The Fixer's Weakness (The Family's Fixer #2)

CHAPTER 1 DOMINICS COUP BEGINS

Dominic Moretti waited under the dim flicker of a warehouse lamp, the air smelling of motor oil and damp concrete. He checked his watch—Sal Greco and Paul Rizzo were late. Not by much, but enough to make his jaw tighten. Punctuality was respect, and disrespect had consequences.

The side door creaked open. Sal stepped in first, his bulk blocking the light for a second before Paul slipped in behind him. Both men were dressed for discretion—dark coats, no flash, nothing that would draw attention if they were spotted.

"You got us hauling ass to the docks for this?" Sal muttered, brushing dust off his sleeve. "Coulda picked someplace with chairs."

Dominic didn’t smile. "Vincent’s got eyes in every restaurant in the city. You want this conversation in his ear by sunrise?"

Paul folded his arms. "Get to it, then. What’s so urgent it can’t wait for the next sit-down?"

Dominic reached into his coat and slid a photograph across the rusted worktable between them. Grainy, but unmistakable—Dario Vitale standing outside a black sedan, shaking hands with a man neither Greco nor Rizzo recognized. The timestamp in the corner was from three nights ago.

Sal squinted. "Who’s the suit?"

"Anton Kovac. Serbian outfit out of Brighton Beach." Dominic let that settle. "Dario cut a deal with them—no clearance, no oversight. Just him deciding who we do business with now."

Paul’s expression darkened. "Bullshit. He’d never go around Vincent like that."

"Except he did." Dominic tapped the photo. "And this isn’t the first time. He’s been moving pieces off the board for months. Payroll skims. Territory adjustments. All quiet, all without the family’s approval."

Sal exhaled through his nose. "You got proof of that?"

Dominic pulled a folded ledger sheet from his pocket. "Compare the numbers from last quarter’s collections to what actually hit the accounts. Short by eighteen percent. Guess who authorized the discrepancy?"

Paul snatched the paper, scanned it, then passed it to Sal. "Fuck."

"Exactly." Dominic leaned in, voice dropping. "This isn’t oversight. It’s strategy. Dario’s been consolidating power while we’re all too busy watching Vincent’s back to notice."

Sal rubbed his jaw. "So what’s the play? You want us to take this to Vincent?"

"not merely us." Dominic held his gaze. "All three of us. Together. Vincent needs to see this isn’t personal—it’s a threat to the whole organization. One man doesn’t get to rewrite the rules because he thinks he’s smarter than the table."

Paul hesitated. "Dario’s not some street-level punk. You go at him wrong, it won’t just be him you’re burying."

Dominic’s smile was thin. "Which is why we don’t go at him. We let Vincent see the pattern. Let him decide what happens next."

A beat of silence. Then Sal nodded. "Tomorrow. After the warehouse shipment’s cleared. Vincent’ll be in his office."

Dominic pocketed the photo. "Good. And gentlemen?" He waited until both men looked at him. "Not a word to anyone. Not your crews, not your wives. This stays between us until it’s done."

Paul’s mouth twitched. "Or what?"

Dominic didn’t blink. "Or the next ledger I show Vincent has your names in red."

The warehouse door groaned shut behind them, leaving the stink of oil and the weight of a decision that couldn’t be undone.

The engine of Vincent's black sedan purred like a sleeping predator as Dario slid into the passenger seat. The scent of leather and gun oil clung to the interior, familiar as his own reflection. Vincent's knuckles whitened around the steering wheel before he spoke.

"You misread the ledger."

Dario didn't react. The accusation hung between them, sharp as the knife in his boot.

Paul Rizzo's ledger entries weren't supposed to be cross-referenced. That was the rule—one account per transaction, no connections drawn unless Vincent ordered it. But the warehouse meeting had forced Dario's hand, and now the numbers bled where they shouldn't.

Vincent turned onto the expressway, the city lights blurring into streaks. "Dominic thinks you're building your own books."

A muscle twitched in Dario's jaw. Dominic Moretti's paranoia was a useful tool until it wasn't. "I followed protocol."

"Bullshit." Vincent's voice stayed low, lethal. "You moved Rizzo's debt from the construction account to the import logs. Why?"

Because the construction crews were skimming. Because the import taxes gave him three extra weeks to recover the missing cash. Because the rules of this world had a give he'd exploited for years—until tonight.

The dashboard clock ticked past midnight. Dario watched the highway markers whip by. "You wanted the warehouse deal clean. It is."

Vincent exhaled through his nose. "Clean isn't the point. The point is I shouldn't be finding out from my brother that my consigliere's rewriting the math."

A truck roared past, rattling the windows. Dario calculated the angles: deny and look guilty, explain and sound defensive. He chose silence.

