Chapter 12: The Threat
Simon had just finished locking the duffel in his trunk when Doc spoke.
"You performed well today."
Simon straightened up and closed the trunk. "Thanks, Doc."
He checked in mentally — five hundred universal XP, quiet and automatic, barely a footnote after everything else that had happened in the last four hours.
Doc produced a second prepaid phone from his jacket and held it out. "Next job, I'll reach you on this one. Timeframe is two, maybe three weeks."
Simon looked at the phone.
Then he looked at Doc.
"I appreciate the work," Simon said. "But I'm going to pass on the next one. One job was the deal. I've got what I need."
Doc's expression didn't change. That was, Simon was learning, its own kind of signal.
"I don't think you understood the arrangement," Doc said, with the specific patience of a man correcting a minor misapprehension. "I'm not asking. I'm informing you."
The parking garage was quiet. Ventilation hum. Distant traffic from the street above.
"You're free to decline," Doc continued. "I want to be clear about that. You can walk away right now." A pause. "And within forty-eight hours, someone breaks both your legs, and everyone you care about stops being someone you care about. Your girlfriend. Your neighbors. The girl who makes your sandwiches." He tilted his head slightly. "So — drive for me, or don't walk. Your choice. I'd genuinely prefer you drive."
Simon was quiet for a long moment.
"You touch any of them," he said, "and I will make that a decision you regret for the rest of your life."
"I know you can fight," Doc said, without inflection. "I know you can shoot. You're talented, Simon — that's why we're having this conversation instead of a different one." He straightened his jacket. "But you're one person. You can put me down right now, in this garage, and I promise you my people will have yours before you reach the street. Or you can agree, and everyone stays safe and well-compensated, and we part ways cleanly when the work is done."
He held out the phone again.
"Drive," Doc said. "Or don't drive. But choose now."
Simon took the phone.
"Good," Doc said. Not triumphant. Just noted.
"I'm leaving," Simon said flatly.
Doc nodded. He was already walking toward his own car.
Simon sat in the Supra in the parking garage for ninety seconds without starting it.
He wasn't panicking. The Composure skill held that at bay the way a dam holds water — the pressure was there, acknowledged, contained. His hands were still. His breathing was even.
But his mind was moving.
He'd walked into this with open eyes and told himself he understood the risks. What he hadn't fully calculated was the specific risk of someone like Doc — someone meticulous enough to have thought three moves ahead before Simon even sat down at the table. The threat wasn't empty. Doc didn't make empty threats. That was, paradoxically, almost reassuring — it meant he also didn't make unnecessary moves. If Simon cooperated, Doc had no reason to hurt anyone.
Which meant cooperation was the short-term answer.
But it couldn't be the permanent answer.
He needed a way out that Doc couldn't simply close behind him.
He started the car and drove home.
The duffel went into the storage closet behind the water heater — the one place in the house that a casual search wouldn't reach. Seven hundred thousand dollars in banded bills, sitting in the dark next to a box of his dad's old tools.
Simon lay on his bed and stared at the ceiling.
He stayed there for twenty minutes, running options, discarding most of them.
One kept coming back.
Brian O'Conner.
Not because Simon wanted to involve him. But because Brian's presence in this situation was already a fact that could be redirected. Doc was careful. Doc was meticulous. And Doc would not want one of his drivers to have a known connection to law enforcement — even an undercover one, even an unofficial one. The calculation was simple: if Doc believed Simon was entangled with a cop, the risk of keeping Simon around started outweighing the benefit of his driving skills.
The gamble was that Doc might decide removing Simon was cleaner than managing him.
Which meant before Simon could use Brian as leverage, he needed to be worth more to Doc intact than eliminated.
That meant building capability. Quickly.
He didn't have a complete answer yet. But he had a direction.
He got up, changed clothes, and drove to Mia's.
He smelled the food from the parking lot and realized he hadn't eaten since before the job — which, given that he'd just driven off a bridge and through six blocks of wrong-way freeway traffic, was overdue.
He pushed into the grocery and stopped.
