Chapter 5 - THE WEB BENEATH THE FLOOR
Dominic did not move for five full seconds.
The silence in the ruined bedroom was suffocating, broken only by the hum of the backup ventilation and Sophie’s rhythmic, shallow breathing as she rested her cheek against Clara’s collarbone.
A gold star inside the breast pocket.
Marco Lombardi had been Dominic’s right hand for fourteen years. They had grown up on the same asphalt playgrounds in Hell's Kitchen. Marco had taken a bullet in the shoulder during the Castellano turf war in 2018 to shield Dominic’s flank. Dominic had paid for Marco’s mother’s cancer treatments; Marco was the executor of Dominic’s personal will.
And now, a three-year-old child had just described the gold lapel badge of the State Police Task Force—a badge Dominic had seen once, years ago, during an interrogation in Albany. The investigators kept their shields pinned to the inside silk lining of their jackets, hidden until they made an arrest.
Dominic stood up slowly. His expression had locked down completely into that emotionless, calculating void that had made him the most feared underboss on the East Coast.
“Clara,” Dominic said, his tone perfectly level, betraying nothing. “Take Sophie into the private bathroom. Lock the reinforced door from the inside. Do not open it for anyone except my voice. If you hear shooting, turn the cold water on in the tub and stay low.”
Clara saw something behind his eyes that terrified her more than the sniper’s bullet—a cold, subterranean rage. She didn't ask questions. She scooped Sophie into her arms, grabbing Barnaby off the floor, and backed into the en-suite bathroom. The heavy mahogany door clicked shut, followed by the heavy thud of the brass deadbolt.
Dominic walked to his ebony desk. He pulled the silver locket Thomas had left behind and dropped it into his palm, feeling the intricate filigree against his skin.
She sees too much.
If Marco was the leak, who had fired the shot from the greenhouse? Marco had been standing right outside the door when the window shattered. A man couldn’t be in two places at once. Which meant Marco wasn't working alone. He was coordinating with someone outside.
Dominic picked up the house phone and dialed the subterranean security bunker.
“Frank,” Dominic said quietly into the receiver.
“Yes, Mr. Valente?” the voice of the veteran systems technician answered.
“Cut the audio feed to Marco’s earpiece on channel three. Route his radio through a digital loop. If he asks, tell him the storm knocked out the relay tower.”
A brief hesitation. “Understood, boss.”
“And Frank?”
“Sir?”
“Pull up the encrypted telemetry logs for Marco’s company vehicle for the last forty-eight hours. Cross-reference his GPS coordinates with the Albany rail yards and the county medical examiner’s private residence.”
“Give me three minutes, Mr. Valente.”
Dominic set the receiver down, checked the clip in his custom Kimber .45, chambered a round with a smooth, metallic click, and slipped the gun into his shoulder holster.
When he stepped out into the hallway, Marco was standing at the end of the corridor, speaking in low tones into a handheld radio. Seeing Dominic, Marco immediately lowered the unit and jogged forward.
“Perimeter teams found fresh footprints leading toward the drainage culvert,” Marco reported, wiping sweat from his temple. “Looks like he used the creek to mask his scent from the dogs. We’re setting up a blockade at the county line.”
“Good,” Dominic said smoothly. “Come inside, Marco. I need your advice on the logistics.”
Marco followed Dominic back into the darkened bedroom. The steel security shutters gave the room the atmosphere of a tomb. Marco looked around at the shattered crystal, the bullet holes in the family portrait.
“We need to move you to the safehouse in Lake Placid, Dominic,” Marco said urgently, stepping toward the center of the room. “The girl is a liability. Her mother is hysterical. If the feds or Vance’s crew realize what Sophie saw, they’ll bring the entire northern precinct down on this house.”
“Is that what you’re worried about, Marco? The police?”
Marco frowned, his eyes narrowing slightly. “Of course. We can’t afford an investigation with three tons of unregistered cargo arriving at the docks on Friday.”
