Chapter 4 - THE PENTHOUSE ON PARK
The drive into Manhattan took forty minutes. The sleet had cleared the roads of normal traffic, leaving the Long Island Expressway slick, dark, and empty beneath the orange glow of the highway lamps.
We rode in three black suburban utility vehicles, moving like a line of hearses through the pre-dawn fog.
I sat in the back of the lead vehicle, watching the skyline of New York rise out of the haze like a cluster of gray teeth. Beside me, Marco was quietly feeding 9mm rounds into spare magazines, the steady click-click-click of metal against spring the only sound in the cab.
"Dominic has four private guards at the penthouse," Marco said without looking up. "Former state troopers. They aren't mob guys, but they’re trained and they’re paid well enough not to ask questions."
"They don't know what Dominic did," I said. "Tell them to drop their weapons and walk. If they hesitate, shoot them in the legs. I don't want unnecessary bodies in a Park Avenue lobby."
"Understood," Marco nodded. "And Dominic?"
"Dominic stays breathing until he answers my questions," I said. "Then he goes for a long swim in the East River."
We pulled up to the high-rise tower on Park Avenue at 5:15 AM. The street was dead silent, save for the hum of a street sweeper three blocks away.
Marco and two of our men moved through the glass front doors first. The night doorman—a middle-aged man in a gold-braided uniform—took one look at Marco’s coat, the bulk of the chest rig beneath it, and the sheer dark purpose in our eyes, and immediately stepped away from his desk.
"Elevator key," Marco said, holding out his hand.
The doorman didn't hesitate. He pulled an brass key from his drawer and handed it over, his hands trembling. "Floor thirty-two," he whispered. "Private express."
We took the elevator up in silence. The brass indicator lights clicked upward: 28... 29... 30... 31... 32.
When the doors slid open, we stepped directly into a cavernous foyer with marble floors, floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the misty canopy of Central Park, and the faint smell of expensive bourbon and cigar smoke.
Two guards in gray suits stepped out from the main living area, their hands reaching for their shoulder holsters.
"Vance family business," Marco barked, raising his weapon. "Drop them or die where you stand."
The two guards froze. They looked at Marco, they looked at the three men behind him with raised submachine guns, and they looked at me—Damian Vance—standing in the center of the floor with my hands tucked into my coat pockets.
They knew who paid their paychecks, but they also knew who owned the city.
Slowly, carefully, both guards unclasped their holsters, dropped their sidearms onto the Persian rug, and raised their hands.
"Out," I said simply.
They didn't need to be told twice. They squeezed past Marco and disappeared down the service stairwell.
I walked into the grand living room.
My uncle Dominic was sitting in a dark brown leather armchair near the unlit fireplace. He was still wearing his tuxedo trousers and a white dress shirt, his collar unbuttoned, a crystal tumbler of scotch resting on the side table beside him. On the glass coffee table in front of him sat an open leather briefcase packed with passport folders, stacks of hundred-dollar bills, and a small aluminum drive.
He was packing to run.
He looked up as I entered. He didn't look surprised. He just looked old, tired, and deeply bitter.
"You always were too quick for your own good, Damian," Dominic said, taking a slow sip of his scotch. "Just like your father. Old Thomas never could leave a closed file alone."
"Where were you going, Dominic?" I asked, stopping five feet from his chair. "Costa Rica? Switzerland? Somewhere without an extradition treaty?"
"Anywhere away from you and that little country club mafia you run," Dominic spat, setting his glass down with a heavy clack. "You think you're a king, Damian? You're a landlord for criminals. You sit in that big house in Long Island playing the noble gentleman while the rest of us do the dirty work that keeps the money flowing!"
"Sofia Carter," I said, my voice ice-cold.
Dominic’s eyes flickered slightly, but he didn't flinch. "A tragic loss. A sudden stroke, I heard."
"Succinylcholine," I corrected. "Two milligrams injected into her upper shoulder while she was making tea for you. You used my father’s master code to get into her cottage, didn't you?"
Dominic let out a harsh, dry laugh. "Your father was a fool. He thought Frank Carter’s widow could be kept quiet with a free house and a maid’s salary. He didn't realize Frank had given her the master ledger—the real one, Damian. The one that lists every illegal shipment, every bribed politician, every off-shore account our family has used since 2012."
"She didn't care about the ledger," I said. "She was raising her daughter."
"She was a liability!" Dominic yelled, slamming his hand down on the arm of the chair. "Arthur Sterling found out about the ledger two months ago. He threatened to go to the federal prosecutor if I didn't get him those books! If the feds got that ledger, everything your father built—everything I helped build—would have been seized by the government! I had to clean up your father’s mess!"
"So you murdered an innocent woman," I said.
"I protected the empire!" Dominic shouted. "I did what you didn't have the stomach to do! And if that stupid Sterling girl hadn't gone snooping around the cottage thirty minutes later and stolen that goddamn ring, no one would have ever looked twice at that maid's death!"
He pointed a trembling, spotted finger at me.
"You ruined it, Damian! You let a three-year-old child destroy a multi-million-dollar merger between our families! You threw away our future for a maid's orphan!"
I reached into my pocket, pulled out the small platinum ring, and tossed it onto the glass coffee table between us. It landed with a soft, clear chime, spinning twice before coming to rest right beside the aluminum drive.
"That 'maid’s orphan' has more honor in her little finger than you have in your entire body, Uncle," I said quietly.
I looked down at the aluminum drive on the table. "Is that the ledger?"
Dominic didn't answer. He just stared at the ring with pure hatred.
Marco stepped forward and picked up the drive, plugging it into a small handheld tablet he pulled from his pocket. He tapped the screen for a few seconds, his face illuminated by the blue light of the display.
"It’s all here, boss," Marco reported. "Every offshore account, every dock transfer, every payout to Sterling. It’s clean. It implicates Dominic and Arthur Sterling completely. It leaves the core Vance assets untouched."
"Good," I said.
I turned my back on my uncle and walked toward the high floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the city. Dawn was breaking through the fog, painting the stone towers of Manhattan in pale, cold lavender light.
"What are you going to do with me, nephew?" Dominic asked behind me, his voice finally losing its bravado, replaced by a thin, desperate edge of fear. "You can't kill me. The council won't allow a nephew to murder his uncle over a domestic matter. It violates the old laws."
"The council doesn't govern this house anymore," I said, watching the light hit the windows of the building across the avenue. "I do. And you didn't just violate family laws, Dominic. You brought murder under my roof. You terrified a child. You disgraced my father’s name."
I didn't turn around.
"Marco."
"Sir?"
"Take him down to the docks," I commanded softly. "Put him on the late barge to the Jersey marshland. Make sure he doesn't come back up."
"Damian! No! You can't do this!" Dominic shrieked, his chair overturning as Marco and two heavy security guards grabbed him by his arms. "Damian! I’m your father’s brother! I’m your blood!"
His screams echoed down the long marble foyer, bouncing off the glass and brass of the high-rise tower, until the elevator doors slid shut and cut the noise off entirely.
The living room was suddenly very quiet.
I walked over to the coffee table, picked up the small platinum ring, and rubbed my thumb over the little hand-cut star inside the band.
May you like
It was over. The conspiracy, the lies, the poison in the dark—it was all laid out in the light of day. But as I stood alone in the high-rise penthouse, looking out over the waking city, I realized the hardest part of the night was still waiting for me back on the north shore of Long Island.
I had to go back to a big, empty house, and look a three-year-old orphan in the eyes.