Brian was at the counter, talking to Mia in the easy, slightly-too-charming way of someone who was definitely trying and was doing a reasonably good job of it. Mia was laughing at something he'd said, which was either genuine or professional — with Mia it was hard to tell when she didn't want you to know.
Simon considered leaving.
Then Mia looked up and saw him.
Too late.
He crossed the floor and sat down two stools from Brian. "Mia. Usual, please."
She was already moving toward the kitchen. "Coming up."
Simon looked sideways at Brian. "Hey."
"Hey," Brian said. "Simon, right? From the diner?"
"That's me."
A comfortable pause.
"You going after Mia?" Simon asked.
Brian blinked — then decided to be honest about it, which Simon noted as a good sign. "Working on it."
"You know Dom's going to find out."
"I figured."
"And Vince is going to be significantly less reasonable about it than Dom."
Brian absorbed this. "Any advice?"
Simon considered. "Earn his respect before he finds out. Track record matters more than explanation with Dom. Win a race, fix an engine, show up when it counts. By the time the conversation happens, make sure he already thinks you're solid."
Brian nodded slowly, filing it away. "That's actually useful."
"Don't thank me yet." Simon turned back to the counter. "It's harder than it sounds."
Mia came back out with a tuna melt and set it in front of Simon. "What were you two talking about?"
"Automotive maintenance," Simon said.
"He was giving me advice," Brian offered helpfully.
Mia looked between them with the expression of someone who knew she was being managed and was choosing to accept it for now. "Uh-huh." She pointed at Simon. "Five dollars. Don't try the three again."
Simon opened his wallet without argument.
She disappeared back into the kitchen.
Brian watched her go. Simon watched Brian watch her.
He's going to be a problem for Dom, Simon thought. And maybe a solution for me.
He filed that away and ate his sandwich.
The Buy More was busy when Simon arrived — a Tuesday afternoon rush that shouldn't have existed but apparently did, because this was apparently who the neighborhood was.
Chuck met him near the entrance with the look of a man who had been waiting.
"Big Mike's been asking about you," Chuck said. "You're twenty minutes late."
"I know. Long morning." Simon grabbed his vest from the hook behind the counter. "Everything okay?"
"Define okay." Chuck lowered his voice slightly. "Three people asked for you by name. Two of them were here when the store opened. One of them brought a friend."
Simon pinned on his name badge. "Customers?"
"Female customers," Chuck said, with the tone of a man reporting a weather event he has no control over.
Simon looked out at the floor. A loose cluster of women near the camera display were watching the entrance. One of them made eye contact and waved.
He raised a hand in acknowledgment.
Chuck took a careful step to the side. "I'll be in the Nerd Herd area if you need me."
"Coward," Simon said pleasantly.
"Strategically elsewhere," Chuck corrected, and walked away.
Big Mike materialized from the direction of the break room, enormous coffee cup in hand, and pointed at Simon with a raised eyebrow that managed to convey both you're late and I'll let it go because of yesterday's numbers simultaneously.
Simon gave him a short nod. Message received.
Morgan appeared at his shoulder from nowhere, like he'd been hiding behind a display rack. "You know," he said, "in all my years working here, I have never — not once — had a customer ask for me by name."
"Morgan—"
"I'm not upset about it," Morgan said, in the voice of someone who was a little upset about it. "I think it's great. I think you have a gift. I'm happy for you."
"Morgan."
"Yeah?"
"Go do something."
"On it." Morgan drifted away toward the gaming section with the energy of a man who had somewhere to be and wasn't sure where.
Simon squared his shoulders, put on his professional expression, and walked out onto the floor.
"Sorry for the wait," he said to the first customer. "What can I help you with?"
The next three hours were a blur of product demonstrations, extended warranty conversations, and the particular exhausting social arithmetic of being pleasant to a large number of people for money.
By five o'clock his voice was gravel again.
By five thirty, Big Mike was looking at the day's commission sheet with an expression that suggested he was reconsidering Simon's hourly rate in the favorable direction.
By six, Simon was in the break room with a bottle of water, alone for the first time since morning, running through the Doc problem in his head with the methodical patience of someone who had accepted that the answer wasn't coming tonight.
It would come.
He just had to still be upright when it did.
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