Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Gio
I’d been pouring over the profiles of everyone connected with Empire Ballet, and our crew, trying to find the mole. I knew we were missing something, but no matter how many times I sorted through the hundreds of dossiers, none of them offered the link I was looking for.
Pieces of information and names that rang a bell sifted through my mind. Papa had known she would come back one day, but how? Had it been his years of experience speaking, or did he know something else?
How had a punk kid with no parents Kelly rise to be the cream of the steaming pile of dung known as the éannas? How had someone been able to navigate the home of Empire Ballet without ever being seen? Simon had gone over their limited security footage and found nothing, but also said it hadn’t been tampered with. How was that possible?
The click of the door closing grabbed my attention.
“Find anything yet?” Antonio asked as his eyes glanced over the files spread across the table.
I let out a frustrated sigh. “No.”
“Mind if I take a look?”
“By all means.”
I closed my eyes and leaned back in my chair. I was tired, beyond tired, running on coffee and energy drinks for the past week. Marko and I had been busier than usual between the clubs, the theater and our nightly extracurriculars with Niki.
We hadn’t had time to discuss our reunion with Niki beyond our first night at the Vitale household, but each kiss was a promise of more, and while more was the only thing on my mind, I needed to deal with the now.
“Can I see the footage from Empire?”
I opened my eyes, peering at Tony. “Trust me, there’s nothing there.”
“So you say, but I have a hunch. Let me see.”
I pulled up the footage on the big screen and handed him the remote.
He watched for a bit and then froze the screen. “Ha! I knew it!”
I sat up straight. “I don’t see anything. What are you looking at?”
He expanded the image. “Do you see that formation?”
I narrowed my eyes. “Yeah, it’s a return air vent.”
“No, it's not, but that’s what you’re supposed to believe. You see, Empire Ballet resides within an old building in Manhattan that was originally a small garment factory in the early 1900’s. You can see there are many doors in the place. That’s because in the basement they had a prohibition-era speakeasy. What you're seeing is the old air shafts for the tunnels, not return air vents, which obviously weren't invented yet. Because technically the theater has been a landmark since the 1940s, structural renovations were limited. I bet that is how your bad guy managed to move about the place without ever being detected. Even a kid could figure out the blank spots of the security cameras limited scope.”
I looked at my twin brother from another mother, impressed. “How the hell do you know all that?”
Antonio suddenly looked a little pink in the cheeks. “I like history, no big deal.”
“But it is.” I rose to my feet. “You're a genius!” A disturbing thought stopped me from ringing Romeo. “Antonio, the I-Rock, does it have anything similar?”
His eyes widened. “Oh shit!”
Looking at the time, I phoned Amergio, my cousin and Niki’s driver. He didn’t pick up. Cold prickles raced up my spine. My phone rang shrilly. The caller ID showed me it was Bruno, so I answered.
“Niki is gone, boss.”
His greeting made my blood run cold. “What do you mean gone?” I yelled into the receiver.
Tony grabbed the phone from me as Simo and Romeo entered the war room.
“What’s going on?” Romeo asked.
I didn't want to answer, I wanted to take off for the theater and find Nicolette.
Tony hung up and handed me back my phone.
“Apparently Remo was standing guard outside her room. After a few minutes, he knocked and she never answered, so he kicked in the door to find her makeup table pulled away from the wall revealing a tunnel, and Niki missing. Bruno and Remo have the place on lockdown so we can go and question everyone. Someone had to know that tunnel was there.”
“And our cousin, Amergio?” I had to ask.
“Also missing. But don’t jump the gun thinking he’s our snitch. The kid loved Niki and there is no way he’d let her come to harm if he could help it.”
“I gotta go and find her.”
“Not yet, little brother. Simo also has news that may help us find out where Niki has gone.”
I wanted to fight him, to get to Niki as fast as I could and by whatever means necessary, but I also knew the more information I had the better. “Fine, but I need to let Marko know. Give me a moment.”
A quick call to Marko brought him up to speed. I asked that he keep everyone there but wait to start the interrogation of the cast and crew at I-rock until I arrived. I hung up the call and entered the war room, ready to learn whatever I needed to find Niki.
“What did you find out, Simo?” I was beyond proper protocols in this room and as it was just the four of us, didn’t give a shit about the hierarchy bullshit.
