Chapter 10 #2
“You know me to speak freely. Me and you don’t have time for bullshit.”
He sat back, gaze never leaving mine. “I assume you didn’t come here to talk about just a bike. You said your man fled when he found what was inside of it. Was it heroin? Guns? You’ve moved these before. What could be so dangerous? Information? Receipts?”
“Not receipts,” I said. “A blueprint.”
I flicked my eyes toward Vladimir involuntarily. Roman saw it.
Roman’s stare sharpened. “Vespiano,” he called.
The Shark appeared from a side door I hadn’t seen open, a fresh cigar between his fingers. Of course he was already upstairs. He probably knew every knife and gun slot on this floor.
“Yeah, boss?”
“Cigars,” Roman said. He turned to me. “Let’s take a walk.”
He didn’t wait for a yes. He just rose and headed toward the balcony doors. I stood and followed.
Behind glass, the city looked almost clean. Noise dulled. Cars looked like toys. The ocean was a flat stretch of steel under a pale sky.
Roman pushed the door open and stepped out. The air outside carried the distant hum of traffic and the faint salt of the water. Vespiano handed him a cigar, then held the box out to me.
I took one. Vespiano lit both, then went back inside, closing the door enough that the noise inside became a murmur.
Roman took a long drag. Exhaled slow, smoke curling around his head.
“So,” he said. “Tell me why you’re suspiciously eyefucking the shit out of my consigliere, Alice. This isn’t like you to hold back or watch your tongue.”
I laughed once. It came out rough.
“You always were blunt,” I said.
“Blunt keeps people alive,” he said. “Pretty words get them buried. So. Vladimir. What about him makes you nervous?”
I watched the ember at the end of my cigar glow and fade.
“We found a ledger,” I said. “Came out of that bike. Leather. Old. Filled with neat handwriting and typed inserts. All Vincino businesses. Their fronts. Their shell companies. Their judges, cops, brokers and politicians. Who they pay. Who owes them.”
“That’s already a problem,” Roman said.
“Yeah,” I said. “But that’s not the part that makes my skin crawl.
The ledger doesn’t just stop with what they have.
It starts mapping what they want. There are sections on Giorlando assets.
Casinos. Unions. Dock supervisors. Names flagged as ‘pressure points’ or ‘flip if possible’ or ‘remove quietly.’ It’s essentially a playbook on how to peel pieces off your empire without collapsing the whole thing. ”
His hand tightened slightly on the cigar. Ash fell and the wind took it.
“And?” he asked.
“And in the sections where they talk about bridging deals between the Russian Syndicate and the Bolivar Cartel, between those and other families, there’s repeated mention of ‘The Russian,’” I said.
“No name. Just a title. Not a street-level hitter. Someone high enough to be a bridge. High enough to be a liability if he picks a side too late.”
He didn’t move. He didn’t blink.
“Plenty of Russians in our world, Alice,” Roman said eventually. “It’s a versatile nationality.”
“Yeah,” I said. “But not many of them sit in rooms like this as consigliere to men like you. And fewer still drink your liquor after someone used your dock to move a bike with a ledger that keeps calling ‘The Russian’ a pivot point. A bridge between enemies.”
His gaze cut sideways to the glass. Inside, Vladimir was laughing at something Mirage had said, teeth bright, glass in hand. Valentino hovered a few steps away, eyes never fully leaving us.
“Salvatore was at the docks when the bike was moved,” I said.
“He talked about a big, anonymous buyer for it. No name. Just a six-figure price tag. There’s someone with money who wanted that ledger badly enough to move it through your pier instead of their own.
That means they either thought you were on board, or they thought your house had a leak they could use. ”
Roman put his free hand on the railing. Knuckles whitened.
“You think it’s Vladimir?” he asked quietly. “You honestly think my consigliere is selling me?”
“I think his title matches lines in a book he shouldn’t be anywhere near,” I said.
“I think the Vincinos aren’t usually stupid enough to write down everything that can kill them without multiple failsafes, which that ledger has.
And I think if they keep circling the same ‘Russian’ as both asset and risk, you’d be stupid not to ask yourself what happens if he decides he wants his own slice instead of just a chair at your table. ”
Roman studied me.
“And Salvatore?” he said. “You think he’s involved somehow?”
I sighed.
“Ambitious sons have toppled more than one empire,” I said.
“If some kid wanted to fast-track himself to Don by bringing Vincino leverage to the table, being a kingmaker, introducing ‘friends’… it wouldn’t be the first time a family got gut-shot from the inside.
