling for ME, just her before he POLLUTED her, before she let that ANIMAL defile what was MINE with his filthy seed.

 

[tanuno]

[Tantalism] Gangster Girl Gabriella's Story 261-264

The other thing that is really bothering me is that all this time I’ve been watching her every single day from six different angles… including through windows at night when her lamp is on — — I KNOW other people are watching her too.

The hospital smells the same as it did yesterday. Antiseptic and old flowers and something underneath both of those things that no amount of cleaning ever quite reaches.

Igor’s nurse's name is Benedita, and she works the morning shift until two. The kind of woman who responds to authority the way a compass responds to north. I find her at the station outside his room. She looks up. I introduce myself. I say: "I'm Gabriella Andropov. Igor Andropov’s wife." I let that land. Her expression is a practiced, professional sympathy, but I can’t tell if it’s because of his condition or his reputation. "I want to speak with whoever is managing his care," I say. Politely, but not fucking around either. Benedita blinks. Reaches for a phone.

The doctor's name is Ferreira. He comes quickly, which tells me he's been expecting something like this. He's a compact man with careful eyes and he looks at my outfit for exactly one second before he decides it's irrelevant. "Mrs. Andropov." "He's not going to recover," I say. Not a question. A pause. Measured. Professional. "The prognosis is—" "Is he’s not going to recover." I hold his gaze. "I want to discuss withdrawal of life support. I want to discuss it now, and I want the paperwork ready before I leave this building." Ferreira looks at Benedita. Benedita looks at her shoes.

 

[tanuno]

[Tantalism] Gangster Girl Gabriella's Story 265-268

	"There are forms," he says carefully. "As next of kin, you have the authority, but there is a process." "Then I’d be most grateful if we could start the process." I keep my voice flat. "Today." He nods once. Something shifts behind his eyes—relief, maybe, or the particular exhaustion of a man who has been keeping something alive pointlessly. I sign three forms. I initial two more. At the bottom of the last one I write my name in full, keeping my hand steady as I do.
	Outside Igor's room I stop and look through the glass panel in the door. Miriam calls and we chat.
	I hang up from Miriam, and I go into Igor's room. Sit down. His eyes are focussed on me so I speak.

GABRIELLA'S REVENGE 4

PLEASE WATCH THIS VIDEO WITH AUDIO.

Video's Context:

Gabriella visits her abusive gangster husband in hospital. He is in a vegetative state after a heart attack and a stroke, brought about by having crazy sex with his secretary when he was high on cocaine.

Medical advise suggests he can hear her and comprehend what's going on around him.

After suffering appalling sexual abuse from him and his friends, she decides it's time to get her own back.

She now has the power.

 

[tanuno]

[Tantalism] Gangster Girl Gabriella's Story 269-272

After my chat to Igor, Miriam meets me in Igor's Mercedes and takes me to the police station, a squat concrete building on a street that looks like it gave up sometime in the seventies. Inside, a desk officer directs me through a door that buzzes open, then another, then down a corridor that narrows as it goes. The fluorescent light is the kind that makes everyone look post-mortem. My heels are too loud on the concrete.

I don't slow down. Wolf-whistles echo through the facility. Mila’s cell is at the end.

She’s sitting on the bench with her knees pulled up, her back against the wall. She looks smaller than I remember. Thinner. There's a bruise along her cheek that wasn't there before, which means either someone here has been having opinions about her or - more likely - Franjo has been his usual charming self. She looks up when she hears my heels.

Her face does something complicated. Fear and surprise, mostly. But underneath that, something desperate.

She was expecting someone to come. But not me. "You!" she says. Terrified. "Yes. You missed.” She bursts into tears. “It wasn’t me,” she says pounding the mattress with her fists as though she’s said it a thousand times already.

​

 

[tanuno]

