Chapter 15
RAFFAELE
The office is too quiet with her out of it. My cabinet is still marked. My tie is still loose at the knot. The folder Marcy slid under the door is sitting at my shoe like a dog waiting to be noticed.
Focus.
I drop into the chair and thumb it open on the desk.
The header hits me before I’ve registered the rest of the page.
CONTI, NICO—Associates
Three arrests. Late last night, in one of those half-empty industrial pockets east of the river.
Drug charges. Weapons possession. Two of the three names I recognize immediately; the third is younger, a kid who was probably along for the ride.
I flip the pages and skim. Quantities. Vehicle searches.
A traffic stop that turned into a car search that turned into an arrest for reasons that don’t quite hold up to a second read.
I go back to the top. Read it again more slowly.
None of this is the way Nico’s people get caught.
I’ve spent a decade drilling a protocol into that side of the operation so airtight it borders on paranoid.
They don’t carry weight on the same trip as a piece.
They don’t stop for cops. They don’t talk in cars.
The three men in this file did all three of those things in a single night.
The traffic stop is in Conti territory. Which means the officer is on the list. Which means the officer knew exactly who he was stopping and chose to stop him anyway, which means either the stop itself was sanctioned or the officer is suddenly an idiot—which he isn’t.
Sanctioned by whom?
I already know.
Three men, all Nico’s, caught in a way that requires the feds to notice if they so much as glance at the paperwork.
A file that lands on my desk, marked urgent, on a Thursday night, which puts it on my plate tomorrow.
Then I spend the next forty-eight hours pulling strings instead of moving Antonio’s witnesses around.
Subsequently, the Martinez arraignment gets handled half-assed, or doesn’t get handled at all, and Antonio screams to Vincenzo, causing the whole week to collapse into a mess I have to personally dig out of.
This isn’t an accident. This is a tantrum with paperwork.
Petty little shit.
I know exactly what Nico is doing. He’s still stinging from the gala.
From the silence afterward. From the fact that I hung up on him and then went home with her.
This is his version of a reply—throwing a handful of his own people into the system because he knows I’ll have to catch every one of them, because he knows the brain of the famiglia doesn’t get to choose what to clean up.
It’s the adult version of a kid knocking over his own blocks to make someone else pick them up.
I close the folder.
I should probably call Vincenzo. Flag it. Let the old man handle his son the way he’s been handling him for thirty-something years. A short call. Ten minutes. I’ve made that call a hundred times.
I drop the folder on the desk.
And I pick up my coat.
The elevator takes me down through a building that’s mostly dark now, the cleaning crew a couple of floors below, the hum of the HVAC the only thing filling the corridors.
The parking garage is empty except for my car and two others.
I slide into the driver’s seat and sit with my hands on the wheel for a second before I turn the key.
The engine wakes up quietly. I pull out.
I tell myself I’m going home.
The city goes past the window in long ribbons of taillights. My hands make the turns out of muscle memory while my head runs the Nico file backward—who sanctioned the stop, which judge it will land in front of, which of his associates will flip fastest if the prosecutor is any good.
Then I take a left.
Home is right.
Where are you going?
I don’t answer the question. I drive.
The blocks get older. The buildings get shorter.
The streetlights are the sodium kind that turn everything the wrong color.
I turn off the main road and into a grid of five- and six-story walk-ups, and I don’t check the GPS because I don’t need to.
I read the page in her file. Once. That was enough.
Fourth floor. Corner unit. Fire escape on the east wall of the building. One front door, no doorman, no camera on the lobby. Back alley narrow enough that a man has to turn sideways to make it past the dumpster.
I memorized all of that the day Lorenzo handed me the file.
In case, I told myself then. Might come in handy.
In case of what?
I pull over three buildings down on the opposite side of the street. Kill the engine. Kill the headlights. Slide down a little in the seat, not enough to look like I’m hiding, but enough that the streetlight over the cross street doesn’t catch my face.
The block is quiet. A bodega sits on the corner with its shutter half-down.
A couple of kids are hanging out across the way, hoods up, not doing anything.
A window on the third floor of the building next to hers glows blue from a television.
Somewhere down the street, a dog is trying to get someone’s attention.
Her apartment is dark.
She’s still en route, then. Traffic coming out of the financial district at this hour is a nightmare; the cab would have taken the bridge and come around.
I don’t know why I’m here.
That’s a lie. I know why I’m here. I’m here because I put her in a cab half an hour ago with Nico’s men somewhere in this city, and because a file just landed on my desk that says Nico is actively creating problems for me, and because her apartment has no doorman.
Because the last time Nico sent men for her I wasn’t there until the last ten seconds before she got hurt.
I’m here because my apartment, not yours was the wrong answer and I didn’t push.
So, I’m pushing now. Quietly. From across the street. Like a lunatic.
A cab glides up the street and eases to a stop in front of her building, brake lights bleeding red across the rain-dark pavement. The back door swings open and she steps out. I find myself watching her differently than I ever have.
She looks worn down. She says something to the driver—probably thanks, because she would—and lingers on the curb until the cab pulls off so she doesn’t have to step into the street.
Then she glances over her shoulder. Not at me, not at anything in particular. Just a quick sweep. No class teaches that. Life does, and the lesson was recent. Yeah—that lands on me.
She heads inside. Fumbles with her keys for a second, then gets it and slips in. Through the vestibule glass, I catch her shadow moving. A light flicks on upstairs. Fourth floor, corner unit. It’s warm, soft lamp light—not the harsh overhead kind. I can see the edge of a curtain, but not her.
She’s home.
Time to go.
I reach for the ignition—but movement flickers in my peripheral vision just before my brain catches up. Two cars back from where the cab stopped, there’s a sedan I didn’t bother clocking earlier. Dark. Not empty.
The driver’s door opens slowly. A man steps out.
Heavy jacket for the weather. Cap pulled low, doing exactly what it’s meant to do—hide more than it shows. He doesn’t shut the door all the way, just nudges it, leaving it barely latched, hand resting there a second too long.
He looks up at her window.
Then he scans the street. The same move she just made—but his reasons aren’t hers.
He doesn’t see me. He’s not looking for someone sitting in a vehicle. He’s looking for movement on the sidewalk.
He crosses the street toward her building.
My hand slips off the ignition. Drops to my side. Slides under my jacket. Finds the grip.
The Glock’s warm from being pressed against my ribs all day. I don’t pull it out, just hold it there.
He reaches her door without looking up again—which says enough. He already knows where she is.
He pauses in the alcove, half-hidden. His shoulder shifts—the subtle motion of someone testing a handle. The door doesn’t give.
He tries again. Slower and more patient. Like he’s done this before.
And like he’s not in any rush.
Fuck this.
My body’s done waiting.
The car door opens.
I’m on the sidewalk before I remember deciding to stand.