"Your new name is Allison Smith," the guy I'd come to learn as Andrew Campbell said as we walked through the police station halls. I had to run to keep up with his fast strides and focus on all of this new information at the same time.
I don't even remember what I ate for breakfast, how am I supposed to remember my new name?
Andrew was somehow involved with Angelo's mafia, but he wasn't an official member. I think he was just getting paid to make sure nobody dug too deep into my reason for being here. Needless to say, it was probably a lump sum.
"You're twenty-five, with a clean record and a bachelors degree from NYU. You're working here because you can't find a good paying job with decent hours and you need to pay off your college fees somehow," Andrew filled in. "Your parents both died when you were a freshman in college, so now you have no immediate family. No one the station can secretly contact."
"And that doesn't look sketchy to anyone?" I asked.
"That's when I come in," he sucked in a deep breath before going off, "I'm getting paid to make sure no one goes digging incase your acting skills suck or you get caught doing something illegal."
Yeah, like snooping through files.
He stopped walking and put one of his boney hands on my shoulder, "You got this."
"Sure," I stretched the word out longer than I should have, but ya know, go big or go home.
He removed his hand from my shoulder and moved away, granting me full access to the mirror hanging on the wall. I combed over the dark brown hair Alessandra dyed for me and had to hold back ugly tears from flowing. I never thought I would miss my blonde waves as much as I did now. Blondes ruled the world, so this brown just wasn't doing it for me.
It looked good on Sophia though.
The makeup on my face made me almost unrecognizable. I hardly ever wore makeup, and when I did, it was usually just a little mascara because I really didn't need anything...or so I thought. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. The contact lenses in my eyes made me go from brown to blue, and I almost liked that. And to top it all off, I was given a ginormous pair of black rimmed glasses to wear.
I definitely wasn't a fan of those.
"Chloe," Andrew whispered to get my attention. I looked away from the mirror and over at him, "I mean Allison," he coughed, "Come on."
I followed him into my doom.
__________
I sat in the office chair, behind the moon shaped desk in the back of the building. I spun around a few times, trying to keep myself a little entertained as I waited for the other girl, Tera, to come back from getting finished files.
"So, these are from the murders Detective Woodrow believes involves one of the mafia families located here in New York City. I just need you to file them in the back room. Everything goes in alphabetical order. And I believe Jake is in there putting other stuff away, so if you have questions, ask him," she held the folders out, "Oh and don't open them up. If you do we'll know because there are cameras everywhere," her smile was so fake it made plastic look real.
I snatched the folders away from her, making sure to add some sass but not too much. She just made my job a whole lot harder. I was supposed to be finding out what the cops knew and not being able to read these files was going to make it that much more difficult.
I still don't know why Angelo chose me for this. He knows I suck.
I spun on my heel and walked into the back room with the all of the boxes and shelves storing years worth of files.
Little did Tera know about the hidden camera in these ugly ass glasses of mine. Now I just needed a way for the papers to "accidentally" fall out of my hands so that the camera could get a good look.
"Hey, you're the new girl, right?"
I jumped at the sound of a voice and actually did end up dropping all of the folders. Papers flew everywhere. I spun around quickly to see another guy, this one was in a police uniform though. He looked younger than Andrew, and everyone else I've seen here so far too. If I had to guess his age, I'd say he was like twenty six or twenty seven. "Jesus Christ!" I screamed and placed my hand over my rapidly beating heart.
"Sorry. I really didn't think I would scare you," he glanced down at all the papers I had dropped. "I'm Jake by the way. Here, let me help you," he got down on his knees, as did I, and we both gathered the loose papers. "Um..." He picked two up and examined them, "These are from different cases," he kept mumbling under his breath and the only words I could make out were mafia and D'Amico. "I'm gonna have to read through all of them and put them back in order. Woodrow would have a fit."
"Can I help you?" I blurted out way too soon for my own good.
"You're working with Tera, aren't you?" He gave me a weird look.
I nodded slowly and shrugged, "Yeah, but it's been a slow day and I feel like I can benefit you way more than her. I can tell she wants me gone anyway. So what do ya say?"
He still stared at me as if I had two heads. "Fine, but just this once. You're not supposed to be doing this kind of stuff," he gathered all of the papers, stood up and started walking out of the room.
I followed him into the smallest, most pathetic little office I've ever seen. There was only one chair and he quickly snatched it up and dropped the papers onto his desk.
I stood awkwardly by the door and looked around. There wasn't much to see, just a desk, an empty bookshelf, and a single picture on the desk. It was turned slightly towards me so I could make out what the picture consisted of. It was a portrait of a girl who could've been in her twenties with wild sandy blonde hair and a friendly face, and there was a little boy sitting in her lap. He had dark brown hair and could've been six or seven. "Is that your son?" I asked.
Jake looked up and at the picture before smiling and nodding, "Yeah. My son and wife."
"Oh cute," that sounded way too forced but I actually did mean it, "What are their names?"
"Mason and Sadie."
"You have a cute family," I said.
My family was better though. I already missed Angelo and Soph. I couldn't wait to go home to them.
"Thanks."
Silence.
I walked closer to his desk and peered over at the papers he was sorting through. "So..." I trailed off, not really sure how I was gonna ask this next question without sounding too nosy. "I've heard some people around the city talking about the D'Amico mafia Family. Do you guys have any significant leads on them?"
"Significant? No. But it's only a matter of time before one of them slip up. Nobody's perfect."
"You're right. So, you don't know anything? Not even the names of any of them?"
"Well yeah, we've got names, but what good are they if they don't lead us to anything? Angelo D'Amico for example. He's probably been apart of as many crimes as his dad, Rafael D'Amico, and he's not even thirty yet. He isn't traceable though. Im-fucking-possible to find. There was a mafia house like three years ago, we had the address and everything, we got a lead, went there and there was nobody. The bastards moved, so we're back to square one."
"Jeez," I said, trying to contain my excitement. Maybe after Angelo heard this, I'd never have to come back here ever again. "That's horrible."
"You wouldn't happen to know anything, would you?" He asked, sounding almost as if I was a last resort.
I shook my head, "No. That's why I asked you. I want the mafia off the streets," I lied.
He laughed nervously, "Well, tell me if you find anything out. Now help me sort these."
____________
"I don't believe that. You're going back tomorrow and asking others. This time actually get the damn papers on camera too please," Angelo said before putting his phone to his ear and leaving the dining room.
I looked over to see Sophia happily devouring a meatball sub sandwich. She picked the meatballs out of the bread and ate them by themselves though.
She never was a big bread fan unless it was garlic of course.
I grabbed a napkin and wiped at the sauce she had gotten all over her face, "What'd you do today? Did you hang out with daddy?"
She smiled and nodded while chewing down the meatball, "We watched Ponies."
"My Little Pony?" I asked. It was her favorite show, her favorite character being Rainbow Dash. Her room was modeled after that one because she was a princess and got whatever she wanted.
The girl had herself wrapped securely around Angelo's finger. He could never say no to her; even if it meant he had to watch My Little Pony in front of all his men.
"I love you, Soph."
"I wuv you."