[Tantalism] Gangster Girl Gabriella's Story 273-276

I pull the single plastic chair to the centre of the cell and sit down in it. Cross my legs. I don't look around at the walls or the sink in the corner or the toilet or any of the rest of it. I look at her. "You look terrible," I say. “Go away.” She sounds like a petulant teenager grabbing the last thread of something. “You don’t want me to do that, Mila.” “I didn’t do anything wrong.” “You were with Franjo. That makes all of it wrong.” She makes a sound that isn't quite a laugh. Her eyes are red-rimmed. She hasn't slept. She's been in here rehearsing whatever she planned to say to whoever walked through that door and none of it was prepared for me. I keep my voice even. "There’s an odd situation brewing because of what you did last night.” “I didn’t do anything!” Her lip trembles. At 18, she’s too little for this shit, but I give it to her anyway. “Igor Andropov will die sometime today or tomorrow.” I watch her face. Nothing moves in it, but there's a flicker behind her eyes—not surprise, but calculation.	“He had a huge heart attack doing to someone what he did to you and me.” That gets a reaction: her shoulders tighten almost imperceptibly. "Which means the organisation is restructuring," I continue. She shrugs her shoulders. “So?” "So? You need to start caring Mila." I lean in and say it quietly, so she has to strain to hear. "You need to care very much. Because the people who treated you badly were his people. Every single one of them. And now his people will answer to someone else. They will kneel to someone else." She's watching me with those hollowed-out eyes. I stand up. "Who," she says. I don't answer for a second. Not for drama. Just because I'm still getting used to the idea myself. "Me.”
I sit down again. The silence is absolute, except for the hiss of an air-conditioning duct. She stares at me. Her mouth opens. Closes. “So let's get something straight. The person holding your leash now is the same one you tried to put a bullet in last night.” “I didn’t…” she bleats again. I ignore her. "You have a choice," I say. She doesn't move. Something moves across her face. Her eyes are suddenly very large. Very scared. Good. I let her sit in that fear for a moment. Let it do its work. Then I uncross my legs and lean forward, elbows on my knees, and I speak quietly because quiet is more effective than loud in a room this size. "The island." I watch her face. "You come back with Miriam and I. Voluntarily. You have a room, you have food, you have safety, and nobody touches you unless you want them to. My word on that.” I pause to let that sink in, and then continue. “You wait there while things settle, and when they've settled and you earn my trust, I decide what comes next for you. Could be nothing. Could be something useful." I pause. Her jaw tightens.	"Or," I say, "you keep pulling at threads that don't belong to you. At which point I will very quickly stop being considerate about it." I hold her gaze. "I will have you dragged back to the island, confiscate your clothes, and turn a blind eye to what happens after that." The colour drains out of her face. Her whole body has gone rigid against the wall. She starts crying. "So." I sit back. "Which is it?" The fluorescent light hums. Somewhere down the corridor a door slams. "You'd actually do that." she says. Not a question. She's testing the texture of it. "Last night, I think you helped someone try to kill me," I say. “Giving the guards a pretty little plaything is kindness compared to what I feel like doing to you.”

 

[tanuno]

[Tantalism] Gangster Girl Gabriella's Story 277-280

She slides off the bench onto her knees. I hear the thump. The concrete is hard and cold and she doesn’t care. She crawls forward until she can grab one of my legs with both hands, and she pulls at it like it’s a rope and she’s drowning. “Please, Gabriella. Please. I had nothing to do with it. Nothing. I swear on my mother, on anything you want, nothing.” Her voice cracks on the second nothing and she has to start again. “Your mother. The one who sold you to clear a debt?” “Franjo said he’d kill me. He said it slow, Gabriella, so I’d understand. He put his hand around my neck and made me feel it. What was I supposed to do? We were watching you. Two nights, three, I don’t know anymore. I don’t even know why. He never told me why. Then the gun—someone fired a gun, not us, NOT US—I was on the ground before I knew what it was—” She’s pulling at my skirt now, shaking it in her fists, her face tipped up to mine and wet and open like a wound. “It wasn’t me! It wasn’t me!” She lets go and looks up. Really looks at me. And something in her face shifts—not acceptance, not yet, but the collapse of an argument she'd been building for days. Whatever story she'd been telling herself about me, about who I was and what I did to her, she's revising it now in real time.

“I believe you Mila,” I respond truthfully. Although in reality, I just want her on the island where I can keep an eye on her. She covers her face with her hnds. Nods once. It's barely a nod—more a controlled drop of her chin—but it's enough. Then she says “Thank you.” "Good." I stand. "Someone will come for you tomorrow afternoon. Don't make a scene when they do. The desk officer thinks you're being transferred and I'd prefer to keep it that way.”

She stops me before I reach the door. "Franjo?” I turn slowly. She's back up on the bench, her chin still down, that small collapsed posture. But her eyes are different now. There's something a fraction lighter in them. "What happens to Franjo." I look at her for a moment. She’s scared.

"What happens to Franjo."
I look at her for a moment. She’s scared.
“Did he give you that bruise?”
She nods.
“Before, during or after sex?”
“He said he’d kill me if I didn’t do what I was told.”
“When you’re safely back on the island, we’ll fix Franjo.”
She absorbs that.
The door opens and I walk out into the narrow corridor with the bad light and I don't look at my reflection in the dark window of the observation room as I pass it. I keep walking. Heels loud on the concrete. Steady.
I bring Luka up to date, and ask him to have Mila ready for release tomorrow afternoon.

