Chương 13
Reed said, “Peter, think carefully.”
“I have,” Harlan replied. “For twenty-two years on a city salary.”
“You returned a child to an apartment where she’d been imprisoned.”
“I was told the mother abandoned her.”
“You searched the bedroom.”
“I was looking for evidence.”
“You called Sal.”
Harlan’s face tightened. “You don’t know what I did.”
“The payments are on the card.”
“They’re consulting fees.”
Sal glanced at him with open amusement. “Peter.”
Harlan understood too late that he had become embarrassing.
Vincent looked at Sal. “Let the staff out.”
“Give me the original card.”
“You have the ledger.”
“The card has photographs. Videos. Files that multiply.”
“Then burning one building won’t help.”
“It helps if the people who can authenticate them die inside.”
Reed’s weapon remained steady. “Police are outside.”
“If police were outside,” Sal said, “you wouldn’t be standing there alone.”
Sirens sounded in the distance.
Not close enough.
Sal’s smile faded.
Vincent watched Dario’s eyes move toward the stairs. Harlan heard the sirens too and shifted his stance. Fear entered the room as three different calculations.
Sal said, “Where is Sophie?”
Vincent’s breathing slowed.
“Safe.”
“Teresa’s house?”
Vincent’s eyes froze.
Sal saw the answer.
“I have men nearby,” he said. “One call.”
“You’re lying,” Reed said.
“Possibly.”
Vincent studied Sal’s left hand. No phone. Dario had one in his jacket pocket. Harlan’s phone was clipped to his belt.
“Who did you send?” Vincent asked.
Sal shrugged. “Does the name matter?”
“Yes.”
“No one,” Dario said.
Sal turned his head.
It was only a glance, but it broke something.
Dario’s face changed as he realized what he had admitted.
Vincent said, “He was going to leave you in the fire.”
Dario raised the gun higher. “Shut up.”
“He sent you to the warehouse while he came for the ledger. He didn’t tell you Sophie had the card. He didn’t tell Harlan either.”
“Vincent,” Sal warned.
“He needs witnesses dead, Dario. That includes the men who took Elena.”
Dario looked at Sal. “You said the girl was handled.”
“She is.”
“No, she isn’t.”
Harlan said, “What the hell does that mean?”
The room shifted. Not physically, but in ownership. Sal no longer held every line.
Vincent spoke to Harlan. “The ledger names you.”
“Shut up.”
“Sal burns it and says you organized the routes. Dario disappears. You die in an electrical fire while trying to save restaurant workers.”
Harlan’s gun moved toward Sal.
Reed said, “Peter, lower it. Walk upstairs. You can still testify.”
Sal smiled faintly. “Against whom? Vincent? You think he walks away?”
“No,” Vincent said.
Everyone looked at him.
Vincent removed his jacket slowly.
Dario’s weapon tracked the movement.
He placed the jacket on the bottom stair.
“My companies moved the trucks,” Vincent said. “My accounts paid the shells. My name kept workers quiet. I’ll give Reed access to every server, every book, every property.”
Sal stared at him.
Reed did too.
“You won’t,” Sal said.
“I already gave her the card.”
“A copy.”
“The copy is enough to start.”
“Not without context.”
“I’ll provide it.”
The sirens grew louder.
Sal’s face altered for the first time that night. Not rage. Hurt.
“You would destroy everything.”
“It was already rotten.”
“You built it.”
“Yes.”
“For your father. For your brother. For every person who ate because we kept the neighborhoods ours.”
“We kept them afraid.”
“We kept worse men out.”
Vincent glanced at the ledger. “Worse men were inside.”
Sal’s jaw tightened.
For years Vincent had believed Sal’s greatest loyalty was to him. He saw now that Sal had been loyal to the system Vincent represented—the money, permission, silence, and authority. A man could love a throne while resenting the person sitting on it.
Sal opened the ledger and tore out several pages.
Reed moved.
Harlan fired.
The bullet struck the stone wall beside Reed, throwing dust across her coat. She dropped behind a wine rack and returned one shot. Harlan cried out and fell against the furnace pipe, clutching his shoulder.
Dario swung toward Reed.
Vincent drove into him.
The pistol discharged into the ceiling. Bottles shattered above them. Wine poured down in dark streams, mixing with dust and smoke.
Dario struck Vincent across the face with the gun. Vincent fell against the shelves. Pain flashed through his cheek and neck.
Dario aimed downward.
Sal shot him.
The bullet entered Dario’s back. He dropped to his knees, surprise emptying his face before he collapsed.
Sal turned the pistol toward Vincent.
“You always make me clean up,” he said.
Vincent’s own pistol lay upstairs, taken at the warehouse. Reed was pinned behind the rack. Harlan groaned near the furnace. Smoke thickened along the ceiling.
Sal held the ledger beneath one arm.
“Call off the police,” he said.
“No.”
“Tell them there are hostages and an armed detective. Tell them to wait.”
“No.”
Sal moved closer. “I can still reach the girl.”
“No, you can’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know you. You would have called already.”
Sal’s eyes narrowed.
“You need me afraid,” Vincent continued. “If she were in danger, you’d let me hear it.”
The barrel steadied inches from his chest.
“You think you understand me now?”
“No. I stopped needing to.”
Sal’s finger tightened.
A fire alarm exploded through the building.
The sound was mechanical, relentless, louder in the cellar than a gunshot. Red emergency lights began flashing above the stairs. The sprinkler pipes clanged.
Teresa’s uneven blue stitches flashed through Vincent’s mind. Sophie straightening his collar. Tony bleeding on the warehouse floor. Milo asking whom he was supposed to tell.
Vincent stepped toward the gun.
Sal hesitated.
It was less than a second.
Vincent caught his wrist with both hands and forced the barrel aside. The shot tore into a wine shelf. Sal drove a knee into Vincent’s stomach. They struck the wall, knocking loose the brick Elena had moved.
The ledger fell.
May you like
Pages scattered across the wet floor.
Sal was not as strong as Vincent, but he fought with the fury of a man watching his life become evidence. He clawed for the pistol, struck Vincent’s injured cheek, and reached toward Harlan’s fallen weapon.
