Chapter 4 #2
It rings twice. A woman's voice answers—clipped, professional, slight Boston accent. "Dean Whitfield's office."
"Margaret. It's Cassius Wolfe."
The voice warms three degrees. "Mr. Wolfe. What can I do for you?"
"I need to discuss Selene Deveraux's enrollment status. She'll be continuing her degree remotely starting the fall semester. I trust that won't be a problem."
A pause.
The kind that involves mental calculation of exactly how much money I've donated to Harvard's endowment. "Of course not. We have several accommodations for students with...unique circumstances. I'll have the paperwork sent over this week."
"Send it to her directly." I look at Selene. Her face is carefully blank, but her eyes are sharp. Taking it in. Filing it away. "She handles her own affairs."
"Of course. Ms. Deveraux, if you need anything at all—"
"I'll be in touch," Selene says. "Thank you, Margaret."
I end the call.
She stares at me. "You just arranged my entire academic future in forty-five seconds, without even consulting me."
"You have better things to do than sit in a lecture hall. But I'm not going to be the reason you don't finish. And don’t be silly, Selene, you knew after one year I would never let you out of my fucking sight."
Something crosses her face.
Quick. Complicated.
The kind of look that says she knows nothing from me comes free.
"Thank you," she says. Quiet. Genuine.
"Don't thank me. Finish the degree. I need a partner with credentials, not just instincts."
The word partner lands between us like a stone in still water. I said it deliberately. Watched her hear it. Watched the ripple.
"Partner," she repeats.
"That's what this is. That's what you came back for."
She holds my gaze for a long moment. Then she turns back to her computer. "Then you should know your partner found three more vulnerabilities in the import filings while you were in your meeting."
"Of course you did."
"And your partner is going to need access to the port authority database."
"I'll have it for you by the end of day."
"Good." She's already typing. "Close the door on your way out. I'm working."
I almost laugh. Instead, I pull the door halfway shut and stand in the hallway, listening to the rapid-fire click of her keyboard, and I think about what Vincent said.
Predictable.
He's right. She makes me predictable.
Every enemy I have will look at her and see a pressure point.
A crack in the armor. A way in.
But Vincent is also wrong. Because what he sees as a weakness, I'm starting to see as a force multiplier.
She doesn't just fill the gaps in my operation—she sees gaps I didn't know existed. Only a few days in and she's already rebuilt more infrastructure than my legal team has touched in years.
The question isn't whether she makes me vulnerable.
The question is whether she makes me strong enough that it doesn't matter.
The answer to that question arrives at eleven o’clock that night in the form of a severed hand.
Peter calls me. His voice is the same flat monotone it always is, which means it's bad. Peter's voice only goes flat when he's suppressing something.
"Package at the front door of Cavallo. Delivered by courier. No return address."
"What kind of package?"
"The kind with fingers."
I'm dressed and in the car in four minutes.
Selene is asleep so I don't wake her. Some things she doesn't need to see yet.
Cavallo's front entrance is taped off. Peter and Paul are flanking the door. Lionel is inside, clearing the last of the late-night staff.
On the doorstep, in a black gift box with a red ribbon, is a human hand.
Male. Middle-aged. The ring finger is wearing a signet ring I recognize.
Tomás Vega. One of my dock captains. The one Vincent was going to vet first.
There's a note in the box.
White card, black ink, neat handwriting.
Consider this a job application. We'd like to discuss the vacancy.
No signature. No name. None needed.
Peter reads the note over my shoulder. "Zhukov."
"Zhukov."
I look at the hand. At the clean cut— precise, done by someone who's taken hands before.
At the ring that Tomás wore every day for twenty years, a gift from his wife, who will never know how it ended up in a box on a restaurant doorstep.
This is what Vincent meant.
This isn't a territorial dispute with rules.
This is a man who sends body parts as business cards.
I pull out my phone and call Vincent.
"We need a full security review. Every asset, every location, every person connected to the organization. I want safe houses prepped, weapons redistributed, and the twins running twenty-four-hour surveillance on Zhukov's known locations."
"And Selene?"
I look at the hand in the box. Think about the photographs of the restaurant owner's daughter walking to school.
"She gets a detail. Lionel. Full-time. Starting tomorrow."
"She won't like that."
"She doesn't have to like it."
I end the call. Stand on the doorstep of my restaurant, my city, my territory, and stare at the message from a man who thinks empty crates and severed hands will make me bend.
He doesn't know me.
He doesn't know what I've built, what I've survived, what I'm willing to do to protect what's mine.
He doesn't know that the woman asleep in my penthouse right now is reshaping my empire from the inside while he's out here playing games with body parts.
He'll learn.
Peter is watching me…waiting.
"Clean this up," I say. "Send Tomás's family money. Enough to disappear if they want to."
"And Zhukov?"
I look at the Cyrillic note one more time, then I fold it and put it in my pocket. "They want a war, and they're about to get it."