“Sophie told me something interesting before you came back,” Dominic remarked casually, walking toward the marble fireplace and leaning one forearm against the mantel. “She said the man in the woods had a gold star inside his coat.”
Marco’s posture stiffened by a millimeter. A professional wouldn’t have noticed it, but Dominic had spent twenty years reading the twitch of a man's eyelid before he pulled a trigger.
“Kids say all kinds of things, Dominic,” Marco gave a short, dry laugh. “Probably saw a sheriff’s deputy on television.”
“She doesn't watch television, Marco. Clara doesn't own one. Sophie only knows what she sees with her own eyes.” Dominic turned his head, his dark eyes fixing onto Marco’s face. “Why were you at the county morgue three days before Thomas Bennett’s accident was filed?”
The color drained from Marco’s cheeks. The mask slipped for a fraction of a second, replaced by pure, naked panic.
“Dominic, what are you talking about?”
“Frank just pulled your vehicle telemetry,” Dominic said softly. “Your car was parked outside Dr. Raymond’s private practice in Albany for two hours on the night the dental records were swapped. The same Dr. Raymond who suddenly bought a villa in Naples last summer.”
Marco’s hand twitched toward his left armpit, moving toward his holster.
“Don't do it, brother,” Dominic whispered, not even reaching for his own weapon. “There are three laser sights trained on your chest through the ventilation grates right now. You draw that piece, and Frank paints the wallpaper with you.”
Marco froze, his hand hovering over his lapel. Slowly, breathing heavily through his nose, he lowered his arm back to his side.
“You don't understand the whole picture, Dominic,” Marco said, his voice dropping into a desperate, hushed hiss. “You think you’re running an empire? You’re running a sinking ship. The Justice Department built a RICO indictment four hundred pages thick. They had you, they had the warehouses, they had everything. The only way I could keep us both out of a federal penitentiary for life was to give them Vance.”
“Which Vance?” Dominic asked, his voice deathly quiet. “Lucian... or Thomas?”
“Both!” Marco snapped, his eyes flashing with bitterness. “Thomas wanted out. He begged me to help him vanish! I set up the accident! I paid the coroner! I gave Thomas the new identity in exchange for the ledger keys so we could buy off the state prosecutors!”
“And Lucian?”
“Lucian figured it out,” Marco said, stepping closer, his hands spread in a gesture of pleading reason. “Lucian realized Thomas didn't die. He came back to get his cut. That bomb under your car? That wasn't meant for you, Dominic. Lucian knew you always let the guards drive the sedan to the gate first on Monday mornings! It was meant to kill me!”
Dominic stared at his oldest friend. A confession, yes—but twisted, warped, half-true.
“You’re lying about the bomb, Marco,” Dominic said coldly. “The pressure plate was calibrated for two hundred and ten pounds. Your weight is one seventy. Mine is two fifteen. That bomb was built for me.”
Before Marco could reply, a small metallic click echoed from the bathroom door behind them.
Clara stood in the crack of the doorway, her face white as chalk, holding Sophie behind her skirt. But in Clara’s hand was an old, rusted brass key she had pulled from the inside pocket of her dead husband's locket.
“He’s lying about everything, Mr. Valente,” Clara said, her voice shaking with raw, maternal fury. “Thomas didn't want to run from you. Look at the key.”
Dominic reached out, taking the small key from Clara’s outstretched hand. Stamped on the rusted brass was a serial number and a logo: Valente Shipping & Storage, Locker 114.
It wasn't a bank vault in Switzerland. It was Dominic’s personal, private storage locker beneath the Brooklyn piers—a place only three people in the world had ever known existed.
“Thomas didn't leave the ledger with Lucian or the police,” Clara whispered, tears spilling down her cheeks. “He hid it in your locker. He trusted you, Dominic. And Marco is the one who cut his brakes.”
May you like
Marco’s face twisted into an ugly, desperate snarl. In one sudden, explosive motion, he didn't draw his gun on Dominic—he lunged straight toward the bathroom door, reaching for Sophie.
---