Vincent's thumb tapped the wheel. "You know what happens to guys who keep two sets of books."

A threat wrapped in a reminder. Dario turned his head, meeting Vincent's profile in the dim glow of the dash. "You getting nervous, boss?"

The car slowed abruptly, tires screeching as Vincent pulled onto the shoulder. He killed the engine. The sudden quiet pressed against Dario's eardrums.

Vincent faced him fully now, the streetlight carving shadows under his eyes. "That ledger's the only reason you're still breathing. You think I don't know about the Crane girl?"

Evelyn.

Dario kept his breathing even. The oversight was his own—he'd assumed Vincent hadn't connected the disappearances near Evelyn's apartment to Dario's movements. A costly misread.

Vincent leaned closer, the whiskey on his breath sharp. "You're gonna fix Rizzo's numbers by Friday. Then you're gonna tell me why my consigliere's babysitting a reporter who's digging into our ports."

Not a request. A verdict.

Dario held Vincent's gaze, the weight of the unspoken truth between them—that they both understood this wasn't about ledgers anymore. It was about how much autonomy Vincent would tolerate before he reclaimed it.

The engine roared back to life. Vincent merged into traffic without another word, the city swallowing them whole.

Dario watched the exit signs blur past. Friday was three days away. Enough time to bury the trail, or dig it deeper.

The neon glow of a 24-hour diner flickered through the windshield as they idled at a red light.

A couple argued near the entrance, their voices swallowed by the hum of the city.

Dario flexed his fingers against his thigh, the ghost of Evelyn’s last text still burning in his pocket: They’re watching the docks.

Vincent drummed his fingers on the wheel, the rhythm uneven. "You ever hear of the Kettleman job?"

Dario frowned. "Before my time."

"Ninety-two. My old man let a crew skim off a shipment—small cuts, nothing noticeable. Figured he’d let ‘em get comfortable before reeling ‘em in." Vincent’s voice was casual, but the set of his shoulders was rigid. "Turns out, they’d been skimming for months. not merely cash. Intel. Ledgers."

The light turned green. Vincent didn’t move.

"Point is," he continued, "you don’t fix a leak by patching one hole. You rip out the whole damn pipe."

A horn blared behind them. Vincent accelerated smoothly, but the message was clear: this wasn’t just about Rizzo’s debt. It was about trust. And Dario had misjudged how much of it he’d already spent.

Evelyn’s face flashed in his mind—her stubborn chin, the way she’d glared when he’d told her to drop the port story. He’d assumed Vincent’s blindness was a given, a rule of the game: keep the books tidy, and the personal stakes wouldn’t matter.

But Vincent had known about her all along.

Dario exhaled slowly. The real rule wasn’t about ledgers. It was about control—absolute, unflinching. And he’d just learned the hard way where the lines were drawn.

Dominic Moretti leaned back in his chair, the leather creaking under his weight as he tapped a key to pause the footage.

The screen froze on Dario Vitale’s back, his tailored coat unmistakable even from the grainy security feed.

The timestamp in the corner marked it as two nights ago—hours before Evelyn Crane’s safehouse had gone dark.

"Play it again," Dominic said.

Paul Rizzo, hunched over the monitor beside him, obeyed without comment. The footage rewound, then resumed: Dario stepping out of a black sedan, scanning the street before approaching the brownstone’s front door. No hesitation. No backup. Just the consigliere walking in like he owned the place.

Dominic’s jaw tightened. "He didn’t even bother with a disguise."

"Wouldn’t matter if he did," Paul muttered. "We’ve got his gait, his posture. That’s him."

The footage showed Dario knocking—three sharp raps, a pause, then two more.

A code. The door opened just enough to reveal Evelyn’s face, her expression unreadable before she stepped aside to let him in.

The door shut. The feed cut to the next camera angle: a dim hallway, then the living room.

Evelyn crossing her arms as Dario spoke, his hands moving in that precise, controlled way of his. Arguing.

Dominic leaned forward. "No audio?"

"Place was swept clean. No bugs, no wires. Just the visuals."

On screen, Dario reached into his coat. Evelyn flinched—just slightly, but enough to make Dominic’s fingers twitch toward his own weapon. But Dario only pulled out a folded document, holding it out to her. She didn’t take it.

Then the feed glitched. Static fuzzed the screen for three seconds before clearing. When the image stabilized, Evelyn was holding the document, her lips pressed into a thin line. Dario was already turning to leave.

Dominic exhaled through his nose. "What was that?"

"Interference. Could be a jammer, could be the feed’s shit. Happens sometimes."

Bullshit. Dominic knew interference. That was a deliberate cut. He made a mental note to have Paul’s equipment—and Paul’s loyalty—checked.

"Run it back to the glitch," he ordered.