Chapter 21
CHAPTER 21
V incent
She snores.
My tiny little ballerina snores, and it’s fucking adorable. She’s still curled up in my arms, her head on my chest. It’s already later than I usually sleep, but now I really can’t delay getting up anymore. Carefully, I slip out from under her and slide a pillow under her head. She mumbles something before turning over and falling back asleep.
I make a quick run through my morning routine, and then into the walk-in closet to get dressed. I keep a selection of my clothes and toiletries here, since you never know when you’re going to need to come home and run the kingdom from the castle. My closet also comes with a small armory, because I am who I am. I collect my normal daily weapon and several magazines.
I stop by the kitchen on the way to my office to ask the cook to bring a breakfast tray up to Sarah. My brothers, as well as several of our captains, are already arranged around a coffee table, drinking espressos and alternating between serious discussions and trading insults.
“Good morning,” I greet them, and then spend several minutes with the assorted members, thanking them for their assistance. It took years after my father’s death, but I finally surrounded myself with a team of capos loyal to me. Marco nods at the oldest one, Enzo.
“Don De Luca, I was able to confirm with my people that several of the business deals that have fallen through over the last few months were thrown off intentionally. I believe there is going to be a play for power soon.”
“Thoughts as to who?”
One of the others speaks up. “Your former brother-in-law.”
“Are you sure?” asks Alessandro.
The younger man nods. “As much as is possible.”
“Fuck,” I mutter. All heads turn to me. “Monitor the situation and try to figure out how the fuck we didn’t see this coming and who their supporters are.”
The captains nod before swiftly exiting the room.
I toss back the espresso that was waiting for me on my desk.
“Late night?” chuckles Marco.
“Shut up.”
Alessandro interrupts our youngest brother’s laughter. “How is Sarah doing?”
“Remarkably well. Provided we don’t leave her alone with our mother too long.”
We all laugh at that. My brothers file out as well, leaving me alone in my father’s office. I stare longingly at the wet bar for several seconds before sighing and pulling out Sarah’s phone and mine.
The high-pitched squeal on the other end of the line makes me pull the handset away from my head with a grimace.
“Oh my god, are you okay, doll? Aside from the whole kidnapping thing?”
“Hello, Robert.”
The pause that follows stretches out for a long time. Finally, in a shaking voice, he squeaks, “Um, who is this?”
“My name is Vincent De Luca. I believe we have a mutual friend.”
Then the fire seems to come back to him. “You better not have hurt her, you fucking psycho!”
“Language, Robert. She’s fine. She’s with me.”
“That’s the opposite of fine .”
Now I chuckle. “Perhaps. Regardless, she has concerns about her career, and I’d like to put her at ease. Who is the best instructor in the city?”
“Umm, Antoinette LeReoux, but her time is booked for years in advance.”
“I see. Call the person that is going to cover Sarah’s parts. I’m sending a car to get you both.”
“Excuse me?”
“Sarah needs her lessons, and the company. You need to see that she isn’t tied up in a dungeon. This other girl needs to be able to fill in for her. You’ll impart upon this girl the importance we place on silence, I trust.”
“Umm…” he starts. Because I’m an ass, and because I don’t feel like arguing, I hang up. Then I turn the phone off. I start to call Aldo, but think better of it and send the address to Alessandro.
I need you to pick up Sarah’s dance partner and another ballerina. Take Marco. He seems like a handful.
When did I become an errand boy?
When you made me do this fucking job instead of you.
Language, my child.
Can I confess to your murder in advance?
No advance orders. Also no layaways, and the sacrificial wine is inventoried daily. I’ll message you when we’re inbound.
Thanks, Alessandro.
Next, I call Marie. Her mother was a cook here until she needed a new hip and retired. Marie basically grew up in the house. In addition to overseeing the household staff, she’s our default personal assistant.
“How can I help you?” she asks in a chipper voice.
“Can you locate a ballet instructor named Antoinette LeReoux and have her come to the main house for private lessons?”
“Most likely. When?”
“Now would be nice.”
She gives out a low whistle. “You sure you wouldn’t like something easy? Like a meal served in the lighthouse at the Statue of Liberty or something?”
I chuckle. “I have faith in you, Marie.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll call you when I’ve conquered the universe and all.”
I head back to my room and find Sarah seated on the windowsill, wrapped in a sheet and munching on a piece of toast covered in something green, which I assume must be avocado.
“Oh, hi,” she says.
“Hi, yourself. How did you sleep?”
“Like a rock. Something kinda wore me out before bed.”