Tanuno's Note: I’m all caught up now! Now it’s time to wait for the new installments (the last one was on October 1, 2026).

​

 

[tanuno]

[Tantalism] Gangster Girl Gabriella's Story 281-84

Outside in the street stands a man I haven’t seen for a while. “Muscle. What a lovely surprise,” I say sarcastically. He smiles. Appraises me as always. Shakes my hand. “What brings you to the Adriatic?” "Your father sent me." That lands the way it's meant to. I keep my face neutral. “I don’t recall having a father. Not since a certain plane ride.” Muscle glances toward the entrance of the police station, then back. Old habit. Checking exits. "He heard about Igor." "News travels.” "To London it does, yeah." He tilts his head slightly. "He wants you back. Wants a meeting." I study him. Muscle—his real name is Paul, but nobody calls him that, not even his mother probably—is six foot three of quiet touchy-feely competence. He's been my father's since before I was old enough to know what my father was. He has a face that doesn't give much away and hands that could close around a man's throat without the rest of him appearing to notice. "He could have called," I say. Muscle blinks. "My father. He has my number. He's had it for fifteen years." I look at him steadily. "He could have sent an email. A text. A fucking pigeon. Something that didn't require putting you on a plane." Muscle has the grace not to argue with that. "He wanted me to see for myself," he says. "That you were alright." "And?" "You look alright." He looks me up and down. Always the possibility of a double entendre with Muscle. I shift my weight to my other foot. The sun is doing something aggressive above the roofline and I'm tired in a way that has nothing to do with sleep. "Tell him I'll be in touch when things are settled here." "He won't like that." "No," I agree. "He won't." Muscle watches me with that careful, patient expression he's had since I was twelve years old and already difficult. It’s different to the way he’s looked at me since I grew a body. He's weighing something. Deciding how much to push. My phone buzzes in my bag. I pull it out. A text from Miriam. Two words: “All signed.” I send one back: “So, later this afternoon?” She texts back: “5.30.”	"Igor's a vegetable," I say, before he can. "His life support will be withdrawn today at 5.30. Which means by tonight this operation is mine. The whole thing. Ports, routes, the compound, the island, the people." I pause. "All of it." Something moves across his face. Not surprise exactly. More like confirmation of something he'd already suspected and hadn't wanted confirmed. “What about Warren?” he asks. “Not interested,” I answer without the requisite conviction. He detects it. “Bullshit.” “Thought you’d say that, but he’s signed a document. Witnessed. Miriam was there, with a thousand lawyers.” “Maybe, but he’s following you. Or having you followed. Someone must’ve talked him out of walking away.” “So last night—” “Wasn’t Franjo.” He says it like he’s been waiting to. “Wrong angle. Wrong calibre. Franjo uses a Dragunov. Last night was a .308, probably a Remington 700. Professional kit.” My blood goes cold. The pieces click into place with sickening clarity. Warren’s having me followed. Changed his mind. Decided he wants the lot and found someone very handy with a rifle. My mind races through the implications. Mila in that cell, terrified and telling the truth. Franjo with his ‘fucky-fucky’ threats but no actual trigger pull. And somewhere out there, someone with real training and real intent who barely missed. “There’s more,” Muscle says. He pulls out his phone, shows me a photo. It’s grainy, taken from distance, but I recognise the location—the café where I met Miriam yesterday. In the background, barely visible, a figure in dark clothing. Male, older, watching. “This was twenty minutes before you arrived.” I study the image. Something about the posture, the way he holds himself. “The man from last night,” I breathe. “The one who grabbed me on the street.” Muscle’s eyebrows go up fractionally. “Someone grabbed you?” “Said he’d been watching me. I screamed, drew a crowd, he backed off.” I watch Muscle’s face shift, processing this information. The way his jaw tightens tells me he’s recalculating something. “Description?” “Fifty-something. Grey at the temples. Moved like ex-military. ” I pause. “Croatian accent but spoke perfect English. And a metal claw for a left hand. Don’t ever get one of those wrapped around a nipple.” Muscle nods slowly and lets out a small breath through his nose—his version of a laugh. “That’s at least four separate surveillance operations on you. Five if you count the cameras in your room.” The number hangs between us. I feel something shift in my chest—not fear exactly, but a cold understanding. I’ve been walking through Split and Trogir playing the chess queen when really I’ve been the pawn. “Jesus,” I mutter. “You need protection,” Muscle says. Not suggesting. Stating. And you need to dress more conservatively.” He looks me up and down. “I need my own people.” The words come out before I’ve fully thought them through, but once they’re out, I know they’re right. “Not borrowed from my father. Not inherited from Igor. Mine.” He studies me with