I don’t know for a fact if it’s him. I don’t even know for certain if it’s Vladimir.
I don’t know if I’m looking at the actual rat or a man the rat is just using as a mask. ”
He took another long drag of his cigar.
“I’m not here to tell you who to shoot. I’m here to tell you someone used your docks to move a warhead, and that same someone tried to kill my man when the delivery failed.
That ledger named too many of your pieces for this to just be random.
You need to be careful about who you trust while you figure out whether they were counting on your blessing or your blindness. ”
Roman’s jaw flexed.
“Our world runs on Omertà,” he said, voice low.
“And our Seven rules. We keep quiet. No authorities. We keep loyal. We keep family first. We don’t take money from other families or gangs.
Anyone who breaks that…” He shook his head, eyes distant for a second.
“To sell us out isn’t just betrayal. It’s blasphemy. ”
“I know your code,” I said. “You taught some of it to me yourself.”
“I taught you enough to survive,” he corrected. “And to stay just outside the circle. You always knew where the line was. You never tried to come inside.”
“Smartest thing I ever did,” I said.
He smirked faintly, then it faded.
“You think this ledger is just a test,” he asked. “Someone poking for soft spots?”
“I think it’s more than a test,” I replied.
“A book like that doesn’t just leave a safe for fun.
I think it’s a map for how to cut you up and serve you in pieces,” I said.
“Starting with your docks. Then your unions. Then your casinos. Probably bounces from player to player to sign off on before moving onto the next. Eventually, that playbook stops being a theory and becomes a war plan.”
We both looked through the glass again. Vladimir lifted his glass slightly, like he somehow knew we were talking about him.
“So, my pier as the last mile. Your bikes as delivery boys. What were they thinking?” he mumbled.
“I think someone sold that route as clean and deniable,” I replied.
“Your dock, my bikes, no fingerprints on the bill. The Devils just happened to be the variable nobody had planned on. That and those who attacked acted too soon. Had they waited for us to drop the bike and leave, we never would have known any of this. Had one thing happened differently, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
It wouldn’t have become known to us until it was already in full effect. ”
Roman sighed. “I wonder if I have dock rats,” he murmured. “Could be supervisors. Could be someone higher. Even a son who thinks he’s entitled. A consigliere who wants to be a king. Or someone outside who got too clever.”
“Could be all of them,” I said.
He took another long drag, then exhaled sharp.
“I won’t be undermined,” he said. “Not by the Vincinos. Not by my own blood. Not by some Russian who forgets who gave him a seat. Anyone who tries to move my family like pieces without my hand on the board will pay for it.”
He said it like a prayer. Or a promise.
We stood there a moment. Smoke and wind and the city humming below.
“I’ll need proof,” he said finally.
“You want proof,” I said. “I can’t show you the full ledger. Not yet. Book’s too hot to pass around like a cocktail menu. I can have pictures sent to you. Pieces,” I went on. “Enough to show you that I’m not just spinning you some story.”
“Where is it now?” he asked.
“Safe,” I replied.
He let that hang for a beat.
“I’m trusting you a great deal here, Alice,” Roman said. “Don’t make me regret it.”
“The feeling’s mutual,” I returned.
He glanced toward Vladimir, then back.
“You’re not the only one who can play careful,” he said to me, quieter now. “When we go back in, we talk about my docks. About certain routes. About what may be flowing through them in the coming days. But we do it in a way that lets us see who repeats what.”
I understood what he meant immediately.
“We’ll shade it,” I said. “Tilt a couple of details. Change some numbers. Move a supposed shipment from one warehouse to another. Make up a new shell company name.”
“And then we wait,” he said. “If anything happens near that, we know someone in this room passed it along. If nothing happens… we narrow the circle and tilt again.”
I nodded in agreement.
“As for that ledger. We hold it. Carefully. Together.”
“Together,” I echoed.
“You keep it where it is for now,” he went on. “I don’t want it in my walls until I know which of my walls are rotten. You share pieces when I need to confirm something. I clear my own house before I invite your bomb into it.”
“That works for me,” I said. “In return, you keep your soldiers off my people and off the Shore Vipers. They’re in this now whether they wanted to be or not. Someone tried to kill my man on their turf. They’re not going to sit this out.”
Roman’s mouth twitched. “An all-female motorcycle club,” he said.
“They’re effective,” I defended. “And they’re pissed.”