I smile. “Really? Curious, I wonder what that could have been.” I walk to the window and look out over the neatly maintained lawn. Kissing the top of her head, I hand her my phone, already opened to text Marie. “Tell her what you need for ballet class. Be very specific so she can get you the right items.”
She gives me a confused look.
“You were worried about practice and the performances. It’s safer for you here, rather than trying to resume your normal schedule. Therefore, a teacher is coming here, and you, Robert, and whatever dancer is filling in will arrive shortly.”
Now she looks positively dumbfounded.
I point at the phone, and she obediently begins to type out a short list. I send it off and find Sarah staring up at me with wide eyes. I brush a strand of her soft platinum hair back behind her ear. “Finish your breakfast, you’ve got about an hour to get ready before your stuff is here. We will address the rest of your clothing and personal needs later.”
She blushes a beautiful shade of pink at the phrase personal needs .
“Not how I meant it, kitten, but yes, those too.” I wink at her. Now she’s positively scarlet.
Halfway back to my office, my phone rings. Marco.
“We’re on the way.” There is a terrible babble of noise in the background.
“On what? The subway?”
He groans. “No. Her friend has been protesting loudly and frequently about this arrangement. The poor girl that’s with him keeps trying to calm him down, but I don’t think she can hold a candle to him. She’s a tiny little thing. Looks damn near identical to the other one actually, but quiet as a mouse.”
I hear a soft female voice in the background, whenever the louder male voice stops to take a breath. Interspersed I hear Alessandro trying to reassure him that they are not going to be “whacked.”
“Have fun with that,” I laugh as I disconnect. Back in my office, the intercom is flashing.
“Yes?”
“Jack DuPont is here for you,” comes the gruff voice of the gate security.
“Let him in.”
One of the things I did when my father died was attempt to diversify our income stream, both in the legal and less-than forms. Jack has been my accountant for years. He keeps all of the books. He’s also a talented computer programmer and hacker.
The man who enters my office is tall, thin, and remarkably pimpled despite being well into his late twenties. He also perpetually dresses in a collection of layered 90s t-shirts and khaki pants, wears a set of thick glasses, and I’m not sure he can grow a beard. A battered leather messenger bag is slung across his chest. For all intents and purposes, he looks like a college bum that should be lurking around the campus library trying to pick up co-eds, not the genius multimillionaire he actually is.
“Jack, thanks for coming.”
“Of course, Don De Luca. Mr. DeAngelo said it was urgent. Let me get set up here.” He plops down in the chair across from me and sets up a MacBook on the shiny desktop. He unrolls a long cable and plugs into an internet port on the wall. Jack insists that nothing uses WiFi. After connecting a palm scanner and a retinal scanner, he begins to log into our secure cloud.
My father insisted that only paper books be kept. But for fuck’s sake, nobody uses paper books. That in and of itself is suspicious. I keep meticulous, normal electronic records of our legal transactions. Jack has created a highly secure cloud to store our other data in. In addition to the passwords, as in multiple, it requires his palm scan and either mine or one of my brother’s retinal scans. I pull my chair around to his side of the desk.
“Okay,” he begins, pulling up a confusing and colorful graph. “You’ll see that profit remained relatively steady and increased at a reasonable pace for the last six years. This dip here,” he points to a small loss, “is when the casino was built. But you’ll see that there was a steady 5% increase in profit above baseline since it’s opening.” He points to another spot.
He clicks open a few more spreadsheets. “Ah, here it is. Now, for the last year, you’ll see a small, but consistent decrease, less than 1%. These dips,” he taps the screen with his pen, “here, here, here, and so on are more isolated episodes where profits decreased by at least 10% in a month.”
I recognize some of those dates. Some were reasonably benign—businesses leaving the state or closing outright and losing their protection revenue. An episode where one of our nightclubs was raided by immigration and many of our dancers’ very expired visas were found. One very prominent police raid, costing us a shit ton upfront and even more chasing down loose ends and, for the most part, buying them off.
“What are your thoughts?” I ask him.
He pauses. “I’ve spent a lot of time watching money move around the stock market and change hands in general. I’ve spent years watching your money move around. This isn’t random, it’s too frequent, too consistent. Honestly, you’re just not that unlucky, sir. But I also can’t explain it. I’m just the numbers dude.” He shrugs.
I nod. “Thanks for coming out, Jack.”
“No problem, Don De Luca. Anytime. You know that.” He begins the almost equally intricate process of locking the accounts and laptop, then packing all of his equipment back into his messenger bag.