Chapter 39
GAbrIEL
Amanda arrives seven minutes after the shooting, five minutes after my text.
She comes around the corner on foot, heels clicking fast on the pavement, black overcoat flapping open, phone pressed to her ear.
“Gabriel—” She stops short when she sees the blood on my shirt.
We’re at the corner of 52nd and Lexington, a block down from the shooting. Down the road, I spot more NYPD squad cars arriving.
“Jesus,” she says, her gaze lingering on the bloodstain on my shirt. “Are you—”
“Fine.”
“But Max…”
She glances down the street toward Max’s body lying on the pavement, thankfully now covered.
Detectives are taking notes while other cops are cordoning off the area, taking pictures, and tracking down witness statements.
EMTs prepare to lift Max into an ambulance and take him to the coroner’s office.
“Christ,” she says, shaking her head. “What a goddamn mess.”
“You don’t know the half of it.” My driver pulls up next to us. “Now come on before the police spot us and want to ask questions.”
Amanda doesn’t argue. My driver steps out and opens the door for her. She slides into the back seat, and I quickly follow, my driver pulling away, just as another patrol car rounds the corner, lights flashing.
My head pounds as I try to make sense of what the hell just happened.
“Talk to me,” Amanda says. “One second you’re on your way to a meeting with Max Federov, the next he’s lying dead on the ground. How?”
“Drive-by. Two shooters in a black SUV. No plates. Professionals. They came around the corner from Park, hit Max, then adjusted toward me. I took both of them down.”
“Both.”
“The shooter and the driver.”
“So much for an interrogation.” She’s quiet for a moment. “Kolya?”
“Who else? The timing was too precise. Max and I had been in that restaurant for ninety minutes. Someone told Kolya exactly where we’d be and when we’d be walking out.”
“There are very few people who knew about this meeting,” she says.
“I’m aware.”
“And that means you either have a mole, or he’s got you under twenty-four-seven surveillance. Neither of which is good.”
Rage pounds through me.
“God, this is a nightmare,” she says, shaking her head. “Max was supposed to be on our side in this fight.”
“That was the plan. We made arrangements for him to see Thea this evening.”
I clench my hand into a tight fist, hold it for a few seconds, then let it go.
“He was committing to war, he had old-guard Fetisov loyalists standing behind him. He’d been consolidating for nearly two decades, waiting to strike, only for Kolya to take him out like that.”
“All that and now he’s dead,” she says.
The coldness of her tone catches me off guard. She’s right, but there’s something clinical and efficient about the way she says it that doesn’t sit the way it should. Not a moment’s pause or remorse for the man who just died.
Then again, that’s how I’m reacting, too.
“Kolya wanted to stop the alliance before it formed,” I tell her. “That’s the play. Kill Max, scatter his people, and send a message that anyone who sides with me ends up dead on a sidewalk in Midtown. Or worse.”
“And it worked.”
“We don’t know that yet. Max is dead, but his people are still out there. The Fetisov loyalists are in it for revenge and justice. They’re not going to vanish because Max is gone. They’ve been waiting twenty years for permission to fight. Now they’ve got it.”
Amanda crosses her legs and adjusts her coat. “That’s a nice speech. But I worry your lieutenants aren’t going to see it that way.”
I give her a hard look.
“Russo called me an hour ago,” she says.
“Before any of this happened. He’s concerned, Gabe.
And he’s not the only one. Bianchi, Costello, half the captains…
they’re watching you pour Camorra resources into protecting this woman—who most of them have never met—while picking a fight with the Bratva that most of them don’t want.
And now a goddamn pakhan was assassinated in broad daylight three feet from you. ”
“Russo’s a worrier. It’s his goddamn defining characteristic.”
“But he’s right to be worried.” She leans forward.
“Gabriel, I need you to hear this. I’m speaking as your counsel, nothing else.
Your position is more fragile than you might think.
The Camorra follows strength. And right now, half your people are wondering if you’re leading them into a war they can’t win over a girl they don’t understand. ”
A girl they don’t understand.
There it is. She didn’t call her Thea or even the Fetisov heir. Not even “your woman.” A girl—dismissive and reductive. It reminds me of the way she talked to Thea when she first met her at the mansion, when I walked in on Amanda tearing into her and was forced to put a stop to it.
I say nothing. There are no words that can be useful in that moment.
Amada sighs, sensing she’s crossed a line.
“Listen, I’m not saying you need to give her up or anything along those lines.”
“Then what are you saying? Because as far as I can tell, this goes one of two ways: Kolya gets what he wants, or he doesn’t.”
