Chapter 5 - Blood on the Sub-Level
The morning room smelled of chamomile and fresh cedar.
Outside the tall French doors, rain had begun to fall in steady, grey sheets, drumming against the glass panes like lead shot. Inside, a fire crackled in the limestone fireplace.
Emma was sitting on the thick Persian rug, her legs tucked beneath her, dipping a sugar biscuit into a small porcelain bowl of warm milk. Leah sat on the sofa above her, her hands wrapped around a porcelain teacup. She hadn’t taken a single sip.
Every time the floorboards creaked in the corridor outside, Leah jumped.
The double doors opened.
Dominic walked in.
He had removed his overcoat. His white dress shirt was unbuttoned at the collar, the cuffs rolled back once. There was a fresh, faint red smear across the edge of his right cuff—small enough that an untrained eye might mistake it for wine, but Leah had spent five years washing formal shirts. She knew the dark, stubborn brown-red of dried blood.
She stood up instantly, pulling Emma toward her skirts.
Dominic saw the fear in her eyes and stopped ten feet away.
“Sit down, Mrs. Reed,” he said softly. “You have no reason to be frightened in this room.”
Leah didn't sit. She held Emma closer. “Mr. Vescari... is it over? Are the police coming back?”
“The police won’t be touching you again,” Dominic replied. He walked over to the side table, poured himself a tumbler of sparkling water, and drank it down. “I spoke with Michelle Park five minutes ago. She’s already drafting the motion to dismiss all charges with prejudice. Prosecutor Vance received a tip from the Westchester County Sheriff’s department that the anonymous phone call reporting the theft originated from a prepaid phone registered to Anthony’s shell corporation.”
Leah’s breath caught in her throat. “Does that mean... I’m free?”
“You were never guilty, Leah,” Dominic said. “You were just convenient.”
Emma looked up from the rug, her wide hazel eyes scanning Dominic’s face. “Is the bad man in time-out?”
Dominic looked down at the child. For the first time all day, the hard, impenetrable mask over his features softened by a fraction. A faint, genuine smile touched the corners of his mouth.
“Yes, Emma,” Dominic said. “He’s in a very long time-out.”
The little girl smiled proudly, satisfied that justice had been executed according to the laws of preschool. She went back to her biscuit.
The door behind Dominic opened again. Salvatore stepped in, his expression solemn.
“Dominic,” Salvatore said. “Torrino’s car just passed through the outer checkpoint. He brought three men with him.”
Dominic’s smile vanished completely. The temperature in the room plummeted once more.
“Did he bring the package?” Dominic asked.
“He claims he has it,” Salvatore said. “He’s demanding to speak with you in the library. He’s... agitated, boss. He thinks Anthony set him up.”
“Anthony didn't set him up,” Dominic said, walking toward the door. “Anthony couldn't set up a chessboard. Stay here with Mrs. Reed and Emma. Marco and Leo will be with me.”
“Dominic,” Leah called out.
Dominic paused at the threshold, glancing back over his shoulder.
Leah looked at him with an expression torn between terror and profound, desperate gratitude. “Why are you doing this for us? We’re nobody to you. My husband was just a mechanic who died in a shop fire. I’m just the girl who cleans your sheets.”
Dominic stood under the archway, his silhouette dark against the warm firelight.
“My father came to this country with five dollars in the lining of his coat, Mrs. Reed,” Dominic said quietly. “His first job was shoveling coal out of the basements on Mulberry Street. The men who owned those buildings treated him like an animal. They thought because he had dirt on his hands, he had no honor.”
He looked down at Emma.
“In this house, we don’t measure people by what they earn. We measure them by whether they tell the truth when the room is full of wolves. Your daughter didn't flinch. Neither will I.”
He turned and strouted down the hall toward the library.
The library was the oldest room in the manor. Twelve-foot oak shelves lined the walls, filled with first-edition histories and leather-bound ledgers. At the far end of the room, standing beside a massive green-leather chesterfield sofa, stood Frank Torrino.
Torrino was fifty-two, squat and heavy-set, with a thick neck, slicked-back grey hair, and a face that looked like it had stopped several blunt objects in the 1990s. He was flanked by two broad-shouldered enforcers in heavy wool overcoats, their hands resting ominously inside their pockets.
On the mahogany desk between them sat a small, battered velvet box.
“Dominic,” Torrino growled as Dominic entered the room alone, shutting the heavy oak doors behind him without locking them. “You’ve got a lot of nerve threatening my docks over family business.”
Dominic didn't look at Torrino’s men. He didn't look at the velvet box. He walked straight to his leather executive chair, sat down, and leaned back, lacing his fingers together over his stomach.
“You’re standing on my carpet with mud on your boots, Frank,” Dominic said mildly.
Torrino scoffed, stepping closer to the desk. “Cut the godfather routine, Dom. Your punk cousin came to me crying three weeks ago. He needed four million to cover shortfalls on the concrete bids. He put up the family Phoenix as collateral. I took the deal. That’s business.”
“Business is when two men make an agreement between equals,” Dominic said, his voice flat. “Anthony is a weakling who steals from his grandmother’s estate. You took stolen property from an unauthorized boy, and then you had the audacity to step into my private vault to collect it.”
“I didn't steal nothing!” Torrino snapped, leaning over the desk, slamming his palm down against the polished wood. “Anthony gave it to me! And if you think you can call the Genovese family to squeeze me out of Brooklyn, you’d better remember who controls the longshoremen on the east side!”
Dominic didn't blink. He didn't even shift his weight.
“Frank,” Dominic whispered.
The air in the room suddenly grew razor-thin.
“Do you know why my father lived to be seventy-eight in a city where men in our line of work usually die before forty?”
Torrino glared at him, his jaw grinding.
“Because my father never mistook patience for weakness,” Dominic continued. “You think because I build residential towers and donate to the opera that I forgot where the concrete comes from? You think because I wear bespoke suits, I don't know how long it takes a man to drown in the Gowanus Canal?”
Dominic leaned forward, his dark eyes fixing Torrino like iron spikes.
“Open the box.”
Torrino hesitated. For two seconds, the street boss looked into Dominic’s eyes, searching for a tremor, a bluff, a crack of fear.
He found nothing.
With a muttered curse, Torrino reached out with a thick, stubby hand and flipped the brass latch on the velvet box.
Inside, resting on a bed of faded cream satin, was the Vescari Phoenix.
The ruby at its center was the size of a pigeon’s egg, deep pigeon-blood red, surrounded by three tiers of antique-cut diamonds set in platinum feathers. Even in the dim library light, the jewel caught the fire from the hearth and blazed with cold, hypnotic fire.
Dominic looked at it for three long seconds.
Then he reached into his desk drawer.
Torrino’s two bodyguards instantly tensed, their hands gripping the weapons hidden inside their overcoats.
“Easy,” Dominic said.
He pulled out an antique silver fountain pen and a single sheet of heavy parchment paper.
“You’re going to sign this, Frank,” Dominic said, sliding the paper across the desk.
Torrino looked down at the writing. His face turned the color of raw pork.
“This is a total surrender of the concrete shipping contracts for the Hudson project,” Torrino said, his voice trembling with outrage. “This is worth twelve million dollars over five years!”
May you like
“No,” Dominic corrected him softly. “It’s worth your life. Sign it, take your animals, and get off my mountain. If I see you north of 125th Street ever again, Frank, I won't call the Genovese. I’ll come to Brooklyn myself.”
***
