Boss of Shadows

The bell above the boutique door chimed, and I didn't look up from the ledger. Bad news has a way of announcing itself. I'd learned that from my mother, who could smell a man's intentions before he opened his mouth. So when the floorboards creaked under a weight that didn't belong to any of my regulars, I kept my eyes on the numbers and let him come to me.

"You're Maria," he said. Not a question.

I finished the column I was adding, then closed the book. Only then did I give him my attention, and he took it like a man who was used to being looked at. He was wrong about that. Most people looked past Don Roberto. You had to. Looking directly at a man like him felt like staring into a furnace, and I'd been burned enough for one lifetime.

"I am," I said. "And you're in my store."

He smiled. It didn't reach his eyes. He had a cigar in his left hand, unlit, rolling it between thick fingers like a rosary. The suit was silk, the color of dried blood, and it strained across his belly. Gold ring on the pinky. Hair slicked back with something that caught the light. Everything about him was loud except his voice, which was soft, almost gentle, and that was the worst part.

"I'm told you do custom work," he said. "For special clients."

"I do alterations. And I design. If you're looking for a suit, I can recommend a tailor three blocks over. He handles your build better than I could."

"I'm not looking for a suit."

He set the cigar down on my counter, right on top of the ledger, and I felt my jaw tighten. I didn't move it. I've learned that with men like him, you don't flinch, and you don't clean up after them. You wait.

"I have a girl," he said. "She needs dresses. Nice ones. For events where she'll be seen."

"Then bring her in for a fitting."

"She can't come in. She's not from here."

I crossed my arms. The movement pushed my blouse tight across my chest, and I watched his eyes drop, just for a second, before climbing back to my face. He wasn't hiding it. That was the thing about Don Roberto. He never hid anything. He just let you see exactly what he was, and dared you to do something about it.

"She's not from here," I repeated. "So she can't walk into a boutique in the middle of the city. But she can wear dresses to events where she'll be seen."

"You're smart. I like that."

"I'm not trying to be liked."

"No." He picked the cigar back up. "You're not. That's why I came to you. The other girls, they smile too much. They ask questions. You, you just want to know what you're getting into."

"I already know what I'm getting into."

He laughed. It was a wet, rolling sound that seemed to come from somewhere deep in his chest, and it went on a beat too long. When it stopped, his face was flat again, like a door closing.

"Good," he said. "Then we understand each other. I'll send the measurements. You'll make six dresses. You'll be paid double your rate. And you'll tell no one."

"Double is insulting."

"Is it."

"Triple. And I keep my own schedule. I don't do rush jobs."

He studied me for a long moment. The cigar rolled between his fingers, back and forth, and I could hear the faint rasp of his palm against the tobacco leaf. Somewhere outside, a car horn blared and died. The shop was quiet enough that I could hear my own breathing.

"Triple," he said. "And you'll come to the house for the final fitting. She'll want to meet the woman who made her look beautiful."

"Fine."

He nodded once, then turned and walked out. The bell chimed again. I stood there for a full minute, staring at the ledger where his cigar had rested, a faint brown ring stamped onto the page like a brand.

I should have said no.

That's what I told myself later, in the shower, with the water so hot it turned my skin pink. I should have said no, and I knew it, and I said yes anyway. Not because of the money, though the money was good. Not because I was scared, though I was. I said yes because of the way he'd said *she*. Like the girl was a problem. Like she was something he kept in a room and fed and dressed and showed off, and I'd spent enough of my life being something a man kept that I couldn't stand the thought of another woman in that box without at least one person on the outside who knew her name.

So when the envelope arrived three days later, thick and heavy, no return address, I opened it. Inside were the measurements, written in a neat, looping hand that didn't match anything about the man I'd met. A waist. A bust. Hips. Height. And at the bottom, in different ink, a single line.

*Please. My name is Lucia.*

I sat down on the edge of my bed and held the paper in both hands. The handwriting was careful. Deliberate. Like a girl who'd learned to write in a place where mistakes cost something.

I made the first dress that week. A deep green silk, fitted through the waist, with a slit up the thigh. I worked on it at night, after the shop closed, with the radio on low and a glass of wine going warm on the table beside me. My husband, Daniel, was asleep by ten. He always was. He'd come home from the warehouse, eat whatever I put in front of him, watch an hour of television, and then go to bed without touching me. Not that I minded. Not that I'd minded for a long time.

But I thought about it, that week. I thought about the way Don Roberto had looked at my chest before he looked at my face. I thought about the way Daniel hadn't looked at me at all in months, except to ask where his keys were. And I thought about Lucia, whoever she was, in a house somewhere with a man like that, waiting for a dress she'd never chosen.

The second dress was red. I don't know why I chose red. It wasn't in the instructions. I just reached for the bolt of crimson silk and started cutting, and by the time I was done, it was the kind of dress that made a statement. Low in the back. Tight in the hips. The kind of dress a woman wears when she wants to be looked at, or when she wants someone specific to look and know exactly what he can't have.

I hung it on the rack beside the green one and stood back.

"You're working late again," Daniel said from the doorway. I hadn't heard him come down. He was in his undershirt, hair flattened on one side, eyes half-closed.

"Big order," I said.

"For who?"

"New client."

He grunted. He walked past me to the fridge, took out a beer, and cracked it open against the counter. I watched him drink it, standing there in the kitchen light, and I felt nothing. Not anger. Not sadness. Just the flat, familiar nothing I'd gotten used to.

"You coming to bed?" he asked.

"In a while."

He nodded and went back upstairs. I turned off the light in the workroom and stood in the dark, surrounded by half-finished dresses and the smell of new fabric, and I made a decision.

I was going to meet Lucia. And I was going to find out what kind of man kept a woman in a house and sent for dresses in her size without ever bringing her into the city.

The final fitting was scheduled for a Friday. Don Roberto sent a car. Black, tinted windows, a driver who didn't speak and didn't look at me in the rearview. We drove out past the edge of the city, through neighborhoods that got quieter and greener and then darker again, until we turned onto a private road lined with cypress trees. The house at the end of it was enormous. Stone walls, iron gates, a fountain in the courtyard that wasn't running.

The driver opened my door and stepped back. I gathered the garment bag over my arm and walked up the steps alone.

The front door opened before I could knock.

And there she was. Lucia. Small, maybe twenty-two, with black hair pulled back so tight it looked painful and a face that was pretty in a way that hadn't been allowed to fully bloom. She was wearing a plain housedress and no shoes, and when she saw me, her eyes went wide, then wet, then flat, all in the space of a breath.

"You're the seamstress," she said.

"I'm Maria."

She looked past me, at the car, at the driver, at the gate closing behind me. Then she stepped back and let me in.

"He's not here," she said quietly. "He won't be back until late."

"Good," I said. "Then we have time."