Chapter 2 - The Paper Trail
By mid-afternoon on Friday, the rain had cleared, leaving the streets of Manhattan scrubbed and glistening under a sharp, pale autumn sun.
Marco Bellini stood by the rear door of the armored Lincoln parked outside an upscale boutique on Madison Avenue. He was forty-five, built like a brick wall, with a broken nose from his boxing days in South Brooklyn and a suppressed firearm under his left arm. He had taken three bullets for me over fourteen years.
He watched through the boutique window as Lily emerged from a fitting room wearing a simple navy wool coat, dark jeans, and boots. A team of nervous sales clerks hovered behind her, holding bags filled with sweaters, shoes, and coats.
"She looks like a Moretti, boss," Marco said low under his breath as I stood near the curb, leaning heavily against my cane. "She's got that same look Mateo had. Sharp. Watching everything."
My grip tightened on the silver handle of the cane. "Did you run her background like I asked?"
Marco reached into his coat and pulled out a thin, unmarked manila envelope. "It took my guy at NYPD three hours to pull the sealed records. Her real name is Lily Vance. Nine years old. Mother died of an overdose in Queens four years ago. No listed father on the birth certificate."
"And the father she mentioned?" I asked. "The man who left her on the corner?"
Marco’s tone shifted, becoming noticeably colder. "Her mother’s partner was a low-level bookie named Jimmy Vance. Used to run errands for the Irish mob in Hell's Kitchen. Eight months ago, Vance got picked up by federal marshals. He wasn't arrested for gambling, Dominic. He was an informant."
I turned my head slowly to look at Marco. "Who was he informing on?"
"Our family," Marco whispered. "Specifically, Julian’s port shipping accounts. Vance was the guy who leaked the manifest details to the feds back in March. Two days after Vance was taken into custody, he vanished from the federal holding facility in White Plains. Official record says he escaped. Unofficial record? He was cleared out by a private security team."
The boutique door opened, and Lily walked out, holding two large shopping bags. She stopped on the sidewalk, looking up at the towering glass skyscrapers, then at Marco, and finally at me.
"This is too much stuff," she said flatly. "If I have to run, I can't carry three bags."
"You aren't running anymore, Lily," I said.
"Everyone runs eventually," she muttered, stepping into the back seat of the sedan.
I sat beside her, closing the door. As Marco pulled the car away from the curb, I looked down at the manila envelope in my lap.
"Marco," I said, keeping my voice smooth so Lily wouldn't notice. "Where was Jimmy Vance taken before he disappeared?"
"A private warehouse facility down near Red Hook," Marco replied, eyeing me in the rearview mirror. "Owned by a shell corporation called Apex Logistics."
My blood ran cold. Apex Logistics wasn't a family account. It was a private asset registered three years ago—a company Julian had set up without bringing it to the commission floor.
I looked at Lily. She was staring out the window, watching the city pass by, her reflection caught in the tinted glass.
"Lily," I said softly. "When your dad left you on the corner eight months ago... what did he say to you?"
She didn't turn away from the glass. "He said he had to go sign some papers for a man named Mr. Moretti. He said if he signed them, we’d get a house in Florida and nobody would hurt us anymore."
"Did he say which Mr. Moretti?"
"No," she whispered. "Just that he was the younger one. The one with the shiny watch."
The air inside the luxury sedan suddenly felt thin.
Julian hadn't just been managing the legal side of the family business. He had been quietly setting up a network of informants and shell companies to dismantle my authority, using low-level runners like Jimmy Vance to create a paper trail that would tie me directly to federal racketeering charges the moment I died—or before.
And when Jimmy Vance became a liability, Julian had erased him.
"Boss," Marco’s voice cut through the heavy silence from the front seat. "We've got two dark SUVs trailing us since we turned off 57th. Unmarked. Tinted glass."
I looked out the rear window. Two black Chevy Tahoes were maintaining a strict three-car distance behind us, moving smoothly through the midtown traffic.
"Lucchese guys?" I asked.
"No," Marco growled, shifting his hand to his holster. "Lucchese guys drive like idiots. These guys are keeping tactical formation. They move like private security."
"Julian’s contractors," I murmured.
Lily looked up from the window, her small body tensing instantly as she picked up on the shift in energy. She reached down and grabbed her old, battered backpack from the floorboards, holding it against her chest like a shield.
"Are they going to shoot at us?" she asked. Her voice didn't shake. That was the most terrifying part—she was九 years old, and she was asking about a drive-by shooting with the same casual tone a child uses to ask about rain.
"No," I said, reaching out and gently pushing her head down toward the seat cushion. "Nobody is shooting today, Lily. Stay down."
"Marco," I commanded quietly. "Don't go back to Bedford. Drive to the clinic at Mount Sinai."
Marco blinked in the mirror. "The clinic? Boss, you said you weren't going back there."
I looked down at my hands. My knuckles were pale, my pulse hammering in my throat. For three years, I had treated my life like an unwanted coat I couldn't wait to tear off. I had let Julian handle the books, let the captains fight over territory, let the cancer rot my body because I thought my story ended the day Isabella and Mateo were buried under the oak trees in Queens.
But looking at this little girl curled up on the leather seat beside me—a child whose father my own brother had likely murdered to protect his betrayal—a cold, terrifying rage began to heat my blood.
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Julian wanted me dead. He needed me dead before I discovered what he had done to the family. He was waiting for day eight.
"I changed my mind, Marco," I said, my voice echoing with the authority that had once made the five families bow their heads. "Call Dr. Falcone. Tell him to prepare the trial."
