Chapter 6
Six
Massimo
Seven AM and I haven't slept.
The taxi ID came back forty minutes ago.
Luca ran it without asking questions, which tells me he has questions and is saving them for later.
The cab is registered to a fleet operating out of the West Loop, and the drop-off address puts her in Wicker Park.
A residential block of brick three-flats south of North Avenue.
I know the neighborhood. Harrison's daughter lives in Wicker Park.
The thought flickers and fades before I can grab it, the same nagging recognition that hit me on the sidewalk when the dome light caught her face.
I've been chasing that flicker all night, circling it the way I circle weak clauses in a contract, looking for the crack that will break the whole thing open.
The face is familiar. The neighborhood is familiar.
The connection is right in front of me and I can't see it.
"You're losing it, Santoro." I press my thumb and forefinger into my eyes until I see sparks. A Harvard-educated lawyer who has cracked federal cases in his sleep can't identify a woman he held in his arms for five hours. There's a joke in there somewhere, but I'm too exhausted to find it.
I drain my fourth espresso and set the cup down harder than necessary. The ceramic cracks against the granite and a hairline fracture splits across the bottom of the mug. Fitting.
The shoe catches the early morning light from the window behind me, cherry-red leather glowing warm against the dark surface of my desk.
I've been keeping it within arm's reach since I picked it off the marble floor.
Devotion or insanity. At this point I've stopped trying to tell the difference.
I'm a grown man with a woman's shoe on his desk. This is my life now.
My office phone rings and the sound snaps my focus back to the present. The club owner case. Right. The Syndicate doesn't pause for personal crises, and Massimo Santoro doesn't let a woman wreck his focus no matter how badly she's gotten under his skin.
Except he does. Apparently. Because I've been sitting here with a red heel instead of doing my job.
I pick up the phone and slide into the professional register that has kept this family out of prison for fifteen years. "Santoro."
Thirty minutes of contract review, two phone calls, and one thinly veiled threat later, the club owner situation is manageable.
Dominic Peluso runs a jazz bar on the south side under Syndicate protection, pays his dues on time every month, and has been a reliable earner for six years.
Three weeks ago, outside muscle started showing up at his door demanding a second tax.
He stopped paying the Syndicate because he can't afford both, which technically puts him in breach of contract but practically makes him a man caught between two wolves with no teeth of his own.
I'm drafting the enforcement letter when my office door opens without a knock.
Two men walk in. The first one fills the doorway before he's fully through it. Broad shoulders beneath a long charcoal wool overcoat, silvering hair cropped close, dark eyes that scan my office the way a man checks his exits before he sits down. Harlon Constantine moves with a deliberate, unhurried gait. The world adjusts its schedule around him, not the other way around, that’s for damn sure.
Two shoulder holsters press faint outlines against his overcoat, the telltale bulk of twin Smith and Wesson . 40 calibers riding beneath his arms.
He’s got good taste.
Behind him walks a man I haven't met.
Taller than Harlon by an inch, leaner by maybe fifteen or twenty pounds, with dark, tortured eyes. He fills the room differently. He’s quieter and hums with a low-frequency of violence held in check by discipline and something darker. It puts you on edge because you know death lingers nearby.
"Massimo." Harlon's voice carries a bass-heavy warmth that comes from decades of meaning exactly what he says. He extends his hand across my desk and I take it, his grip firm and dry, the calluses on his palm pressing against mine. "I brought someone who can help with your Peluso situation."
The man behind him steps forward and the light from my window catches the edge of a tattoo climbing above his collar, dark ink disappearing beneath his jawline.
"Samuel Payne." He offers his hand. The grip is brief, controlled. His voice comes out low and direct, nothing wasted, every word doing work. "People call me Bones."
I gesture to the chairs across from my desk. Harlon settles into his chair like he owns it. He's sat across from powerful men in every city on the eastern seaboard and it shows. Bones remains standing, his dark eyes sweeping the objects on my desk with a precision that reminds me of Luca.
His gaze catches on the red heel.
One eyebrow lifts by a fraction. Something close to amusement crosses his face and disappears. He doesn't comment. I don't explain.
