When I’m done with Tito, I send him on his way. He reminds me we’ll be seeing a lot more of each other before he goes. I’ll be seeing more than he knows.  

It takes a while to get through everyone Ludo sent my way. By the end of the day, I’ve seen about a dozen clients. It’s surprising because I only ever see Ricky at the door and Vincent in his office. I guess I’m only really ever there during the day. Operations must pick up at night. Or they help him with his other ventures. 

On the bright side, I’ve had a profitable day for the first time in a long time. This might actually be a good arrangement. Trust is important. That’s what Ludo says and I’d have to agree. I don’t think I can trust him yet.

Tito’s memory extract should be able to tell me if I can. 

I take one last look outside to make sure there’s no late comers from Ludo. The front of the shop is clear as the sun goes down. I have time. Just me and Tito’s past couple of days to go through. 

It doesn’t take me long to confirm that I have nothing to be jealous of. Most of Tito’s days are spent staring out at nothing, on guard and waiting for something to happen. It rarely does.

Sometimes people need to be taken out of the club. Tito takes advantage of these brief interesting moments, always being a little rough with the unlucky drunkards to cross his path. Sometimes women try to compel him to let them in - which he allows them to convince him more often than not. One of the only perks of the job, it seems. Most of the time, it’s just standing around. 

He meets with Ludo infrequently and they’re very one-sided exchanges. Ludo provides instructions and Tito follows through. A loyal lapdog. My name doesn’t come up at any point, but they easily could have been talking about me. 

Later that same evening, they’re outside of my shop. I slow everything down and listen in. 

“The girl said he could use the money,” Tito says to the thin guy who would later be kicking me in the ribs. “She tried to talk him into working with Ludo.”

The girl. Are they talking about Tasmin? 

“What are we doing here now?”

“We convince him to reconsider.”  

“Why is Ludo so desperate to work with this guy?” 

“Turns out he’s really good. Cleaned the girl out real good.” 

Tito looks at his phone and I have to do a double-take. He’s looking at me at my workstation. Inside my shop.

“Looks like he’ll be out in a minute. We’ll tail him.” 

I stop the feed when he looks at the phone again. I try to figure out the angle and look at where this bug was coming from. It looks like it’s from the corner of the room, on a shelf with a bunch of spare parts for my rig. I clear everything off that I put there and sure enough, there’s a small camera hiding in plain sight. 

I look into it. It’s still recording.