How to Wash a Conscience. - Ch.08.

What do I actually do?

I find people.

Not in the romantic sense. Not in the LinkedIn recruiter sense either. I find the kind of people who can sit in a room filled with crime and still ask if the coffee machine's working.

My job—on paper, if we were deranged enough to put it there—is recruitment. I'm the middleman between chaos and control. Between filthy money and the quiet, unremarkable hands that'll clean it.

I was supposed to hire someone for a very specific role—someone who could sit at a desk, nod at files, sign things they didn't understand, and never ask why the office needs gold-trimmed toner for a printer that doesn't work.

Simple, right?

Wrong.

Apparently, we're in the era of reformation. Suddenly everyone wants to be a saint. They want purpose. Healthcare benefits. A yoga ball chair and emotional fulfillment. It's exhausting. I interviewed six people who practically cried when I told them the position involved discretion. One man brought a laminated résumé with a QR code to his "personal values."

Then there were the other kinds.

People who were willing, yes, but they screamed liability from three cities away. Criminal records longer than credit card receipts, unstable tempers, reputations so sour they'd curdle milk. You can't recruit a reputation like that. You can, but they'll be in prison before they finish signing their first stack of forged invoices.

And homeless recruits?

Too easy. Too risky. They disappear faster than the funds.

No—you need someone who has something to lose. That's the golden rule. You need a weak spot. A grandmother. An apartment. A stack of rejection letters they cried over. Something that binds them. Fear is a rope. Desperation is the knot.

So the search dragged on.

And they noticed.

I started getting calls. Pressure. Polite threats disguised as concern.

"Is everything all right, Lucien? We trusted your judgment on this."

Translation: Do your damn job or we'll find someone who will.

I was starting to feel it—that burn in my ribs. That sense of creeping failure.

So one night, I did what any overqualified criminal with insomnia and too much wine would do: I opened my laptop and started sending out scam emails. The classics. "Greetings from Prince Lucien of Blech." A fake country name. A fake fund. A real email address with a ridiculous offer.

I figured I'd amuse myself. No one reads those anyway. They go straight to the void—the spam folder graveyard where Nigerian princes and suspicious gift cards rot together.

Except… someone replied.

And not just anyone.

He cussed at me.

I remember blinking at the screen, rereading his email at least five times. The audacity. The sarcasm. He tore the entire setup apart like he was unwrapping a poorly wrapped birthday gift from someone he hated. Called me out. Mocked the name Blech. Accused me of running a pyramid scheme and suggested I invest in a spell-checker.

I laughed. Actually laughed.

And then the next day… he showed up.

Like some twisted fever dream that grew legs.

And I knew.

I knew the moment I saw him step out of that car—hoodie, tired eyes, that don't-fuck-with-me energy barely hiding a please-hire-me heartbeat. Reed Mercer. Mid-20s. Broke. Angry. Sharp. Gay. Sarcastic. Something about him looked like he hadn't been hugged in five years and would also fight God if he got the chance.

He was perfect.

Because he still thought he was making a choice. Because the best mark is the one who walks into the cage and locks the door behind them. And calls it an opportunity.

The club was loud—of course it was. These places always are. Basslines designed to rattle your bones and melt your sense of direction. Lights flickered like distant wars behind your eyelids. People danced like they had something to forget. Some of them did.

I moved through the crowd like a ripple in oil. I don't dance. I don't drink. But I show up—because in this world, showing up means you're still alive.

"Lucien."

The voice came from the left. Sultry. Familiar.

Rachel.

I paused before turning. Just long enough to remind myself not to flinch.

She looked… well. That was the terrible part. Her hair was sleeker than I remembered. Lips redder. Dress clinging in all the places men noticed and women judged. She looked like she belonged in this place—like she'd bled into it.

"Still wearing black like it's armor," she said, dragging her gaze down my sweater and slacks. "And still pretending you're better than the rest of us?"

I gave her a flat smile. "Pretending takes effort."

She stepped closer, and I caught a trace of her perfume. Not the kind you buy. The kind you steal from a bathroom shelf because you need to smell like someone else tonight.

"Funny," she said, "last time we saw each other, you promised to help me out. Said you'd get me out of here."

"I did."

"You left."

"I broke a promise," I corrected. "You broke yourself."

Her smile cracked, just a little. "I didn't need your saving."

"No," I said. "You needed someone to fall with. I wasn't in the mood to hit the bottom."

Her laugh was low, bitter. "And now look at you. Playing messenger boy between old men in suits and kids in too-tight shirts. Still pretending it's a real job."

"At least I don't have to fake my orgasms for cash."

Her eyes flickered.

Low blow. But true.