She pauses before speaking again. “I’m saying, consider a cost-benefit analysis.
If you can’t hold your own organization together, you can’t protect her.
And if Kolya is willing to gun down a pakhan in Midtown Manhattan to prevent this alliance, what do you think he’ll do next?
He’ll come for you at the mansion. He’ll come for your people. He’ll come for her.”
“I know what he’ll do. And that’s why we have to stop him—now.”
“Then act like the leader of an organization, and not like a goddamn Rambo. You’re not a sole operator here. Shore up your captains. Reassure Russo and Bianchi. Give them something concrete to go on.”
“But that will take time. I need my men to do their jobs now. Kolya’s going to take advantage of what he’s just done.”
“But you can’t rush into things. Give it a day or two, at least. Then when you make your move and do it with full force.”
She’s not wrong. And that’s what worries me.
Amanda Reed is brilliant. She’s been with the family for decades. She knows the organization’s pressure points better than anyone, except me. And she’s telling me exactly what I need to hear at the moment I need to hear it.
That’s loyalty.
Or positioning.
The words come into my mind unbidden. I want to push them away, but they linger all the same. Could she have an angle? If so, what would it be?
I watch Amanda as she pulls out her phone and starts texting. She’s efficient and composed, showing no signs that, not twenty minutes ago, she was at the scene of a triple homicide.
She’s always been like this, always been good at her job. She’s unflappable to a fault.
It’s what made me end things between her and me. There’s a difference between composure and coldness, and she lives right on the line between the two.
“Who knew about the meeting?” she asks, not looking up from her phone.
“Myself. Max. Alexei.” I nod toward the driver, the partition up. “Dante. And you.”
Her thumbs stop moving. She looks up.
“What?” I ask.
“You’re not suggesting—”
“I’m not suggesting anything. I’m stating facts.”
“I just found out about Fedorov,” she says. “You told me yourself.”
“I did.”
“So if there’s a leak, the window is twenty-four hours. That’s not enough time to—”
“It’s plenty of time. One phone call. One text. That’s all it would take.”
Her jaw tightens. “I’ve given you ten years of my life, Gabriel. Ten years of keeping your secrets, cleaning up your messes, and protecting this family in ways that would get me disbarred if anyone ever found out. And now you’re asking me if I sold you out to goddamn Kolya Sokolov?”
I say nothing at first. She makes a good case—that is her job, after all. I don’t want to believe that she would do such a thing, but the message my gut sends is clear.
Don’t trust her.
All the same, an accusation with nothing backing it wouldn’t accomplish much.
“I’m running on adrenaline here.”
She narrows her eyes a bit, giving my words consideration.
“It was a hell of a thing that happened. Makes sense you’d want to get to the bottom of it ASAP. Water under the bridge.”
“Good. Anyway, I want you to focus on finding the leak—pull phone records, financials, security cameras. Someone knew; someone told Kolya.”
“You want my opinion?”
“That’s what I pay you for.”
“Alexei. Comes out of the woodwork, sets this whole thing up. You said he has no interest in running the show, in taking over the Fetisov holdings, right?”
“According to him, at least.”
“Well, I call bullshit. Think about it. He pulls Max out of hiding, then puts him in a position where he can take both of you out while Thea’s completely defenseless. She’d be easy pickings. He could strongarm her into supporting his claim or—”
She doesn’t need to finish the sentence. It’s a strong case. Alexei coming into this all of a sudden is a little convenient.
“Could very well be the case. But either way, the next move is to get back home and speak to Thea. I have a damn good feeling that whatever’s going to happen, it’s all going to come to a head soon.”
Amanda nods. “Finally. For once during this conversation, we’re in agreement.”
I turn my attention to the passing city.
Max Federov is dead. His coalition is temporarily leaderless. My own captains are restless. Kolya has not only accomplished a major goal, but he’s sent me a clear message about how far he’s willing to go.
And somewhere in my inner circle, someone is feeding information to the enemy.
According to Max, the old-guard loyalists aren’t just scattered survivors waiting for a leader. They’re organized. Max spent years building that network. And that doesn’t die with one man.
Not to mention that the other Bratva leaders will put two and two together with regard to Max’s death. A pakhan murdered in broad daylight in Manhattan? Such things will not stand.
I’m in a fragile position; Amanda is right about that. But so is Kolya. What he just pulled will pit every other pakhan against him. He’s hoping to go to war with the entire goddamn city and win.
I watch Amanda out of the corner of my eye, typing with those quick, precise fingers.
I say nothing. But I’m watching.