Chapter 5 - The Rabbit Backpack BrigadeBy February, the estate on Briar Hill Road didn't look like a fortress anymore. It looked like a very expensive, very grim fortress with a daycare center in the west wing.
Amara Brooks arrived every Tuesday and Thursday at four o'clock. She didn't use the intercom anymore. The guards—Leo included—had standing orders to open the iron gates the moment the pink coat and the rabbit backpack appeared on camera.
She had her own seat at the twenty-four-person walnut table. It had a booster cushion made of imported Turkish velvet that Marcus had ordered from a catalog in Milan because her feet didn't touch the floor yet.
"Mr. Han," Amara said one Tuesday, spooning beef stew into her mouth with intense, military concentration. "My teacher says I have to do a project on 'What I Want to Be When I Grow Up.'"
Marcus, who was reviewing a shipment of diamond-tipped drill bits coming out of Antwerp, looked up from his monitor. "And what did you tell her?"
"I told her I want to be a liquidator."
Leo, who was pouring sparkling water into a crystal glass, nearly dropped the pitcher. "A liquidator, kid? That sounds like you want to work for a plumbing company."
"No," Amara said, wiping her chin with a linen napkin that cost more than Leo’s first car. "Mr. Han explains it. A liquidator is someone who takes things that are broken and sells them to people who know how to use them. Like Victor Vance. Or Frankie Scalia."
Marcus didn't smile, but the corners of his mouth twitched—a micro-movement that hadn't happened in twenty years.
"And what do you plan to liquidate first, Mara?" Marcus asked, resting his chin on his knuckles.
Amara pointed her spoon at the large, gilt-framed oil painting of Marcus’s grandfather that hung above the stone fireplace.
"That guy," she said.
Marcus blinked. "My grandfather? Why him?"
"He looks mean," she said simply. "He’s staring at you like you owe him money. If you liquidate him, we can put up a picture of a blue horse."
Marcus stared at the painting of the old man who had built the Han Circle with blood, silence, and dockside extortion. Then he looked at the six-year-old girl who had walked through a blizzard with a rabbit backpack and a sack of Aldi potatoes.
"Leo," Marcus said.
"Sir?"
"Take the painting down."
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"Boss—that’s your grandfather—"
"Take it down," Marcus repeated, his voice dropping into that dark, immovable register. "Put it in the basement with Victor Vance’s files. And tell the framing shop in Winnetka to send over some samples of blue horses."
