606 The Mafia Boss's Fiancée Kicked a Poor Waitress for Saving a Dying Dog — She Had No Idea Whose Dog It Really Was.

At 2:00 AM, the back room of The Broken Anchor—a dive bar three miles from Ashgrove Street—smelled of stale beer, wet denim, and cold grease.

Marcus sat at a corner booth, his red leather jacket unzipped, nurse-checking a glass of rye whiskey while two heavy-set street enforcers stood guard near the pool tables. His phone sat face-down on the sticky wood table. It hadn't stopped vibrating for twenty minutes.

"You're not gonna answer that?" one of the guards asked nervously, shifting his weight. "That's Vance's private line."

"If I answer it," Marcus grunted, his fingers tight around his glass, "he's gonna ask me why the live stream went dark. And I don't have an answer that doesn't end with him putting a round through my kneecap."

"The kid said he had the dog caged," the guard argued. "It was supposed to be an easy snatch."

"Nothing about Kayla Vance is an easy snatch," Marcus snapped, slamming his glass down. "You idiots think she's just some old woman Richard picked up in the suburbs? She ran his logistics for ten years! She signed off on every shipping container that cleared the docks from here to Montreal! When Richard was dying, the captains didn't ask Victor for permission—they asked her."

The heavy oak back door of the bar didn't crash open. It simply unlocked with a quiet, metallic click.

The two guards turned toward the door, drawing their weapons, but before the first gun cleared its holster, two sharp thwips rang through the air.

Both guards crumpled to the floor instantly, hit in the thigh by non-lethal electrical darts from silent taser rifles. They twitched twice on the beer-stained floor before going completely limp.

Marcus scrambled backward in the booth, reaching for the snub-nosed revolver tucked into his waistband, but a heavy leather-gloved hand clamped down on his wrist like a vise.

Leo slammed Marcus’s arm flat against the table, pinning it with enough pressure to make the bone groan.

"Easy, Marcus," Leo said smoothly, pulling a chair out with his foot and sitting down across from him. "You know how this goes. Don't make me break it."

Marcus gasped for air, his face pale under the bar's neon sign. "Leo... Jesus, man. You're still working for her? She’s living in a dump on Ashgrove! She's washed up!"

"She's resting," Leo corrected quietly. "There's a difference."

The front door of the bar opened, and Kayla walked in. She was wearing a simple black raincoat, her gray-streaked hair tied back neatly. Milo trotted beside her, his leash trailing loosely in her left hand.

She didn't look like a mob boss. She looked like a schoolteacher who had lost her way in a bad neighborhood. But as she walked past the unconscious guards on the floor without a second glance, Marcus felt a cold sweat break out across his neck.

"Kayla," Marcus choked out, trying to smile. "Look... it wasn't personal. Victor... Victor offered five hundred grand just for your location. He thinks you've got the master ledgers."

Kayla sat down on the edge of the pool table, resting her hands on her knees. Her hands, as always, were completely still.

"Where are the ledgers, Marcus?" she asked softly.

"What? I don't know!" Marcus stammered. "Victor thinks you took them when Richard died! He thinks you buried them under the house on Ashgrove!"

Kayla sighed gently. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a plain bronze key attached to a worn plastic tag. She tossed it onto the table in front of Marcus.

"Safety deposit box 412 at the First National Bank on 4th Street," Kayla said. "That’s where the ledgers are. They’ve been there since the day Richard died."

Marcus stared at the key, his eyes wide with shock. "You... you're giving them to me?"

"I'm giving them to Victor," Kayla corrected. "Tell him to take the key. Tell him to take the shipping codes, the account numbers, and the offshore accounts in Nassau. All of it. It’s worth ninety million dollars."

Marcus swallowed hard, his voice trembling. "What's the catch, Kayla? You don't give away ninety million dollars for free."

Kayla leaned forward, her eyes locking onto his with an intensity that made the breath catch in his throat.

"The catch is that Ashgrove Street stays clean," Kayla whispered. "He takes the ledgers, he retires to Florida, and he never—never—looks at my side of town again. If I see one of his men on my street, if I hear a single bass speaker after midnight, if anyone so much as looks at Milo the wrong way..."

She paused, letting the silence stretch until the hum of the neon beer sign was the only sound in the room.

"...I won't use the police, Marcus. And I won't use the courts. I'll call Frank Costanza in Chicago. I'll call the Moretti family in New York. I'll tell them that Victor Vance is holding ninety million dollars of Richard's money, and I'll give them the key for free."

Marcus turned as white as a sheet. Frank Costanza had been Richard’s bitterest rival—a man who had spent thirty years looking for an excuse to wipe the Vance family off the East Coast map. If Costanza found out Victor had ninety million in unhedged assets, Victor wouldn't survive forty-eight hours.