Rachel wasn't like the other girls anymore. She'd clawed her way up—past back rooms and velvet ropes. She managed now. Not the club, of course, but the girls. Picked the best ones. Polished them. Placed them like chess pieces in champagne rooms for men who couldn't get it elsewhere.

"Always so cold," she said. "Was I that forgettable?"

"No," I said, brushing past her. "That's the problem."

I didn't look back.

I kept walking, through the back hall lit with blue neon and whispers. Past the bouncer who knew my face but not my name. Until I reached the door.

The private room.

I knocked once. A pause. Then it clicked open.

Inside, everything was too still. Dim light. Glass on wood. Cigar smoke curling in the air like it had tenure. And in the corner, seated like a man who hadn't stood in years unless it was to threaten someone—

Emiliano.

Salt-and-pepper hair, slicked back with precision that felt surgical. His face was sharp—angular in the way only age and violence could carve. Attractive, undeniably, but in the way a venomous snake might be under the right lighting. He had the sort of bone structure that belonged on a cologne ad and the kind of eyes that knew where bodies were buried—because he'd probably picked the spot himself.

His suit was tailored like it was stitched onto him, dark charcoal with a faint pattern only visible when he moved, which was rare. Rings adorned his fingers—heavy, ornate, the kind that said I've gripped throats and deals with equal ease. They gleamed as he held a glass of whiskey like it was the world's last truth.

And his voice?

Smooth. Rich. The kind of voice that could sedate lions—or command them.

He didn't stand. Of course not.

Men like Emiliano don't rise for you. You rise to meet them.

He just looked at me. A smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth like he already knew what I'd say.

"You're late, Lucien."

"I was reminiscing," I replied. "Briefly."

He chuckled, motioned to the chair opposite him. "Careful. Reminiscing gets people killed."

I sat. "Only if the memories are worth dying for."

He leaned back, exhaled smoke through his nose like some Greek tragedy in a blazer. "Let's talk about your boy. Reed, was it?"

I nodded, fingers steepled in front of me, perfectly still. You don't interrupt Emiliano. You don't answer before the question lands. You let the silence stretch.

Emiliano didn't rush. He never did. He poured himself a drink from a decanter that probably cost more than Reed's entire wardrobe. The ice clinked like punctuation, sharp and final.

He didn't offer me any. He never did that either.

He finally looked at me. "Status?"

"Settling in," I said. "Adaptable. Quick with paperwork. He asks questions, but only the kind that keep him just ignorant enough."

"Good," Emiliano replied, nodding once. "Still thinks it's real?"

I allowed the faintest smirk. "He thinks it's odd, but yes. He's convinced we're some strange corporate collective with too much funding and not enough logic."

Emiliano's lips curled, amused. "We are."

True.

But not in the way Reed believes.

"And the background?" Emiliano asked, leaning forward now, elbows on the table, rings flashing under the light. "Family. Connections. Anything that makes him a liability?"

"None," I said. "Grew up with his grandmother. Parents divorced early. No siblings. No serious relationships. No known friends close enough to notice a shift in lifestyle. One landlord he owes money to, but even he's too tired to care."

Emiliano grunted in approval. "So he won't be missed."

"Not by anyone who matters."

He took another sip of the drink. "Education?"

"Art school. Set design. Worked small freelance jobs, most unpaid. Some editing gigs. Nothing permanent. Nothing that sticks."

"Desperate," Emiliano said, matter-of-fact.

"Hopeless," I corrected. "But charming."

He raised an eyebrow. "Is he smart?"

"Dangerously so. But tired."

"Perfect," he said, leaning back again. "Smart enough to execute. Too exhausted to rebel."

He let the glass rest against the leather arm of the chair, then looked at me more directly now.

"And the work?"

I nodded. "He's processed over fifteen dummy requests already. Signed off without flinching. Reviewed inflated line items, questioned the paper cups, but ultimately approved."

"Paper cups," Emiliano echoed, grinning. "You're getting creative."

I shrugged lightly. "Laundry's easier when the stains look domestic."

He chuckled at that, then let the silence breathe again.

I could feel it—the way he was filing Reed away in his head. Fitting him into the puzzle like a new piece of machinery. Not a person. Just function.

"Anyone notice?" he asked after a moment.

"No," I said. "He's a ghost. He walks through the halls like he's background noise. The others barely look up."

Emiliano nodded, satisfied. "Good. Keep it that way. He doesn't need to feel real to anyone but you."

I gave a slow blink, keeping my expression blank. That was always the game with Emiliano—he'd say things that sounded loaded, then act like they weren't.

He stood finally, stretching his back like he'd just finished a very satisfying meal. He swirled the last of the whiskey in his glass, gaze settling on me with that slow, measured calculation he reserved for people he expected better from.