"The Peluso situation." I redirect, opening the file and angling it toward Harlon.
"Outside muscle calling themselves the Corsetti crew has been running a secondary extortion on our protected businesses along the south side.
Peluso is the fourth owner to report contact, but he's the first one who stopped paying us. "
"Because he can't pay both." Harlon nods, his dark eyes scanning the documents with practiced speed. "A loyalty issue dressed up as a financial one."
"Exactly. On paper he's in breach. In reality he's drowning and asking for a lifeline we haven't offered."
Bones speaks from his position by the window, his eyes tracking the street below. "How many are in the Corsetti crew?"
"Eight confirmed. Operating out of a storefront on Halsted."
"Armed?"
"Standard. Nothing exotic."
He turns from the window and meets my eyes.
The dark quality of his gaze sharpens. He's already working through how to do this. "I can make them not a concern anymore. Clean, quiet, no trail back to the Syndicate. I think that is why I’m here, right? So you and the other men don’t dirty your hands? "
I love his directness. "And you’ll get paid for it. Money is a glorious thing, wouldn't you agree?” I pause and consider my options. “How long do you need?"
"Give me forty-eight hours and a name who wants to take credit for the cleanup. Someone local. Someone the south side will rally behind so the vacuum doesn't create a bigger problem."
I glance at Harlon. He gives a single nod, an endorsement that tells me Bones has earned trust through work I don't need to see to believe.
"Done. Coordinate with Luca for surveillance support. He'll have everything you need by the end of day."
Bones nods once. I thought I was economical with words, but this guy makes me look like Luca on a caffeine binge. He doesn't posture or linger, just catches Harlon's eye with a look that says everything in two seconds and moves toward the door.
"I'll be in touch." He pauses at the threshold and glances back at the red heel on my desk one more time. "Hope you find who that belongs to."
The door closes behind him and Harlon allows himself a small smile. "He's good. Best I've ever worked with."
"I can see that."
Harlon studies me for a beat longer than necessary, his dark eyes reading my face. He clocks the shadows under my eyes, the untouched espresso, the security stills fanned across my desk next to a woman's shoe.
The man misses nothing. Rumor has it his father built Club Genesis from a single room and a handshake.
Once his old man ended up behind bars, he took over.
A few years in and he’s turned it into neutral ground respected by every organization east of the Mississippi, and did it all with minimal body count.
The alliances he's forged are strong. And the woman I've seen at his side at every meeting, a dark-haired beauty with careful eyes, tells me Harlon Constantine has secrets of his own.
Whatever conclusions he draws, he keeps them behind a neutral expression that gives me nothing.
"You look like hell, Massimo." His voice drops from business to personal territory, something he doesn’t do often. I haven't spent a lot of time with the man so I tuck that detail away for future reference.
“How concerned are you over this Corsetti issue?”
I hold Harlon’s gaze for a minute. He’s had his own turmoil with love. The rumors about him, his partners, and the woman they protect aren't new. But the situation with Polaris is complicated from what I understand.
"Corsetti is barely a blip on our radar, really. We have enough enforcement between us to have the situation handled.” I rest my weight against the back of my chair.
“It was a long night and I was left… unbalanced," I opt for. I drag my thumb across the rough grain of my beard and leave it at that.
"She must have been quite the lady." He stands, buttons his overcoat, and adjusts the sit of his shoulder holsters with an absent gesture that tells me the guns are as much a part of him as his hands. "I'll let you get back to your long night, my friend. But word of advice."
I stand and accept his hand.
“Whatever you do, if she has you feeling like this, don’t let her get away.”
“Noted.”
And with that, he's gone. The office settles back into quiet.
I stare at the security stills for another thirty seconds before I shove them aside and check the time. Nine fifteen. The Red Letter reading starts in forty-five minutes, and I have wishes to sort before the brothers arrive.
The wish box sits in the boardroom on the thirty-second floor, a flight of stairs above my office.
I take them two at a time, my shoes sharp against the concrete stairwell, and push through the heavy mahogany door into the room that has held every significant decision the Syndicate has made in the last decade.