“You won’t like it,” he warned. “But here is what I learned.”
Simon entered the room and brought the big screen to life. Simo walked us through the board members. “This woman here is Natalia Makarova. She’s been a New Yorker for the past forty years, but she doesn’t spend a lot of time there. Instead, she travels back and forth between the eastern U.S. and Russia.”
The hair rose on the back of my neck. “I thought we’d confirmed this is an Irish issue, not a Russian one.”
“It gets worse, brother. Makarova and Sergei Diaghilev are siblings.”
“And? I fail to see how this relates to Niki, who I need to find and rescue, by the way.”
I made a move to stand, but Tano's hand shot out and gripped my wrist to stop me. Ever the brilliant detective, he saw what I couldn’t.
“You believe it’s an inside job between the two for the Russian mafia?” Tano asked.
“Yes, and the Irish,” Simo answered solemnly.
I had no more fucks to give with this. “Get to the goddamn point, Simo. I gotta go.”
“Makarova and Diaghilev are not their real names,” Simon interrupted. “They are both Knyazev.”
Why did that name sound so familiar?
Beside me, Gaetano froze. “No, it can’t be.”
He seemed to know what they were talking about, but I was still scrambling and blaming the elusiveness of discovering the names importance on a lack of sleep.
“They are the aunt and uncle of one Ivan Knyazev, the Russian mob leader who kidnapped Gaby.”
“But he’s dead!” I shouted, trying to get to my feet but feeling like the floor had just tipped on its axis. I fell back down into the soft leather.
“He is,” Simon confirmed, adding, “but his son has taken his place. We think he was approached by Liam Kelly with a deal. Make him king and he would give them our shipping lanes once we were out of the way.”
Was it just me or was this a giant nest of conspiracy theories? “What proof do we have of any of this?”
Simon pulled up a photo of Sergei with his sister Natalia Makarova and another man who was the spitting image of Ivan Knyazev shaking hands in front of a restaurant.
“The son, I assume. How did you get your hands on that?”
Simon grinned. “I broke into the street cams and did a facial recognition scan. Look what else I found.” Another grainy black-and-white photo popped up on the screen. This one was a woman I’d seen a lot of in the past few weeks. Hetty, the newest principal dancer at Empire Ballet with none other than Liam Kelly and the young Knyazev.
“How the fuck did we miss this? Who is she really?”
“That's what I came in here to tell you. She’s Liam’s sister. There were zero records of her existence as Hetty Kelly. They covered their tracks extremely well. The only reason I know is because I accessed the data banks at the hospitals until I found a record of her birth. I guess when Liam’s parents were killed by the O’Connors he changed the last names of his two sisters and fostered them out.”
Simon continued, “My guess is he’s been in bed with the Russians since day one and used his connections with them to rise through the éanna organization. He even married Hetty to Pieter Knyazev. He’s probably been providing the Russians with insider information on his clan, the O’Connors and us for years.”
This was way bigger than anyone could have envisioned. But everything Simon said rang true in my gut. Where would Liam take Niki?
“We need to gather our forces and make a plan," Romeo said.
“We do, but I must get to the studio. Simon, break into the street cams in Hell’s Kitchen and see if you can find where they took Niki. I have a feeling he’ll want to perpetuate that he took her for personal revenge. If that’s the case, he’ll take her to where it all began, her old neighborhood.”
“I agree with Gio.” Romeo tapped his fingers on the desk surface. “We’ll muster our forces here. Simo, you go with Gio to the theater and see if you can get Hetty to talk. She won’t know we know, so let’s use that to our advantage.”
Simo nodded his head and we left for I-Rock with our personal bodyguards. It was weird being in the back seat with Massimo. First off, he was a huge guy, and secondly, I couldn’t remember a time when we were alone together. He was born Di Mauro, the eldest of his three brothers, but he’d been a Vitale since he was a kid. Even before that, he’d been Romeo’s shadow.
It was probably a bad time to realize I’d been detached from life since Niki had left. An emotionally distant jerk who’d pretty much ignored my family, but all that touchy-feely crap I’d pushed away could wait. If God, or whoever watched over our familia , got me back my Niki, I vowed to be a better brother, a better everything.
“Don’t worry bro, we’ll get her back.”
It was a simple sentence, but held enough power to swing me in the direction of believing him. Simo didn’t say much, but when he did, he always meant it, and he was usually right. I really hoped this was one of those times.