"And for God's sake, Lucien, no more castles."

The words hung in the air—not loud, not sharp, but heavy with that particular brand of disappointment that somehow hit harder than yelling ever could.

"You think we're running an opera company now?" he went on. "You've got him living out some fantasy job interview in a venue that costs more per week than it takes to scrub half our numbers clean."

"It served its purpose," I replied calmly.

He gave me a look. One that said don't test me.

"I don't care what purpose it served," he said, setting the glass down with a soft clink. "I care that you're getting soft with details and careless with money. We don't do theatre. We do function. You want to waste your own money on grandeur, do it on your time. But next time I find out you've rented out a wedding venue to recruit a burnout kid with sarcasm issues, I'll start reconsidering who gets to wear the nice sweaters."

It was meant as a threat, and not a small one.

I nodded once. Just enough. Not apologetic—but contained.

"Understood."

"Good," he said. "Keep him close. Keep him quiet. And keep yourself focused."

The moment passed, and just like that, the tension melted back into velvet.

And then he turned toward the hallway.

Our meeting was over. No goodbye. Just that faint scent of smoke and whisky clinging to the room, like a warning whispered into the walls.

And I stood there a second longer, staring at the empty glass across from me, wondering—briefly—how long before Reed became another ghost we didn't talk about.

But not today. Not yet.

Today, he was still useful.

And in this business, that's the only thing that counts.

I stepped out of the club and into a city that didn't care I existed.

The door shut behind me with a weighted click, swallowing the bass and sweat and smoke into its mouth like it had done a thousand times before. Out here, the world was colder—not in temperature, not really, but in clarity. The night air was damp, laced with exhaust fumes, rotting street food, and the faint perfume of someone who had just walked by a second too early to see me. The streetlights buzzed, one of them flickering like it had grown tired of pretending to be useful. In the distance, a siren wailed. Closer still, a man argued with a taxi driver about the meter, and a woman in platform heels laughed like she was trying to drown something.

I reached into my coat pocket without thinking, fingers grazing the metal cigarette case before flipping it open with that soft, practiced snap. The lighter came next—flicked, steadied, flame drawn in—and the cigarette lit up at the tip like a confession whispered in the dark. I inhaled deep, felt the burn settle behind my teeth, and exhaled slowly toward the sky, watching the smoke unravel into the dark like something trying to escape me.

And then, out of nowhere, he surfaced.

Reed.

His name arrived in my mind uninvited, unearned, and yet somehow rooted there like it had been waiting for me to notice it.

And with it came a feeling I couldn't quite place—an ache, maybe, or the start of one. Not pity, not exactly. Something quieter. Sharper. Something dangerously close to guilt.

And that's what caught me off guard.

Because I've brought people into this before. Dozens of them. Some lasted, some didn't, and a few never even made it past the second stage. Most of them were easier to forget than my own passwords. They blurred into one another—voices that begged, eyes that pleaded, names that barely echoed once they were gone. It was never personal. It was the job. A cycle. A rhythm I had memorized down to the pause between lies.

But Reed… there was something about him that didn't fold the way it was supposed to.

Maybe it was the way he walked into that fake office with all the hesitation of someone who's been lied to before but chooses, stupidly, to believe anyway. Maybe it was how he met me with that crooked smile, like he was bracing for a punch he knew would come eventually but still kept his head up. Or maybe it was the sheer, unfiltered absurdity of him showing up the day after mocking the entire scam with that razor-wire email, only to sit there and play along like it was all perfectly reasonable.

He shouldn't be in this.

He shouldn't belong in any of this.

And yet, somehow, he fit—like the last piece of a puzzle you never meant to finish.

I took another drag from the cigarette, longer this time, holding the smoke in until my lungs reminded me I was still flesh and not just the suit I wore like armor. The cigarette tasted bitter. Not the tobacco. The idea of it. The ritual. The familiarity of it in a night that suddenly didn't feel routine anymore.

I stared across the street without really seeing it—watched people pass, headlights blur, the city went about its business like I hadn't just walked into a room and confirmed someone else's fate. Emiliano had been pleased. The job was in motion. The pieces were falling into place.

So why did I feel like something inside me had shifted?

Why, for the first time in a very long time, did I feel like I'd pulled someone too real into something too fake?

I crushed the cigarette under my heel, watched the embers scatter and fade, and lingered for a moment longer under the half-lit sky—half of me wanting to go back in and drown the feeling, the other half wondering when exactly I became the kind of man who thought about consequences after the contract was signed.

And as I finally turned and started walking, my footsteps echoing softly against the pavement, I realized something I didn't want to say out loud:

Reed Mercer had a hold on something I thought I buried a long time ago.

And if I wasn't careful, he'd dig it out.