something that might be approval. Or respect. It’s hard to tell with Muscle—his face doesn’t advertise much. “Smart,” he says simply. “I want women,” I continue, the idea crystallising as I speak. “Ex-military, ex-police, I don’t care. But women. They see things men miss. They can go places men can’t without raising flags.” Muscle’s eyebrows lift slightly. “That’s...actually great.” “Don’t sound so surprised.” “I’m not. Your father will be.” “My father can—” I stop myself. Take a breath. “My father will adapt.” A ghost of a smile crosses Muscle’s face. It’s gone before I can be sure I saw it. “I know someone,” he says. “Belfast. Ex Royal Ulster Constabulary. Undercover.” “They’ve got to be good, not just competent but actually good. Discreet. Doesn't need explaining things twice and doesn't get impressed by rooms full of men who think they're frightening. And I need to be able to get on with them.” He's quiet for a moment. The sun hammers down on the concrete. A police car rolls past without urgency. "So she’ll live on the Island compound. Some movement between here and Dubrovnik. Possibly London.” "Yes. And someone who can run a security detail without making it look like one. Someone who blends. Doesn’t wear black and walk around in jackboots with curly cords coming out of their ears." He smiles again. Pulls out his phone. Scrolls. Stops. "Been freelance since she got out of Belfast three years go. I used her in Amsterdam in '23. She's—" he pauses, choosing the word carefully, "—economical." "Meaning?" "No waste. No noise. She solves the problem and you don't hear about it afterward." "Can you reach her today?" "I can try." "Try hard." I start toward the car. "And Muscle." He turns. "Thank you," I say. "For coming yourself. Are you around for a couple of days?" He doesn't answer that. Just nods once, slow, and walks back towards a rental car that's too white. I watch him go. There's something almost paternal in the way he moves, and I have complicated feelings about that which I do not examine in a police station car park in thirty-degree heat.
Miriam is leaning against the Mercedes when I reach it. She looks like a woman waiting for a movie star husband, not someone who just signed paperwork transferring the operational assets of a dead man's criminal empire into my name. "How is Mila?" "Thin. Franjo has been hitting her." "Franjo?" She’s not surprised. "Yes." I get in. She starts the engine and we pull out into the traffic and neither of us says anything for a while. The city moves past the window. A market. Two tourists with the wrong shoes. A priest. "The man outside," Miriam says. "Who was that?" "My father's person. We call him Muscle." She doesn't push it. She knows when a subject has a door on it.	My phone rings. Unknown number. I almost don't answer. Then I do. "Gabriella." A voice I haven't heard since my last wedding. Still the same register. Low. Careful. English with the edges worn off by forty years of moving between cities. My father. “Gabriella,” he says. “I hear you’ve been busy.” The traffic crawls past a construction site. Miriam shifts gears with unnecessary force. I can feel her tension from here. “A little. What can I do for you?” “Warren’s been making calls.” “I know. He’s having me followed, like half of fucking Split.” “He and some others loyal to Igor think the succession should stay in the bloodline.” “He can’t seriously think—” “He can and he does.” Another pause. “Hence the bullet.” “Warren? But only days ago, he signed a legal document absolving himself of anything to do with the business. Witnessed, the lot. Miriam held his hand.” The car lurches slightly as Miriam takes a corner too fast. She’s listening. Of course she’s listening. It’s hands-free, idiot. “Well, he hasn’t gone back to Dubrovnik yet. Holed up at the Cornaro.” While I’ve been signing papers, bullshitting Igor and fucking bartenders, Warren’s been hanging around here changing his mind. Watching. Planning. Being sucked in. “I need you to come home,” my father says. “Now. Today.” So touching, coming from a man who once tipped one of his sons out of a helicopter into an active volcano. “No,” I say flatly. “As of 5:30 this afternoon, when they switch off Igor’s machines, I’m running an empire worth several billion euros. If you’re so concerned about my welfare, you can get on a plane and come here.” The silence stretches. I can hear him breathing. Calculating. “You’re not equipped—” “I’m more equipped than the vegetable currently occupying the throne.” I lean back in the seat, watching Split blur past. “I’ve got the papers signed. The accounts transferred. The captains already know.” “The captains know because Warren told them,” he says, voice sharp now. “And half of them think he should take over. They know he’s a pushover.” “Then half of them are about to be disappointed. Warren has my phone number, and I’m happy to chat if he wants to negotiate. So far the gutless little runt has blocked my calls and won’t call me back.” Miriam takes another corner too fast. Her knuckles are white on the steering wheel. “This isn’t a game, Gabriella.” “No,” I agree. “It’s not. Which is why I’m not running home to daddy. I stand my ground here, now, or I lose everything before I’ve even started.”