We arrived at the theater and saw the dancers and staff sprawled in various positions on the stage. My eyes scanned for Hetty Knyazev. Our gazes locked for the briefest of moments before I donned a disinterested look and allowed my gaze to roam the rest of the group.
Sergei was scrubbing his scalp, which I’d seen him do at least a dozen times but never thought for a moment it was because he was nervous. Apparently, I’d missed a key to the mystery, because when he saw me coming his eyes rounded with fear for the briefest of moments before shifting back to his modus operandi— arrogance. This time the old man didn’t fool me. He used his arrogance like I used my feigned disinterest.
Simo took the stage, his long legs covering it in several intimidating strides.
“We are here to discuss the disappearance of Niki Swan. I want answers. Who was the last person she spoke with?”
Marko joined me in the second row of seats.
I leaned sideways toward him, and spoke in a low whisper. “I need you to not react as I explain what is going on. There are traitors here that need to believe we are clueless. Smile and nod.” I caught Marko up on everything I’d learned.
“Is it wrong to want to kill that bitch?” I thought he meant Hetty or perhaps Natalia. Either way, I felt the same about both of them. Hetty had been groomed since the beginning and probably didn’t know the truth about what her eldest brother was up to. He’d sent her to New York to be fostered by a boring, ordinary, middle-upper-class couple of his choosing, with specific instruction made sure to put her in ballet classes from the time she was five years old and ensured she joined Empire Ballet when he was ready to execute his plan.
She would have known of the tunnels at Empire and either left the offending notes for Niki or let in the person who did. She was a participant, there was no doubt of that, but did she even know what she was doing?
Natalia, on the other hand, was undoubtedly a cold bitch. She was the elder of the two and I had no doubt she’d orchestrated what Sergei became, even if it was all a lie. He was no more related to the Russian creator Diaghilev than I was.
A young corp member raised her hand. Her eyes should have been hearts the way she took in Simo. The scary enforcer turned on his charm for the young ballerina who couldn’t have been more than eighteen years old.
He stalked over to her and took her hand, drawing her to her feet and caging her in his presence. It was hard to remain passively stoic when a Vitale turned on the charm. Her jaw dropped, her mouth forming a perfect ‘O’ before she drew in a shuddering breath.
“Jesus, talk about a performance,” Marko muttered beside me.
I chuckled quietly. “Maybe there should be a ballet about the Vitales.”
Marko, despite the harshness of our current circumstances, couldn’t hold back his smile.
“Niki was talking with Hetty, and I overheard her say they should trick the big guy and grab a coffee,” the terrified ballerina confessed.
All eyes turned to Hetty. At that moment, she seemed to make up her mind. She stood and ran toward the backstage, darting under the curtain and out of sight.
Marko texted the guards. We have a runner.
Less than a minute later, Hetty was dragged back in and placed back on her chair. When I looked to see how Sergei took the news of his partner in crime being caught red- handed, he was gone.
“Let’s go and find him. This charade is over.”
We moved to the stage, yet searching brought no answers as to how he had disappeared. Then the curtain to the right of the stage just behind where he’d been sitting, moved. “There.” I pointed.
Marko felt along the wall until a panel in the wood depressed and a door swung open to a dark hallway.
“How the hell did we not know this was here?”
“A problem for later.” Marko took off running down the dank tunnel, his gun already out in front of him. I pulled mine as I trailed behind him, and my bodyguard, Sandro brought up the rear. We heard a door slam ahead of us and Marko sped up, flinging it open and letting in light from outside.
“Gotcha!” He snagged Sergei by his collar.
I was about to join him when a beam of light from our left caught my attention. The sun glinted off the metal of a gun protruding through a window of a car speeding toward Marko and Sergei. I grabbed him by the collar and yanked as hard as I could, pulling Marko into the tunnel. He lost his grip on Sergei as he stumbled backward and seconds later, gunfire rang out and then the squealing of tires followed.
Sandro moved in front of us and peeked out the crack in the door. “Sergei is dead,” he announced, pushing the door all the way open. “Bad guys are gone.”
“Fuck!” I stomped back up the tunnel. With any luck, Simo had dragged the information we needed from Hetty. But it turned out we didn’t need her. Romeo called to say they knew where Niki was. Best fucking news I’d heard all day.